Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire
computer programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of
Yahoo! Inc
Yahoo! is a web services provider jointly by Apollo Global Management and Verizon Communications, and known for its web portal, search engine, and related services.
Yahoo may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Yahoo (''Gulliver's Travels ...
.
As of February 2022, Yang has a net worth of over $2.7 billion.
Early life
Yang was born with the name Yang Chih-Yuan in
Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
, on November 6, 1968;
his mother was a professor of English and drama and his father died when he was two, by which time Yang had a brother.
[Parmy Olson for Forbes.In September 30, 2014]
Finding Alibaba: How Jerry Yang Made The Most Lucrative Bet In Silicon Valley History
/ref> In 1978, his mother moved the family to San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...
, where his grandmother and extended family took care of the boys while his mother taught English to other immigrants.[ After moving to the US, Yang took the American name Jerry; his mother, Lily; and his brother, Ken. He says that he only knew one English word, "shoe", when he came to America, but became fluent in English in about three years.]
Yang graduated from Piedmont Hills High School
Piedmont Hills High School is a comprehensive public four-year high school located in the Berryessa neighborhood of San Jose, California, USA. It is part of the East Side Union High School District and in 2019 was ranked in the highest categorie ...
and went on to earn both a Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...
and a Master of Science
A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...
in electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
from Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in four years.[ He met David Filo at Stanford in 1989, and the two of them went to Japan in 1992 for a six-month exchange program, during which he met his future wife, who was there as part of the exchange program.][
]
Career
Yang founded Yahoo! in 1994 and served as CEO from 2007 to 2009. He left Yahoo! in 2012. He founded a venture capital firm called AME Cloud Ventures and, as of 2015, serves on several corporate boards. According to Rob Solomon, a venture capitalist at Accel Partners
Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...
, Yang was "a great founder, evangelist, strategist and mentor," having "created the blueprint for what is possible on the Internet."
1994–2012: Yahoo! years
While studying at Stanford in 1994, Yang and David Filo co-created an Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
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 from Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...
, Tim Koogle
Timothy Andrew Koogle (born July 5, 1951) is an American executive who served as the first CEO and President of web company Yahoo! between 1995 and 2001. He served as the company's chairman from 1999 to 2003. He was named to the Top 25 Executiv ...
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 from Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
and Softbank
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...
. It went public in April 1996 with 49 employees.[ In 1999, Yang was named to the ]MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
Technology Review
''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...
TR100
The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com
...
as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. Terry Semel
Terence Steven Semel (born February 24, 1943) is an American corporate executive who was the chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Incorporated from 2001 to 2007. He resigned as CEO due in part to pressure from shareholders' dissatisfaction over his compe ...
, who replaced Tim Koogle as CEO after the dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
crash, served until 2007 when the rise of Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
led the board to fire him and appoint Yang as interim CEO.[
]
Alibaba
Yang met Alibaba
Ali Baba (character), Ali Baba is a character from the folk tale ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves''.
Ali Baba or Alibaba may also refer to:
Films
* Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1902 film), ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'' (1902 film), a F ...
founder Jack Ma
Jack Ma Yun (; born 10 September 1964) is a Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate. In addition, he co-founded Yunfeng ...
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 Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...
. 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's Hangzhou
Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whi ...
office.
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. 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
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
. 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."
Chinese government controversies
In fall 2005, a month after the Alibaba investment, news broke that Yahoo! had cooperated with Chinese authorities in the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao in November 2004.[Joseph Kahn for ''The New York Times.'' September 8, 200]
Yahoo Role Documented in Chinese Trial
/ref> 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 the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
on June 4. Yahoo! provided the Chinese security agencies with the IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
es of the senders, the recipients and the time of the message. Shi was subsequently convicted for "divulging state secrets abroad."[
Yang justified the action, stating: "To be doing business in China or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law " Yang and Yahoo! were heavily criticized, and ]Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
called Yahoo! "a Chinese police informant."[Reporters Without Borders. September 6, 200]
Information supplied by Yahoo ! helped journalist Shi Tao get 10 years in prison
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.
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.
A week later, 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." That week, Yang established the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund, a fund to provide "humanitarian and legal support" to online dissidents.
In February 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist who is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 66th Uni ...
said that she raised issues about jailed Chinese journalists with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi
Yang Jiechi (; born 1 May 1950) is a high-ranking Chinese politician and diplomat, who served as a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party between 2017 and 2022.
Yang spent much of his professional life in the United States, wh ...
; she cited a letter from Jerry Yang requesting her assistance in freeing the jailed dissidents. Late in 2008, the Laogai Museum
The Laogai Museum is a museum in Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C., United States, which showcases human rights in the People's Republic of China, focusing particularly on '' Láogǎi'', the Chinese prison system of "Reform through Labor". The crea ...
opened; the museum was run by noted Chinese dissident Harry Wu
Harry Wu (; February 8, 1937 – April 26, 2016) was a Chinese-American human rights activist. Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, and he became a resident and citizen of the United States. In 1992, he founded the Laogai Research Foun ...
and showcased China's ''laogai
''Laogai'' (), short for ''laodong gaizao'' (), which means reform through labor, is a criminal justice system involving the use of penal labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and North Korea (DPRK). ''Láogǎi'' i ...
'' penal system. It was funded by the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund.
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 U.S. 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.
Microsoft negotiations
In February 2008, Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
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 strategy. The offer was a 62% premium to Yahoo!'s market value at the time.[ The negotiations were difficult, as Yang had no desire to sell Yahoo! and would not make a counter offer.] Once the negotiations ended in failure in May 2008, Yahoo!'s stock price plunged.[ 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 by ]Carl Icahn
Carl Celian Icahn (; born February 16, 1936) is an American financier. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a public company and diversified conglomerate holding company based in Sunny Isles Beach. Icahn takes l ...
, which was settled in July 2008.
Yang's response to the Microsoft takeover was to make a commercial search advertising arrangement with Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
but they ended negotiation after U.S. authorities voiced concerns regarding the effect on competition in the market.[
]
Resignation as CEO to departure
On November 17, 2008, ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' reported Yang would step down as CEO as soon as the company found a replacement. He served as CEO until 2009, when Yahoo! named Carol Bartz
Carol Ann Bartz (born August 28, 1948) is an American business executive, former president and CEO of the internet services company Yahoo!, and former chairman, president, and CEO at architectural and engineering design software company Autodesk. ...
as CEO. He regained his former position as "Chief Yahoo" and remained on Yahoo's board of directors.
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 and Alibaba Corp.
AME Cloud Ventures
After leaving Yahoo! he became a mentor to technology startups and an investor through his firm, AME Cloud Ventures.[ AME (pronounced "ah-meh") invests primarily in companies that work with data and has provided funding to more than 50 startups, including Tango, ]Evernote
Evernote is a note-taking and task management application. It is developed by the Evernote Corporation, headquartered in Redwood City, California. It is intended for archiving and creating notes in which photos, audio and saved web content can ...
, Wattpad
Wattpad is an online literature platform intended for users to read and write original stories. The founders Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen say that the platform aims to create social communities around stories and remove the barriers between readers a ...
, Wish
A wish is a hope or desire for something. In fiction, wishes can be used as plot devices. In folklore, opportunities for "making a wish" or for wishes to "come true" or "be granted" are themes that are sometimes used.
In fiction
In fictio ...
, Zoom
Zoom may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Zoom (software), videoconferencing application
* Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display
* Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...
and Vectra Networks Inc.
Vectra AI, Inc. is a cybersecurity company headquartered in San Jose, California.
History
Vectra was founded in 2010 as TraceVector LLC in New York City and was incorporated in 2012 under the name Vectra Networks.
Products
The Cognito pl ...
, and Chinese travel site Shijiebang. "Ame" means "rain" in Japanese, a nod to Yang's interest in cloud computing.[
]
Board seats
* Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
(1995–2012)[
* ]Cisco
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
(2000–2012)
* Alibaba Group (2006–2012; 2014– )[
* ]Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
Chair of Board of Trustees (2005–2015; 2017– )
* Workday, Inc. (2013– )[
* Curbside (2013–2018)
* Lenovo Group Ltd (2013– )][Brian Womack for Bloomberg News September 11, 201]
Yahoo's Yang Is Back Playing Alibaba-Board Power Broker
/ref>
* Newsbreak.com (Advisor) (2015–)
Personal life
Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, a Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
woman who was raised in Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
, whom he met in 1992 during a 6-month Stanford exchange program when they were both students there.[ Yamazaki graduated from Stanford University with a degree in industrial engineering and is a director with the ]Wildlife Conservation Network
The Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that protects endangered wildlife by supporting conservationists in the field who promote coexistence between wildlife and people. WCN does this by ...
.[Stanford University Press Release. February 15, 200]
Alumni couple Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!, and Akiko Yamazaki pledge $75 million to alma mater
/ref> Yang currently resides in Los Altos Hills
Los Altos Hills (; ''Los Altos'', Spanish language, Spanish for "The Heights") is an List of municipalities in California, incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 8,4 ...
, California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
.
Philanthropy and impact
In February 2007, Yang and his wife gave $75 million to Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, their alma mater,[ $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 with ]sustainable architecture
Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable ...
principles.
In late 2012 and early 2013, the exhibited selections from the Chinese calligraphy
Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held in high est ...
collection belonging to Yang and his wife. He began the collection in the late 1990s; it contains about 250 pieces. These selections also appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in the 2014 exhibition "Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy."
In September 2017, Yang and Yamazaki pledged $25 million to the Asian Art Museum, the largest donation in the museum's history.
A new pavilion at the museum, funded by Yang and Yamazaki's donation and named in their honor, opened in 2020.
Yang and Yamakazi loaned more than 50 Chinese ink paintings to Stanford's Cantor Arts Center
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. ...
in summer 2018 for its "Ink Worlds" exhibition.
Yang was featured in ''Asian Americans
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
'', a PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
documentary series on Asian American history, in 2020.
In 2021, he was among the co-founders of The Asian American Foundation, a $250 million initiative to address racism against Asian Americans and provide services to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Asian/Pacific American (APA) or Asian/Pacific Islander (API) or Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) or Asian American and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) is a term sometimes used in the United States when including both Asian Am ...
. Yang sits on the board of the foundation, described by its organizers as the largest-ever philanthropic effort to support the AAPI community.
References
External links
*
*
*
*
Jerry Yang at Stanford Engineering Heroes page
October 2004
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yang, Jerry
1968 births
20th-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesspeople
American art collectors
American billionaires
American people of Taiwanese descent
American computer businesspeople
American computer programmers
American technology chief executives
American technology company founders
American venture capitalists
Businesspeople from San Jose, California
Businesspeople from Taipei
Businesspeople in information technology
Directors of Yahoo!
Living people
Members of Committee of 100
People from Los Altos Hills, California
Stanford University alumni
Stanford University trustees
Taiwanese emigrants to the United States
Yahoo! employees