Jerry Yang has left the building. Yahoo! Inc. announced on Tuesday that Yang resigned from his position on the Board of Directors and all other positions within the company (including Yahoo Japan Corp and Alibaby Group Holding Ltd.) effective immediately.
With a nod towards Chief Executive Officer, Scott Thompson, Yang ended his long and often controversial run with the company he co-founded with David Filo nearly 17 years ago. The company has been publicly held since 1996 but has been struggling as of late.
Speculation on Wall Street for the potential rise in value of Yahoo! stock began almost immediately and after-hours trading showed a quick 4% rise within a few hours of the announcement (according to thestreet.com and other sources).
Many members of the business media were feigning surprise over the move, but just as many have been openly expecting it for some time. The company's Board of Directors and stockholders clashed with Yang in 2008 when he turned down an offer of $33 per share for Yahoo! stock at a time when the stock was trading at a conservative $14 per share.
That brief dance with Microsoft ended up on the sidelines and Yang stepped down as CEO assuming the title of Chief Yahoo, a position he has held since.
The stock has never completely recovered and the company has been faltering under the economic pressures of competing with behemoths such as Google and Facebook.
When new CEO Scott Thompson was brought over to Yahoo! from PayPal two weeks ago, some saw it as the death knell for Yang.
It is rumored that his resignation from Yahoo! will allow the company to more actively pursue the sale of some of it's major assets, namely, it's share in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.
As of this writing,however, much is being speculated. Yang surely has plans and we'll be waiting for the next chapter in this saga. Expect some announcements about restructuring within Yahoo! very soon.
Attempts to navigate to Yahoo's homepage on the internet yielded the spinning ball of death. Hope that's not prophetic.
Read more: http://technorati.com/business/article/controversial-chief-yahoo-jerry-yang-resigns/#ixzz1n8DtwS00
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