User:MaryGaulke/sandbox/Jerry Yang

Jerry Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-born American internet entrepreneur, engineer, and the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc.

Early life
Yang was born in Taipei, Taiwan, on November 6, 1968, and moved to San Jose, California, at the age of ten with his mother and younger brother. He claimed that despite his mother being an English teacher, he only knew one English word ("shoe") on his arrival. Becoming fluent in the language in three years, he was then placed into an Advanced Placement English class.

Yang graduated from Sierramont Middle School and Piedmont Hills High School in San Jose and 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.

Founding of Yahoo
While studying at Stanford in 1994, Yang and David Filo co-created an Internet website called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web," which consisted 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 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, Yang was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

Shi Tao arrest controversy and creation of Yahoo! Human Rights Fund
In 2005, several human rights groups criticized Yang for a statement regarding the role of Yahoo! in the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao by Chinese authorities.

While in China, Shi Tao used a Yahoo email address to notify a pro-democracy website that the Chinese government ordered the Chinese media not to cover the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 on June 4. Yahoo! provided the Chinese security agencies with the IP addresses of the senders, the recipients and the time of the message. Tao was subsequently convicted for "divulging state secrets abroad." In response, Reporters Without Borders called Yahoo! "a Chinese police informant" whose actions led to the conviction of a journalist and writer.

Yang declared, "To be doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law[s]." This was controversial, as critics claimed Yahoo! violated international law as well as a 1989 decision by the U.S. Congress to prohibit U.S. companies from selling "crime control and detection" equipment or software to the Chinese Government.

The New York Times reported that political prisoner Wang Xiaoning and other journalists had 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.

In October 2007, Yang was summoned to Washington to answer for Yahoo's comments regarding its role in the arrests of Shi Tao and other journalists in China.

On November 14, 2007, Yahoo agreed to settle with 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."

Jerry Yang wrote a letter to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requesting her assistance in freeing the jailed dissidents. In addition, Yang established the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund, a fund to provide "humanitarian and legal support" to online dissidents. One of the first public projects of the fund was financing the establishment of the Laogai Museum, a museum opened by noted Chinese dissident Harry Wu to showcase China's laogai penal system.

This change of heart did not stop the chain of events that began with the arrest of jailed dissident Li Zhi, which resulted in another lawsuit being filed against Yahoo! on behalf of Plaintiffs Zheng Cunzhu and Guo Quan, who alleged the loss of property and a garment business. The complaint alleges "violation of international law including torture and prolonged detention, as well as unfair business practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and assault."

Investment in Alibaba
Yang met Alibaba founder Jack 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 the Great Wall of China. The two hit it off and discussed the growth of the Web, and Ma created Alibaba several months later. A 1997 photo of Yang and Ma at the Great Wall still hangs on the wall in Alibaba’s Hangzhou office.

In 2005, under Yang’s direction, Yahoo! purchased a 40% stake in Alibaba for $1 billion plus the assets of Yahoo! China, valued at $700 million. In 2012, Yahoo sold a portion of its stake in Alibaba for $7.6 billion. The company made an additional $9.4 billion in Alibaba’s 2014 IPO. 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.”

Microsoft acquisition attempt
As CEO, Yang rejected a hostile takeover offer from Microsoft in May 2008. Microsoft wanted to purchase Yahoo! to increase its market share and compete more effectively against Google in online search and advertising. During negotiations with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Yang threatened to make the takeover as difficult as possible unless Microsoft raised the price to US$37 per share. One Microsoft executive commented, "They are going to burn the furniture if we go hostile. They are going to destroy the place" (possibly a reference to Yahoo!'s shareholders rights plan that had been in place since 2001). Analysts suggested that Microsoft's raised offer of US$33 per share that would have valued Yahoo! at $44.6 billion was already too expensive, and that Yang was not bargaining in good faith. Yahoo's stock price plunged after Microsoft withdrew the bid. Yang and board chairman Roy Bostock were strongly criticized by investors for their handling of negotiations, which later led to several shareholder lawsuits and an aborted proxy fight from Carl Icahn.

Yang's response to the Microsoft takeover was to make a commercial search advertising arrangement with Google, but negotiations ended after U.S. authorities voiced concerns regarding the effect on competition in the market.

Departure from Yahoo!
As CEO from June 2007 to January 2009, Yang received criticism from many investors, including Carl Icahn, for rejecting the Microsoft takeover and for failing to increase revenues and stock price. Meanwhile, an exodus of executives occurred. 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 would be 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 and Alibaba Corp.

AME Cloud Ventures
After leaving Yahoo! Yang became a mentor to technology startups and an investor, founding the firm AME Cloud Ventures in 2012. AME (pronounced “ah-meh”) has provided funding to more than 50 startups, including Tango, Evernote, Wattpad and Chinese travel site Shijiebang. "Ame" means “rain” in Japanese, a nod to Yang’s interest in cloud computing.

Board seats

 * Yahoo! (1994 - 2012)
 * Cisco (2000 - 2012)
 * Stanford University Board of Trustees (2005 - )
 * Alibaba Group (2006 - 2012; 2014 - )
 * Workday, Inc. (2013 - )
 * Lenovo Group Ltd (Observer) (2013 - )

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.

Stanford University
In February 2007, Jerry Yang and his wife gave $75 million to Stanford University, their alma mater. The bulk of the donation 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.

Chinese calligraphy
In late 2012 and early 2013, San Francisco's Asian Art Museum exhibited selections from the Chinese calligraphy collection belonging to Yang and his wife. Yang began the collection in the late 1990s; it contains about 250 pieces. These selections also appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 2014 exhibition “Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy.” In his foreword to the show’s catalog, Yang described Chinese calligraphy as a social form of art.