Yahoo! Announced last night that its chief executive officer and co-founder will step down. Jerry Yang, now 40 co-founded Yahoo along with David Filo during 1994. He had returned as the chief last year.
Yahoo has been struggling to stay alive during the recent years after Google attracted all of Yahoo’s loyal followers towards it. Yahoo, once holded dominion over the internet and during 2000 its shares peaked above $400. However, Yahoo slowly started to die after Google was launched and with Googles frequent innovative and creative products, Yahoo was just not able to meet the competition or keep the phase.
Yahoo also has plans to further reduce its workforce by 10 percent which would be 15,000 of its employees. It should also be noted that Yahoo had previously laid off 1000 employees in January this year.
Jerry Yang mentioned that “from founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is [indispensable] to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise.” He further added, “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.”
Jerry Yang had replaced Terry S. Semel in June, 2007 stating that he would turn the companies future around as the company struggled to bring in revenues. However, Yang couldn’t live up to his promises. Yang was put to severe controversy when he was not ready to sell Yahoo to Microsoft for $33 million. Shareholders accused him stating he was too loyal to his company and dint have the heart to see it being sold to its rivalry.