Jerry Yang

JERRY YANG

Place of birth : Taipei, China

Places lived : San Jose, Taipei

Net worth : US$2.3 billion (2008)

Jerry Yang, 41, Who is the (is a Chinese American entrepreneur and the co-founder, former CEO (Chief Yahoo) of Yahoo! Inc. Mr. Yang, a leading force in the Internet media industry, has been instrumental in building Yahoo into the world’s most highly trafficked Web site and one of the world’s most recognized brands. Since the company’s founding, Mr. Yang has been a key member of the executive management team.

Yang and Filo realized the business potential and co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in April 1995.They took a leave of absence and postponed their doctoral programs indefinitely. On November 17, 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that Jerry Yang would step down as CEO as soon as the company found a replacement. He had been criticized by many investors, including Carl Icahn, for not increasing revenues and the Yahoo! stock price. 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 remains on Yahoo’s board of directors.

Yang is currently on the Board of Directors of Alibaba, the Asian Pacific Fund, Cisco and Yahoo! Japan, and is also on the Stanford University Board of Trustees. Jerry Yang was criticized for a statement regarding the role of Yahoo! in the arrest of mainland Chinese journalist Shi Tao by Chinese authorities. Yahoo! provided the Chinese security agencies with the IP addresses of the senders, the recipients and the time of the message. Tao was subsequently convicted for “divulging state secrets abroad.” Yang was heavily criticized and Reporters without Borders called Yahoo! “a Chinese police informant” whose actions led to the conviction of a journalist and writer.

Jerry Yang declared, “To be doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law[s].” This was controversial, as critics claimed Yahoo! violated international law as well as a 1989 decision by the U.S. Congress to prohibit U.S. companies from selling “crime control and detection” equipment or software to the Chinese Government. More recently Jerry Yang was summoned to Washington to answer for Yahoo’s comments regarding its role in the arrests of Shi Tao and other journalists in China.

Yang was also criticized by shareholders for rejecting an offer of $33 a share from Microsoft in May 2008 – Microsoft subsequently walked away from the negotiations. In November 2008 the shares were valued at only $14 and Google also decided not to proceed with commercial search advertising arrangements under negotiation influenced by the concerns voiced by the US authorities regarding the effect on competition in the market. On July 29, 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced a search deal to compete against Google, after the Bing search of Microsoft was successfully launched earlier in June.

“I think that it’s always possible to have a great company if you have great ideas. I will say that since the web has become more commercialized, it also takes some good financial resources to build a great business, but as I always say, you have to have the idea first.”

“I don’t like the outcome of what happened with this thing, we get a lot of these orders, but we have to comply with the law and that’s what we need to do.”

“We look at our users’ interests, without our users we don’t have business.”