Yang resigns as CEO, search is on for new Yahoo chief

By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 18, 2008, 8:40 AM

"i will be participating in the search for my successor, and i will continue as ceo until the board selects a new ceo," reads a memo to Yahoo employees from the man who this morning is flying the white flag.

As first reported by Kara Swisher in The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has agreed to resign his executive post, though will remain on-board with the company as "Chief Yahoo" -- whatever that will mean post-transition.

Yang's public statement this morning includes the following: "When the Board asked me to become CEO and lead the transformation of the Company, I did so because it was important to re-envision the business for a different era to drive more effective growth. Having set Yahoo! on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader. I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo! realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation."

Both Yang's public statement and his private memo to employees (written in Yang's trademark all-lower-case) attempt to paint a picture of himself as having been a transitional CEO from the beginning, and this morning's resignation being just a matter of timing.

"despite the external environment we face," Yang wrote, "the fact remains that yahoo! is now a significantly different company that is stronger in many ways than it was just 18 months ago. this only makes it all the more essential that we manage this opportunity to leverage the progress up to this point as effectively as possible. i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company."

Update banner (stretched)

12:40 pm EST November 18, 2008 - Investors are apparently taking the news of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's imminent departure very well, with its stock trading higher by more than 11% on the NASDAQ exchange by early afternoon Tuesday.

Comments

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You know all of this stuff is preventable. No business in the world should ever fail. All you have to do is just keep your eyes glued to Steve Jobs and Apple and success is guaranteed.

Case in point: The economy isn't good in the U.S. but has that affected the mighty Apple? Not in the least. In fact it wouldn't matter if no won in the U.S. had a job, Apple product sales would still continue to grow:

http://www.appleinsider....st_notebook_launch.html

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the foundation for survival is diversification.

apple, mac, ipod, etc keeps that organization in business.

however it also requires investment, research and development. greedy board members are simply leaching whatever earnings yahoo gains until it is bone dry.

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Hilarious and a bit sad that the Apple fanboys keep forgetting what happened in 1997. In case you are too candy-ass to read it - "Microsoft Bails Out Apple."
http://query.nytimes.com...CF93BA3575BC0A961958260

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I'm not sure if that "opinion" in the New York Times is accurate or who was its author/source.

However this link seems to be more factual of the events of that time:

http://www.apple.com/ca/.../08/AppleMicrosoft.html

In any case if apple deserves credit for the point and click system, one wonders if they paid royalties to the inventor of the mouse and writers of the initial software it ran on?

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with greedy board members, anyone elected to run the company will always be temporary.

we can all rest assured that yang will leave with a shiny parachute.

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Yahoo is the new AOL!!

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lmfao

Yang dropped the ball and never recovered. Such a miscalculation to have knocked back Microsoft @ $33. [shrugs]

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Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

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Really cannot say I didn’t see this happening. Jerry had two major jobs as a CEO look out for what will give the shareholders the best bang for the buck and keep as many people employed while making a profit. He failed… Microsoft taking over yahoo would have turned the company around for the better. Now look Jerry's gamble lost jobs and lots of money for the shareholders.

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You can be sure Yang sold millions of his shares and essentially cashed out way back in 2000 when Yahoo stock was around $100. He got his.

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I'm a real outsider on a lot of this. What I do know is that I use excellent Yahoo Services every day. I've never really searched using Yahoo and I've always avoided the Yahoo home page like the plague - but the My Yahoo home page is a way underrated winner, Yahoo Widgets run 24hrs a day on my setup, Yahoo News/Stock pages are the best around etc etc - I cried foul at the time of the MS Takeover and still think it would be a disaster for a "wide" web (really it'd be MS and the Goog - is that a good thing?) - so Jerry Yang looks pretty good to me!

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About time.

Having set Yahoo! on a new, more open path,

...

Apparently this is new Web 2.0-speak for "Tanked the companies stock price".

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I refer you to http://tinyurl.com/hshk9 (which is just an update to http://tinyurl.com/1wvi).

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Yeah, because we really need to: disintermediate user-centred web services.

I'm leading my next meeting off with that one... ;)

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It might be the speak for "Tanked the company's stock price" :P

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Tahnk yuo Proffessor Skinnar. ;)

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