A former Yahoo employee and respected Bay Area tech blogger Susan Mernit comments on the end of Jerry Yang's stint as CEO at Yahoo:
The news that Jerry Yang was stepping down as CEO of Yahoo!
filled me with a mixture of delight and sadness. Delight, because
anyone who drove their company's value into the ground like Yang did
deserves to be removed (and, in truth, should quickly remove
themselves); sadness because I remember how high my hopes were when I
joined Yahoo! In 2006--and how frustrating it was to have everyone
there care so much and work so hard--only to have top management unable
to be effective and make the right calls.
My two years at Yahoo!
were a window into multiple changes of direction, resets and
re-focusings unmatched by any other company I have worked at (including
AOL). When I came in...
Read the rest of her piece. She proposes three suggestions for who and how to replace him in the remainder of her entry.
UPDATE, 11:55 a.m.: Via the AP wires:
Yahoo shares shot up 11 percent this morning following news that CEO Jerry Yang will resign. Investors took that to mean Microsoft is more likely to make another bid for the ailing Internet company.
Yang's emotional attachment to the company he co-founded in 1995 is one of the reasons he balked at a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft six months ago. The same devotion finally led Yang to announce yesterday that he'll step aside as chief executive.
Yang will step down after Yahoo finds a suitable replacement.
The move comes as the company seeks to bolster its stock price and sagging earnings in an economic downturn that might prove even more wrenching than the dot-com bust of eight years ago.
