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Yahoo! Businesses

Jerry Yang Resigns From Yahoo 123

PattonPending writes "It seems that the long tenure of Jerry Yang at Yahoo has ended. Yahoo's board released a letter that Yang wrote announcing his retirement, saying, in part: 'My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future.'"
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Jerry Yang Resigns From Yahoo

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  • Kind of a bummer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bonch ( 38532 ) * on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @07:30PM (#38742802)

    I really have to wonder if Yahoo should have accepted Microsoft's $45 billion bid, which Yang was roundly criticized for rejecting. It's not like Yahoo has much else going for it besides a few services like Finance, and I don't even know how well that's doing. In my own experience, the only people I see using Yahoo are computer illiterate users with old email accounts there who refuse to switch to Gmail (the kind of people who type URLs into the Yahoo's search field to visit a website). I never used Yahoo other than a vague memory of trying their "internet directory" a few times way back when, but it's a little sad to see them on an apparent decline since they've been such a staple of the web for so long.

    As John Gruber put it: "I remember an Internet without Jerry Yang at Yahoo, but I don’t remember a World Wide Web without Jerry Yang at Yahoo."

    • by Synerg1y ( 2169962 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @07:37PM (#38742868)

      Well... when was the last time yahoo launched... anything major?

      • by jhoegl ( 638955 )
        When gas still cost a dollar/gallon and George Cluney was still playing doctor.
      • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

        I'm surprised Yahoo is even still in business. Their sites are the worst on the internet. Hell, on the old computer at work, three tabs with Yahoo news stories use 100% of the CPU. Five tabs lock the PC up. Where did they find the idiots who make their sites? Awful. Simply awful.

    • by ThunderBird89 ( 1293256 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .iseyggemnalaz.> on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @07:42PM (#38742910)

      I have all my mail on my yahoo account, despite having a Google account as well. It's just that I created the Yahoo! one way back, around 1996-7, and have been using it ever since, and at this point, migrating over to Gmail would be too much of a hassle, and quite frankly, I like Yahoo!'s UI much more than Gmail's (folders, for example, easy-to-use hotkeys, etc).
      I've seen the storage expansions, from 20 MB to 100, then 500, then 1GB, and finally infinite, the new UI and the "All-New Yahoo! Mail"-campaign, hell, I even have access to the Premium features like disposable addresses (something else Gmail lacks), without paying anything (though I don't know why, possibly as a reward for long-standing use?).

      Regarding searches, I've long since switched over to Google, but for me, mail will always be on Yahoo!, even though I don't use anything else from the company any more.

      • by bigtrike ( 904535 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @08:19PM (#38743364)

        username+throwawaypart@gmail.com will be redirected to username@gmail.com.

        • by madprof ( 4723 )

          You are a legend - thank you!

        • by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @09:00PM (#38743788)

          The problem with that is that it's trivial to discard the part after the + thus getting the real address.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by johnsnails ( 1715452 )
            something I picked up from /. is putting a period anywhere in the address still reaches your real email address, so if you sign up for something you can track down who is giving away your email address if you get spam at s.omename@gmail.com i think you get the idea....
            • by Hentes ( 2461350 )

              This is effectively the same, removing periods from an address is still no hard task.

              • yes, but you can have a canonical email address with dots in it (your.name@gmail), and filter out email addresses without dots (yourname@gmail). They'll all get delivered, but you can set it up to tag anything with a wrongly-formatted to: address, kick it out of your inbox, or even automatically delete it.

                • What you suggest for people like me who's already used the address without the dots as the default?
                  • That depends on where your existing mail is coming from. If you have a small number of legitimate sources, you can add a filter that makes sure nothing bad happens to their mail (select any mail from them, "filter messages like these;" you can select multiple emails, each from a different source, to make a single large filter). You'll also want to change your "reply-to" address in your gmail settings to a new canon, to prevent complications from people you email. This [readwriteweb.com] suggests you may soon be able to fil

                • I think you mean "your.name839283424@gmail".

          • by tokul ( 682258 )

            The problem with that is that it's trivial to discard the part after the + thus getting the real address.

            If you have problems with that, get real domain and setup catchall for entire domain.

        • by nblender ( 741424 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @09:16PM (#38743934)

          yeah... And it's awesome that as much as 30% of the websites on the intarwebs will accept an email address with a '+' in it...

      • by Macrat ( 638047 )

        I have all my mail on my yahoo account, despite having a Google account as well. It's just that I created the Yahoo! one way back, around 1996-7, and have been using it ever since, and at this point, migrating over to Gmail would be too much of a hassle,.

        I'm sure it will be less of a hassle when Yahoo gets sold and Yahoo Mail is shut down.

      • Regarding searches, I've long since switched over to Google, but for me, mail will always be on Yahoo!, even though I don't use anything else from the company any more.

        Given this knowledge, how much longer do you believe it is that Yahoo will still be able to provide you with free email?

        -B
      • I am the same. Mine was intentional however. I use my Yahoo account for everything online. I fwd all of my yahoo stuff to my gmail account. I never check my yahoo account. The idea was if/when the amount of spam I got in my yahoo account ever became too much the idea was I could cut the strings to my yahoo account, and use my gmail, maybe fwd that to another, rinse repeat. Once you have had an account for as long as I have (it was probably 1996-97 also) and use it for everything online, pretty much everyone

      • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

        I was on gMail first, went to Yahoo mail when google closed my account without explanation. I got another gMail account, but I only use it for G+ related stuff.

        However, I much prefer google's email interface. When I open my mail I want the inbox there, but Yahoo insists on first asking me to re-enter my ID and password even though I checked the box that says "save it" and sometimes does it on a completely different password page that FireFox doesn't have the password to, and I have to look the damned thing

      • > "migrating over to Gmail would be too much of a hassle"

        Migrating wouldn't be as difficult if Yahoo supported IMAP. Then again, if Yahoo supported IMAP, there would be less of a reason to migrate.

        • Actually, my Nexus S seems to have configured itself to use IMAP with my Yahoo account. At the very least, the server addresses say imap.mail.yahoo.com, and everything I do gets replicated on the servers at the next synchronization, including moving messages (finally, the newest email app can do that too) and deleting.

    • by mrmeval ( 662166 )

      to convert Yahoo! into an execrable and depressing mutagenic toxin.

      FTFY

    • by hondo77 ( 324058 )

      I really have to wonder if Yahoo should have accepted Microsoft's $45 billion bid, which Yang was roundly criticized for rejecting.

      Really? You wonder whether Y! should have accepted $45B with their current market cap less than half that? Really?

      • Eh, bonch is a troll.

        But, as far as corporate governance goes, it was a mistake at the time and everybody except for the board at Yahoo knew that. I was personally astonished that MS was willing to offer that much for the firm.

        For the people at large, it probably would have been the best thing other than forcibly breaking up Google.

        • From the MS point of view, they just backstabed a company without even making a partneship with it. That must be a new record for them, they just needed Yahoo to say "I agree".

        • It wouldn't be the only time MS paid way too much for something. Look at their Skype acquisition for a prime example of overpaying for a company.

    • I see using Yahoo are computer illiterate users with old email accounts there who refuse to switch to Gmail (the kind of people who type URLs into the Yahoo's search field to visit a website).

      I can testify. One of my oldest friends, who, btw, was dragged kicking and screaming into the information age, only now uses his gmail account occasionally. I remember his comments when I help him set up his gmail account some 7 or so years ago; "I like yahoo mail better." He never did explicately say WHAT was better about yahoo mail.

      • by Macrat ( 638047 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @08:24PM (#38743408)

        He never did explicately say WHAT was better about yahoo mail.

        Better than AOL I guess.

        • by trolman ( 648780 ) *
          Are they still running Qmail?
        • Better than AOL I guess.

          Dunno if you've ever tried Yahoo's email, but their web mail is strikingly like a normal (real) mail reader, and not at all like most web based readers. I use Apple Mail for reading my account at home, but it's not at all an issue when I'm on the road and have to use their interface. I get no ads when using mail, just email like my other pop accounts.

          Gmail on the other hand, has a web interface that is clumsy, and slow. I use my account mainly to read netnews.

          Anyhow I know it's fashionable to dismiss Ya

      • by DogDude ( 805747 )
        I have yet to read any factual statements telling why Gmail is any better than Yahoo, either. What's your point?
    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @08:19PM (#38743366)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re:Kind of a bummer (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @09:33PM (#38744070)

        Yahoo's stock was over $100 during the dot com boom, so no, Yang did not turn down a deal that was twice the highest Yahoo stock has ever traded at. It has split since, but has still hit over $40 after all the splits.

        Now, Yang may still be a fool for turning down $33 / share since the stock has done nothing but slide since (and the writing did appear to be on the wall to at least everyone else), but other people can make that judgement.

    • Most of the people that are on the Internet since the 90's aren't computer iliterated. Also, you don't know what you are missing by not looking into it, Yahoo's UI is way better than Google's.

      I've been moving my email from Yahoo since the failed partneship with Microsoft, but there is no way I'll put anything important on Gmail.

      • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

        Most of the people that are on the Internet since the 90's aren't computer iliterated

        "illiterated"? What, they were once computer literate but forgot how?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      The bonch user account is a shill account which is used, along with other user accounts such as SharkLaser [slashdot.org] and Overly Critical Guy [slashdot.org], to astroturf slashdot in order to manipulate slashdot users with pro-Microsoft, anti-Google PR.

      See how these accounts paste PR crap from the same corporate script in this post [slashdot.org] and this post [slashdot.org], and in this post [slashdot.org] check how these accounts are employed together in the same discussion to karmawhore and to steer the discussion into a more corporate PR position.

      • The bonch user account is a shill account which is used, along with other user accounts such as SharkLaser [slashdot.org] and Overly Critical Guy [slashdot.org], to astroturf slashdot in order to manipulate slashdot users with pro-Microsoft, anti-Google PR.

        I thought bonch was anti-Google and apro-Apple or am I thinking of someone else? In any case, trying to astroturf with pro-Microsoft postings on slashdot is about as sensible as spamming bacon sandwiches on an Islamic website.

        • In any case, trying to astroturf with pro-Microsoft postings on slashdot is about as sensible as spamming bacon sandwiches on an Islamic website.

          I completely disagree. There's tons of MS shills and supporters on this site. They come out more for certain articles than others.

      • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

        check how these accounts are employed together in the same discussion to karmawhore and to steer the discussion into a more corporate PR position

        That makes no sense. If they're posting the same or nearly the same comment, they'll be modded offtopic and lose karma, not gain it. And any of them you see posting are not moderating, at least not with the poster's account.

        There really are MS fans, but I can't for the life of me figure out why unless the only OS and software they've ever used was MS's. Mostly shil

    • Back in the day, yahoo chat was a great way to get laid on a Tuesday night without much work on your part (even easier if you didn't care if it was with a chick). They didn't seem to care when the 'bots took over, though.

      Other than yahoo finance and an occasional flickr link, I wouldn't notice if they disappeared.

    • by Altus ( 1034 )

      I remember when their "internet directory" was the only fucking way to find anything at all.

      Still, its been a long time since they were particularly useful.

    • I really have to wonder if Yahoo should have accepted Microsoft's $45 billion bid, which Yang was roundly criticized for rejecting.

      It should had, and Yang was a bone-head. Anyways, good riddance, and it should be soon reckoning time for Yahoo, which hasn't been a tech company in ages. It is now a limited set of marketing services, that's all, the AOL of tech has-beens. Paul Grahams provides some insights as of why of such fateful transformation: http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html [paulgraham.com]

    • Rogers Canada (a telecom) switched all of the users to yahoo mail, so people are paying Rogers for the Internet connection, but their email is handled by Yahoo.

    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *

      I really have to wonder if Yahoo should have accepted Microsoft's $45 billion bid

      Gee, ya think?

    • It's not like Yahoo has much else going for it besides a few services like Finance

      Finance, web mail, Flickr, Yahoo Groups, searches (I quite a few hits from it), their games portal, etc... etc...

      and I don't even know how well that's doing.

      Not being the sexy fantasy babe of the tech crowd it flies mostly under the Slashdot radar. Not being as outrageously profitable as Google, the IT/Finance analysts and media scorn it. But the reality is that Yahoo is still a very big, fairly stable, and reasonab

    • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      In my own experience, the only people I see using Yahoo are computer illiterate users with old email accounts there who refuse to switch to Gmail

      I was on Gmail before I was on Yahoo's mail... switched to Yahoo when Google closed my email account with no explanation after about six months of use. Been on Yahoo's for over 5 years now with no trouble whatever. Switching email services is a huge pain in the ass, why would anyone dump their Yahoo account for an Gmail account, especially since with Google you're

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Yahoo's still around!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @07:41PM (#38742892)

    Good luck finding someone who will work for his salary. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24376328/ns/business-us_business/t/yahoo-ceo-yang-made-salary-last-year/#.TlfhkF34TSg

    • by hondo77 ( 324058 )
      Given the billions of $ in shareholder value lost because Yang valued his pride more than the shareholders, that $1 cost way too much.
    • by bartoku ( 922448 )
      I will work for a $1 as CEO of Yahoo!
      I am looking for a resume builder.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @07:54PM (#38743048)

    I've never quite been able to figure Yahoo. They went boring-corporate early, but never quite managed a full changeover to irrelevance.

    As late as ~2005 they contacted me (anon, so I can say) as part of a web-dev famous-name dream-team they wanted to assemble.

    They'd decided that being no.2 to Google just wasn't a recipe for survival; they'd have to be better to simply survive. They'd have to be smarter than Google about the Web.

    So they asked all their web devs, 'Who are the Names? Who do you read? Who do you want to work with?' and then set off on a CEO-mandated mission to hire those people. Good offices, good projects, staff masseuses -- the old days brought back and amplified. Serious bait.

    As far as I could tell, they never managed to get anyone. And since their web-savvy didn't change, they didn't seem to empower their in-house staff any either. The project went nowhere, at least from what I could see on the outside.

  • This wasn't even Jerry's fault.

    Yahoo had management problems ever since their old board was so enamored by AOL buying Time Warner that they wanted to become a copycat-media-company and decided to hire that Warner Bros Hollywood guy who didn't know anything about the internet.

    If it weren't for that guy, Yahoo could have had it all.

    * Geocities could have been Facebook+Myspace if they further developed their webrings social features.

    * Altavista + Overture + Inktomi could have ruled search if they didn't decide to outsource their own search first to Google and then to Bing.

    * Broadcast.com could have been Youtube if they encouraged user content.

    * I would have stuck with Yahoo Mail if they had sane quotas and IMAP.

    But they wanted to become AOL-Time-Warner-II so much that the board picked a Warner Brothers exec for CEO in 2001 or so; and nothing Jerry could do could fix that issue.

    • I used alltheweb's (since bought up by yahoo and thrown away good use of money guys!) advanced search before discovering google's "exact search" and +modifiers (which have turned to shit recently). I'd switch back if it was still around.
    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *

      * If grandma had balls, she could have been grandpa.

  • by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @08:29PM (#38743450)
    Resigned after 9 years. Sold all his stock. Apple III had failed. Mac was fine, but the board wanted an "adult" in charge. Steve returned in 12 years.
  • by goodviking ( 71533 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @08:49PM (#38743684) Journal

    Let me preface this statement by saying I love yahoo, or rather I love who theyused to be. I started using yahoo in the akebono days. Back then, Yahoo helped transform the web from a loosely connected set of "hotlists" into a strtuctured entity. They were the cartd catalog for the world wide web, and they owned the space. But they lost their way in the dotcom hype brigade. They tried to be the orginization of the web, the sales front, the noIse maker, ... They built their business on being an organizing force online.

    Those days are long gone. They gave it up to be the circus barkers of the internet and are now just like the circus, an outdated spectical with no compelling purpose, kept alive by nostalgia. If Yahoo is to exist in anyrelevant form in 10 years, there needs to be a blood letting. It may be ugly and brutal, but in the end maybe Yahoo will find a reason to exist.

    In the end, I am not shedding a tear for Jerry Yang anymore than anyone else who won the lottery.

    • The problem is, hiring high-school interns to categorize the web doesn't scale. The first good search engine to come along ate their lunch. Yahoo is a tech company with no technology to offer. I'm surprised that they made it this far by imitating and acquiring other companies. But hey, excite.com [excite.com] and lycos.com [lycos.com] still exist, so maybe it's possible for Yahoo to just coast along forever.
  • "About Yahoo!


    Yahoo! is the premier digital media company,..."


    Really?
  • by durdur ( 252098 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @10:08PM (#38744304)

    I still use Yahoo Finance quite a lot - it's fast, well organized and useful. But if it went away tomorrow, there are alternatives. Yahoo is still making money but their long-term future is starting to look bleak. IMO they should be looking to sell off the valuable pieces while they still have value.

  • by MrKevvy ( 85565 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @10:41PM (#38744546)

    Yahoo will now be known as Yang Who?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It seems that the long tenure of Jerry Yang at Yahoo has ended.

    This just in: Yin, deciding to stay at Yahoo, is despondent, unbalanced.

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