About
Jerry Yang (traditional Chinese: 楊致遠; simplified Chinese: 杨致远; pinyin: Yáng Zhìyuǎn; born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-born American internet entrepreneur, the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc.
While Yang studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford, he co-created in February 1994 with David Filo an Internet website called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" consisting of a directory of other websites. It was renamed "Yahoo!" (an exclamation). Yahoo! became very popular, and Yang and Filo realized the business potential and co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in April 1995. They took leaves of absence and postponed their doctoral programs indefinitely.
Career
Yahoo! started off as a web portal with a web directory providing an extensive range of products and services for online activities. It is now one of the leading internet brands and, due to partnerships with telecommunications firms, has the most trafficked network on the internet. In 1999, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.
As CEO from June 2007 to January 2009, Yang had been criticized by many investors, including Carl Icahn, for not increasing revenues and stock price, while there has been an exodus of executives. Yahoo!'s stock price plummeted after it rejected a takeover from Microsoft, a bid that Yang strongly opposed. On November 17, 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported Jerry Yang would step down as CEO as soon as the company found a replacement.
On January 13, 2009, Yahoo! named Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive, effectively replacing Yang. Yang regained his former position as "Chief Yahoo" and remained on Yahoo's board of directors.
On January 17, 2012, Yahoo! announced that Jerry Yang will be leaving the company, and will be resigning from the board and all other positions at the company. The company also announced his resignation from the boards of Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba Corp.
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