Yahoo will be heading into the future without the direct guidance of one of its co-founders. The web content and search company announced today that Jerry Yang has resigned from Yahoo's board of directors, and all other positions in the company, effective immediately.
In the press release announcing his departure, Yang is quoted as saying:
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 was born in 1968 in Taiwan but moved with his family to San Jose, California at the age of 10. In the early days of the World Wide Web, Yang, along with David Filo, launched a directory to other web sites called Jerry and Dave's Guide to the World Wide Web. That site was launched while they were still studying at Stanford. In 1995, the duo changed the name of the site to Yahoo! and formed Yahoo! Inc the same year. The site became one of the most popular sites on the Internet and remains one of the busiest web sites in the world.
The news of Yang's departure comes just a few days after Yahoo! hired former PayPal president Scott Thompson to take on the CEO role at the company.
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