On this day in 2012 Yahoo! Co-founder Jerry Yang resigns from the board of Yahoo!. Yang founded Yahoo! alongside David Filo while studying in Stanford in 1994. It began as a directory of other websites called “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web”, later renamed “Yahoo! Inc.” when the website grew in popularity. By 1994 Yahoo! had gained around 100,000 unique visitors until it became one of the most popular web portals of the late ’90s. By 2007 Yang was named CEO. He supported the decision to reject Microsoft’s multi-billion offer to take over Yahoo!, which by then was starting to falter. Some years later, Yahoo! was valued at less than half of Microsoft’s acquisition offer.
Amidst pressure from investors and board members, Yang formally resigned in January 2012.
Jerry Yang – Image taken from Wikipedia