Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, dot-com billionaire

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who is stepping down after a rocky tenure as chief executive of the Internet company, is one of the original Silicon Valley dot-com billionaires.

Born in Taiwan on November 6, 1968, Yang moved to the United States with his family when he was around 10 years old and was raised in San Jose, California.

While studying electrical engineering at Stanford University in California, Yang and a classmate, David Filo, created a directory for websites in their spare time called "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web."

They founded Internet portal Yahoo in 1995 and Yang became an instant billionaire the following year when the company went public.Yahoo survived the bursting of the dot-com bubble five years later and despite its recent struggles it has remained one of the most popular sites on the Web, drawing millions of users a day as a gateway to the Internet.

According to Forbes magazine, Yang is the 524th richest person in the world with a fortune estimated at 2.23 billion dollars.

Despite his wealth, Yang has remained heavily involved in running Yahoo. Some share-holders have accused him of putting his personal affection for the company he created over the interests of its share-holders.

Earlier this year, Yang rejected a 33-dollar-a-share offer by Microsoft for Yahoo worth a total of more than 47 billion dollars.

Yahoo has since been trading at between 10-12 dollars a share, and rejection of the Microsoft offer led to a share-holder revolt against Yang.Yang was named chief executive in June 2007 to try to turn the company's fortunes around, but the rejection of the Microsoft offer and a failed advertising partnership with Google have marred his brief tenure.

Yahoo said Yang will step down as CEO once a replacement is named but will retain a strategic role in the Sunnyvale, California, company.

"From founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is indispensible to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise," Yang said in a statement."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," he said.

"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," he said.

source:economictimes.indiatimes.com