Co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang has resigned from all of his positions with Yahoo, the company announced in a press release on Tuesday. Yang co-founded Yahoo in 1995 with David Filo and served as a member of the Board of Directors since March 1995. Yang was also the company’s CEO from June 2007 to January 2009, until he was replaced by Carol Bartz. ”My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life,” said Yang in a statement. “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.” Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock praised Yang, calling him both a visionary and pioneer. “We appreciate Jerry’s comments and share his enthusiasm for the company’s prospects. With Scott Thompson leading an outstanding team of Yahoos to deliver innovative products and an engaging customer experience, Yahoo!’s future is bright,” said Bostock. Yahoo’s press release follows below.

Yahoo! Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jan 17, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Yahoo! Inc. YHOO +3.76% , the premier digital media company, today announced that Jerry Yang has resigned from its Board of Directors and all other positions with the company, effective today. In addition, Yang resigned from the Boards of Yahoo Japan Corporation and Alibaba Group Holding Limited, effective today.

In a letter to the Yahoo! Board Chairman Roy Bostock, Yang wrote:

“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.”

Yang co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in 1995 with David Filo and served as a member of the Board of Directors since March 1995 and as Chief Executive Officer from June 2007 to January 2009. The Company went public in 1996.

“Jerry Yang is a visionary and a pioneer, who has contributed enormously to Yahoo! during his many years of service,” said Roy Bostock, Chairman of the Yahoo! Board. “It has been a pleasure to work with Jerry. His unique strategic insights have been invaluable. He has always remained focused on the best interests of Yahoo!’s stakeholders, including shareholders, employees and more than 700 million users. And while I and the entire Board respect his decision, we will miss his remarkable perspective, vision and wise counsel. On behalf of the Board, we thank Jerry and wish him all the very best in his future endeavors.”

Bostock concluded, “We appreciate Jerry’s comments and share his enthusiasm for the company’s prospects. With Scott Thompson leading an outstanding team of Yahoos to deliver innovative products and an engaging customer experience, Yahoo!’s future is bright.”

“I am grateful for the warm welcome and support Jerry provided me during my early days here,” said Scott Thompson, Yahoo!’s Chief Executive Officer. “Jerry leaves behind a legacy of innovation and customer focus for this iconic brand, having shaped our culture by fostering a spirit of innovation that began 17 years ago and continues to grow even stronger today. Jerry has great confidence in the future of Yahoo!, and I share his confidence in the enormous potential of Yahoo! in the days ahead.”

Yahoo! is a powerful global brand with a great collection of assets, strong technology, and enormously talented employees. The Company has accomplished a great deal in its relatively short history and I look forward to working together to take it to the next level. There is no denying that Yahoo! has faced enormous challenges over the last year, but I believe there is now an extraordinary opportunity to create value for our shareholders and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees. We will seize that opportunity.

Former CEO Jerry Yang will return to his previous role as Chief Yahoo.

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What a long strange trip it’s been. Mark this one as done folks – Yahoo has officially announced that Jerry Yang will step down as CEO of Yahoo. Yang has been at the helm of what can only be described as a sinking ship since June of 2007. His moves have been made under a microscope, his decisions have been questioned by just about everyone with a keyboard and he has been the subject of much criticism, to say the least. What’s done is done though and suffice it to say we definitely do not envy whoever the appropriately-named executive head hunting firm Heidrick & Struggles finds as Yang’s replacement. He or she will inherit a mess of epic proportions as Yahoo struggles to stay afloat and no doubt begins begging Microsoft, even more than Yang did, to come back to the bargaining table. As for Yang, he will return to his prior role as Chief Yahoo and will still sit on the board of directors. If Yang is still with the company in six months we’ll be truly amazed. Hit the jump for Yang’s full memo sent today to all Yahoo employees.

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To: all yahoos
Fr: Jerry
Subject: update

yahoos -

i wanted to address all of you on the news we’ve just announced. the board of directors and I have agreed to initiate a succession process for the ceo role of yahoo!. roy bostock, our chairman of the board, is leading the effort to identify and assess potential candidates for consideration by the full board. the board will be evaluating and considering both internal and external candidates and has retained heidrick and struggles to help in this effort.

i will be participating in the search for my successor, and i will continue as ceo until the board selects a new ceo. once a successor is named, i will return to my previous role as chief yahoo and continue to serve as a director on the board.

last june, i accepted the board’s request that i assume the ceo role to restructure and reposition the company as a whole in order to more effectively meet the fast-changing needs of both users and partners. since taking on the ceo role, i have had an ongoing dialogue with the board about succession timing. thanks in large measure to your tireless efforts, we have created a more open, competitive yahoo! and we believe the time is now right to transition to a new ceo who can take the company to the next level.

despite the external environment we face, the fact remains that yahoo! is now a significantly different company that is stronger in many ways than it was just 18 months ago. this only makes it all the more essential that we manage this opportunity to leverage the progress up to this point as effectively as possible. i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.

all of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple. i will always do what I think is right for this great company. while this step will be an adjustment for all of us, i know it’s the right one. i look forward to updating you on this process as soon as the board has developments to share, and will continue to do everything i can to make yahoo! fulfill its full potential.

thank you,
jerry

After Jerry Yang did a 180 and nearly begged Microsoft to buy Yahoo, the rumor mills have been churning with commentary on the decline of Yahoo and speculation about what a potential Microsoft acquisition would involve. Steve Ballmer, while at a business luncheon in Sydney, put an end to all this rampant speculation by saying,

We tried at one point to do a partnership around search … and that didn’t work either, and we moved on and they moved on. We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly.

That pretty much seals it. Despite its rock bottom price, Microsoft is still not interested in buying the failing Yahoo. A partnership might be a possibility but that is all Microsoft is willing to dish out. This is more bad news for Yahoo and it looks like it’ll have to find a way to dig out of its somewhat self-created decline alone for the time being. With Google backing out of the advertisement deal and now Microsoft snubbing its nose at Yahoo, this has not been a good week for Jerry Yang and company.

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It’s decided – Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is schizophrenic.

To this day, I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don’t think that is a bad idea at all – at the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company. We were ready to negotiate, we wanted to negotiate a deal, and we felt that we weren’t that far apart. But at the end of the day, they withdrew and they since have been very clear about not wanting to buy the company.

Dude, Jerry, Buddy. What’s going on over there? Microsoft had expressed more than a fleeting interest earlier this year when it offered struggling internet giant Yahoo a cool $44.6 billion, a 65% premium over the stock price at that time, in a proposed acquisition. At that time, Yahoo did everything it could to squash the deal short of literally driving to Washington and setting fire to Bill Gates’ cat. Now that hindsight is 20/20 and that $44.6 billion is looking pretty damn good, Yang starts pulling these shenanigans in telling the world that he is, and was, all for an acquisition. If Carl Icahn can survive reading this news without having a stroke or hiring a hitman, it’ll be a small miracle.

[Via Mashable]

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