Jerry Yang | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 楊致遠 | |||||||||||
.jpg) Yang in 2010 | |||||||||||
| Born | Yang Chih-Yuan (1968-11-06)November 6, 1968 (age 57) | ||||||||||
| Education | Stanford University (BS,MS) | ||||||||||
| Occupations | Founding Partner, AME Cloud Ventures | ||||||||||
| Spouse | Akiko Yamazaki | ||||||||||
| Relatives | Chih-Kong Ken Yang (brother) | ||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 楊致遠 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 杨致远 | ||||||||||
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Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (Chinese:楊致遠;pinyin:Yáng Zhìyuǎn; bornYang Chih-Yuan; November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-born American billionairecomputer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO ofYahoo! Inc. and founding partner of AME Cloud Ventures.[1][2] As of May 2025,[update] Yang has a net worth of $3.1 billion.[3]
Yang was born Yang Chih-Yuan inTaipei, Taiwan, on November 6, 1968.[2] His mother was a professor of English and drama and his father died when he was two. Yang has a younger brother,Chih-Kong Ken Yang.[4][5] In 1978, his mother moved the family toSan Jose, California, where his grandmother and extended family took care of the boys while his mother taught English to other immigrants.[4][6][7] After moving to theUS, Yang took the American name Jerry; his mother, Lily; and his younger brother, Ken.[8] He says that he only knew one English word, "shoe", when he came to America, but became fluent in English in about three years.[9]
During his time at San Jose, Yang attended Ruskin Elementary School, Sierramont Middle, and Piedmont Hills High School. He graduated fromPiedmont Hills High School and went on to earn both aBachelor of Science and aMaster of Science inelectrical engineering fromStanford University in four years.[9] He metDavid Filo at Stanford in 1989, and the two went to Japan in 1992 for a six-month exchange program, where he met his future wife, Akiko Yamazaki, also participating in the exchange program.[9]
Yang founded Yahoo! in 1994 and was CEO from 2007 to 2009. He left Yahoo! in 2012. He founded a venture capital firm called AME Cloud Ventures and, as of 2015, is on several corporate boards. According to Rob Solomon, a venture capitalist atAccel Partners, Yang was "a great founder, evangelist, strategist and mentor," having "created the blueprint for what is possible on the Internet."[10]
While studying at Stanford in 1994, Yang andDavid Filo co-created anInternet website called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web," which consisted of a directory of other websites. As it grew in popularity they renamed it "Yahoo! Inc." Yahoo! received around 100,000 unique visitors by the fall of 1994. In April 1995, Yahoo! received a $2 million investment fromSequoia Capital,Tim Koogle was hired as CEO, and Yang and Filo were each appointed "Chief Yahoo." Yahoo! received a second round of funding in the Fall of 1995 fromReuters andSoftbank. It went public in April 1996 with 49 employees.[4][11][12] In 1999, Yang was named to theMITTechnology ReviewTR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[3][13]Terry Semel, who replaced Tim Koogle as CEO after thedot-com bubble crash, was CEO until 2007 when the rise ofGoogle led the board to fire him and appoint Yang as interim CEO.[4]
Yang metAlibaba founderJack Ma in 1997 during Yang's first trip to China. Ma, a government-employed tour guide and former English teacher, gave Yang a tour of theGreat Wall of China. The two hit it off and discussed the growth of the Web. Ma created Alibaba several months later. A 1997 photo of Yang and Ma at the Great Wall still hangs on the wall in Alibaba'sHangzhou office.[4]
In 2005, under Yang's direction but before he took over as CEO in 2007, Yahoo! purchased a 40% stake in Alibaba for $1 billion plus the assets of Yahoo! China, valued at $700 million.[4] In 2012, Yahoo! sold a portion of its stake in Alibaba for $7.6 billion.[14] The company made an additional $9.4 billion in Alibaba's 2014IPO.[15] Eric Jackson, the founder of hedge fund Ironfire Capital, called Yahoo!'s investment in Alibaba "the best investment an American company has ever made in China," and stated, "Jerry deserves enormous credit for that."[14]
In the fall 2005, a month after the Alibaba investment, news broke that Yahoo! had cooperated with Chinese authorities in the arrest of Chinese journalistShi Tao in November 2004.[16] Shi had used a Yahoo email address to anonymously notify a pro-democracy website in the US that the Chinese government had ordered the Chinese media not to cover the fifteenth anniversary of theTiananmen Square Protests of 1989 on June 4. Yahoo! provided the Chinese security agencies with theIP addresses of the senders, the recipients and the time of the message. Shi was subsequently convicted for "divulging state secrets abroad."[16]
Yang justified the action, stating: "To be doing business in China or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law[s]." Yang and Yahoo! were heavily criticized, andReporters Without Borders called Yahoo! "a Chinese police informant."[17][18]
In April 2007,Wang Xiaoning and other journalists brought a civil suit against Yahoo! for allegedly aiding and abetting the Chinese government which, it was claimed, resulted in torture that included beatings and imprisonment.[19]
In early November 2007, Yang faced questions from a Congressional committee with respect to Yahoo!'s role in the arrests of Tao and other journalists in China. During the hearings he apologized to Tao's mother, who was also at the hearing.[20][21][22]
A week later, Yahoo! agreed to settle with the affected Chinese dissidents, paying them undisclosed compensation. Yang stated, "After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo, and for the future."[23] That week, Yang established the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund, a fund to provide "humanitarian and legal support" to online dissidents.[24]
In February 2008, Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice said that she raised issues about jailed Chinese journalists with her Chinese counterpartYang Jiechi; she cited a letter from Jerry Yang requesting her assistance in freeing the jailed dissidents.[25] Late in 2008, theLaogai Museum opened; the museum was run by noted Chinese dissidentHarry Wu and showcased China'slaogai penal system. It was funded by the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund.[26]
On September 2, 2020, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Chinese activist Ning Xianhua against past Yahoo! executives, including Yang and Semel. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in San Jose, California. It alleges that Yahoo! provided Xianhua's private emails to the Chinese government in exchange for commercial access to more Chinese internet users.[27]
In February 2008,Microsoft made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion; at the time Yahoo! was still struggling to catch up to Google, while Microsoft was still seeking an internet search strategy.[28] The offer was a 62% premium to Yahoo!'s market value at the time.[4] The negotiations were difficult, as Yang had no desire to sell Yahoo! and would not make a counter offer.[29] Once the negotiations ended in failure in May 2008, Yahoo!'s stock price plunged.[4][29] Yang and board chairman Roy Bostock were strongly criticized by investors for their handling of negotiations, which later led to several shareholder lawsuits and a proxy fight led byCarl Icahn, which was settled in July 2008.[30]
Yang's response to the Microsoft takeover was to make a commercial search advertising arrangement withGoogle but they ended negotiation after U.S. authorities voiced concerns regarding the effect on competition in the market.[4]
On November 17, 2008,The Wall Street Journal reported Yang would step down as CEO as soon as the company found a replacement.[31] He was CEO until 2009, when Yahoo! namedCarol Bartz as CEO.[32] He regained his former position as "Chief Yahoo" and remained on Yahoo's board of directors.[33]
In January 2012, Yahoo! announced that Yang was leaving the company and would be resigning from the board and all other positions at the company. The company also announced his resignation from the boards of Yahoo! Japan andAlibaba Corp.[34]
After leaving Yahoo! he became a mentor to technology startups and an investor through his firm, AME Cloud Ventures.[4][35][36] AME (pronounced "ah-meh") invests primarily in companies that work with data and has provided funding to more than 50 startups, including Tango,Evernote,Wattpad,[37]Wish,[37]Zoom andVectra Networks Inc., and Chinese travel site Shijiebang. "Ame" means "rain" in Japanese, a nod to Yang's interest in cloud computing.[4]
Yang is married to Japan-born Akiko Yamazaki, who was raised in Costa Rica. They met in 1992 during a 6-month Stanford exchange program.[9] Yamazaki graduated from Stanford University with a degree in industrial engineering and is a director with theWildlife Conservation Network.[45] Yang currently lives inLos Altos Hills,California.[46]
In February 2007, Yang and his wife gave $75 million toStanford University, their alma mater,[45] $50 million of which went to building the "Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building", a multi-disciplinary research, teaching and lab building designed withsustainable architecture principles.[47]
In late 2012 and early 2013, theAsian Art Museum of San Francisco exhibited selections from theChinese calligraphy collection belonging to Yang and his wife. He began the collection in the late 1990s; it contains about 250 pieces.[48] These selections also appeared at theMetropolitan Museum of Art in the 2014 exhibition "Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy."[49]
In September 2017, Yang and Yamazaki pledged $25 million to theAsian Art Museum, the largest donation in the museum's history.[50]
A new pavilion at the museum, funded by Yang and Yamazaki's donation and named in their honor, opened in 2020.[51][52]
Yang and Yamazaki loaned more than 50 Chinese ink paintings to Stanford'sCantor Arts Center in summer 2018 for its "Ink Worlds" exhibition.[53][54]
Yang was featured inAsian Americans, aPBS documentary series on Asian American history, in 2020.[55][56]
In 2021, he was among the co-founders ofThe Asian American Foundation,[57] a $250 million initiative to addressracism against Asian Americans[58] and provide services toAsian Americans and Pacific Islanders.[57] Yang sits on the board of the foundation, described by its organizers as the largest-ever philanthropic effort to support the AAPI community.[59]
Yang and Yamakazi were among the awardees at the 2023Asia Game Changer Awards.[60]
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| Preceded by | Chief executive officer ofYahoo! 2007–2009 | Succeeded by |
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