Early Life
Born in Taipei, Taiwan on November 6, 1968, Yang moved to San Jose, California at the age of ten with his mother and younger brother. His father died when Yang was two. He claimed that despite his mother being an English teacher, he only knew one English word (shoe) on his arrival. Becoming fluent in three years, he was placed into an AP English class.
Yang graduated from Sierramont Middle School and Piedmont Hills High School. Yang went on to earn a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
Career
While Yang studied in Electrical Engineering at Stanford, he co-created in April 1994 with David Filo an Internet website called "Jerry and Dave's Guide to the World Wide Web" consisting of a directory of other websites. It was renamed "Yahoo!" (an exclamation). Yahoo! became very popular, and Yang and Filo realized the business potential and co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in April 1995. They took leaves of absence and postponed their doctoral programs indefinitely.
Yahoo! started off as a web portal with a web directory providing an extensive range of products and services for online activities. It is now one of the leading internet brands and, due to partnerships with telecommunications firms, has the most trafficked network on the internet. In 1999, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.
As CEO from June 2007 to January 2009, Yang had been criticized by many investors, including Carl Icahn, for not increasing revenues and stock price, while there has been a exodus of executives. Yahoo!'s stock price plummeted after it rejected a takeover from Microsoft, a bid that Yang strongly opposed. On November 17, 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported Jerry Yang would step down as CEO as soon as the company found a replacement.
On January 13, 2009, Yahoo! named Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive, effectively replacing Yang. Yang regained his former position as "Chief Yahoo" and remained on Yahoo's board of directors.
On January 17, 2012, Yahoo! announced that Jerry Yang will be leaving the company, and will be resigning from the board and all other positions at the company. The company also announced his resignation from the boards of Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba Corp.
Personal life
Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, a Japanese woman who was raised in Costa Rica. Yamazaki graduated from Stanford University with a degree in industrial engineering and is a director with the Wildlife Conservation Network. The couple met at Stanford University in the Kyoto overseas program in 1992.
Yang is currently on the Board of Directors of the Asian Pacific Fund, and Cisco, and is also on the Stanford University Board of Trustees.
Philanthropy
In February 2007, Jerry Yang and his wife gave USD $75 million to Stanford University, their alma mater, the bulk of which went to building the "Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building", a multi-disciplinary research, teaching and lab building, the first to be realized on Stanford's new Science and Engineering Quad.
From : www.wikipedia.org
