Yahoo and Jerry Yang: A History - Deal Journal - WSJ Yahoo and Jerry Yang: A History By Shira.Ovide@wsj.com Jan 17, 2012 5:30 pm ET The histories of Yahoo and Jerry Yang have been intertwined for 17 years. Now, Yang is resigning from the company , removing the personal embodiment of Yahoo’s legacy as an Internet pioneer. While at Stanford University in 1994, Yang and David Filo, created a novel directory of Web sites they liked. The service soon exploded in popularity and their company — along with brands such as Netscape — became an icon of the early Internet age. Here is a history of Yahoo and Yang: 1995: Jerry Yang and David Filo, engineering graduate students at Stanford University, take a leave of absence from school to try their hand at turning their school project, a guide to the World Wide Web, into a real business. Yang and his family had emigrated to San Jose, Calif., from Taiwan when the young Yang was 10 years old.

David Filo Jerry Yang (Yahoo) - bhaskarreddykonda bhaskarreddykonda David Filo Jerry Yang (Yahoo) Two Yahoos on a Roll: The Early Years of Jerry Yang and David Filo They started off as two graduate students at Stanford University. Today, they have a combined personal net worth of $5.1 billion. That is all thanks to Jerry Yang’s and David Filo’s attempts to find anything they could do to avoid working on their doctoral theses. Bored one day, the two decided to play around with the newly emerging Internet and create a list of their favourite sites. That list has since grown into Yahoo!, one of the world’s most popular online search portals, with more than 130 million visitors each month and revenues in excess of $6.7 billion. Jerry Yang was born on November 6, 1968 in Taipei, Taiwan. His father died when he was just two years old. Soon after, Yang moved to San Jose, California along with his mother and brother. Yang’s mother was an English teacher, but still, her son’s knowledge of English was limited to just one word: shoe. It took no more than three years in the U.S.

for Yang to master the English language. Yang attended Sierramont Middle School, followed by Piedmont Hills High School. After graduating, he would go on to receive his B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. During this time, Yang also became a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. David Filo was born in 1966 in Wisconsin, but moved to Moss Bluff, Louisiana with his family when he was six years old. He attended Sam Houston High School and later, Tulane University, where he earned the Dean’s Honour Scholarship and graduated with a B.S. in computer engineering. He then went on to attain his M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Both Filo and Yang decided to pursue their doctoral degrees at Stanford University, where they became fast friends. After all, they had something in common: they both grew bored with their theses quickly and looked to other things to keep them engaged.

“For those of you who've done any kinds of thesis work, it's pretty laborious and tedious, to say the least,” says Yang, “so at the beginning of 1994, we started to procrastinate and spend a lot of time on the newly emerged ‘web.’” “I was terribly bored,” Filo recalls. “Really, we'd do anything to keep from working on our theses,” Yang adds. “And then, a funny thing happened.” It was 1994 and Filo and Yang were surfing the Internet late one night, when they decided to organize all of the interesting sites they had found. “It was the real early days of the Net,” says Filo. “We'd wander around the Net and find something interesting, and then I'd ask Jerry, 'Hey, where was that cool page we saw the other day,' and we could never remember where it was. I mean, it could take us hours to just get back there, to find it.” The two start putting together a “hotlist” of their favourite sites. “We called it ‘Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web,’” recalls Yang.

“Before we knew it, people from all over the world were using this database that we created.” Riding the Wave: Yang and Filo Turn Surfing into a Success “It was a really gradual thing, but we'd find ourselves spending more and more time on it,” says Yang of his and Filo’s newly created online directory. “It was getting to be a burden.” In the first month alone, traffic to the duo’s Stanford-hosted website doubled, and kept on doubling every month thereafter. Visitors became so numerous that Stanford University administrators were getting frustrated. “They told us we were crashing their system and that we’d have to move the thing off campus,” says Yang. It was at that point that the two began seriously considering the possibilities of turning their website into a full-time business. Yang contacted a friend of his, a student at Harvard University. As it turned out, his friend had to write a business plan for one of his classes and he agreed to use the website as his proposal. “Actually, we were doing him a favour,” says Yang.

“He needed a real idea to work with.” That plan never made its way to investors, but it did help formlate a better vision for Yang and Filo, and it helped prepare them for what was to come next. One of the early users of their site decided to introduce Yang and Filo to Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital. Sequoia had already been involved with many of the leading Silicon Valley companies, including Apple Computer, Oracle, and Cisco Systems. Moritz liked the idea behind the website and agreed to give the pair $1 million in working cash, as well as access to some of the industry’s leading business experts, in return for a minority stake. “It was a suicide impulse on our part,” jokes Moritz. “Really, we saw it as a public service to rescue those guys from PhD land.” With that offer on the table, Yang and Filo both took an official and indefinite leave of absence from Stanford (which they maintain today) and went to work full-time on their new venture. Other offers had come as well, but the two were happy with Moritz. “There was no bidding war,” says Filo. “We liked the deal with Sequoia.

For us, the most important thing was that we could hold onto it. We really weren't into this for the money or for the fast payoff.” The first order of business in 1995 was to rename the website. Yang and Filo decided upon Yahoo for two reasons: first, it stood for ‘Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”; and, they liked the general definition of the word: “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth.” Because the name was already trademarked for barbecue sauce, they added the exclamation mark to it. Yahoo! was born. Yahoo! began as a web directory but quickly grew into a web portal, competing with new up-and-comers such as MSN, Lycos, and Excite. It began acquiring other companies to expand its range of services, including Rocketmail, ClassicGames.com, and eGroups. In 1996, Yahoo! went public and raised $33.8 million by selling 2.6 million shares. It continued to expand, acquiring other search engines, such as Inktomi and AltaVista, and forming partnerships with the likes of Verizon for an integrated DSL service. In 2004, Yahoo!

abandoned its Google-powered search results and started using its own technology. Form there, it also increased the amount of storage for Yahoo! Mail accounts, launched Yahoo! Messenger, and acquired photo-sharing site Flickr and social bookmarking site del.icio.us. Yahoo! became one of the few large Internet companies to survive the dot-com bubble. Today, as the Chief Yahoos of the company, Yang and Filo continue to steer it towards greater success in the face of rising competition. Lesson #1: Go With Your Growth “Thousands of people were producing new Web sites every day,” recalls Filo of Yahoo!’s early days. “We were just trying to take all that stuff and organize it to make it useful. As it became more popular, it became pretty clear we would have to get more people involved.” From day one, Yang and Filo realized that if they were going to stick around for any significant length of time, they were going to have to adapt from being a one-trick pony to being a comprehensive company with a wide range of services. It was with that goal in mind that the two began to put into place their strategy for growth, embracing it at every step of the way.

“We worry about staying competitive as well as continue to come up with new things,” says Yang. “What I can say is that look for Yahoo! to continue to push the envelope on what we can offer for free, as well as a continued focus to develop the Yahoo! set of services around the world.” Yahoo! progressed from being a simple list of interesting sites on the Internet to being a searchable directory of more than 14 key categories, including Arts, Business, Entertainment, Science, and Health. But while in the early days, the site relied on Yang and Filo to personally sift through and document each of the sites, they realized that with growth that type of system would no longer be feasible. That is why Yang and Filo decided early on to integrate the AltaVista search engine into its directory. Now, Yang and Filo would no longer have to personally track the increasing number of sites online. Instead, they could rely on content-based searches – a growing trend down the road. That was a starkly different approach than the one taken by one of Yahoo!’s early leading competitors. The McKinley directory offered not only lists, but also reviews of web sites, in an attempt to offer a more comprehensive and useful online service.

Yang, however, felt that strategy would only result in stagnation. “Okay, just think about it for a moment,” he says. “I mean, just look at this. Web sites change all the time; this one is not the same as it was yesterday. So how often are they going to review their reviews? Will those reviews really be current and meaningful? I mean, with a few thousand sites it might be practical. But with 100,000 sites? How many sites can one reviewer review in one day? I mean, it would take an army. We get a thousand requests each day to have sites added to our list.” The major difference between Yahoo! and its competitor was not the website reviews in and of themselves, but rather the strategy and foresight behind them. “I think in this business you really have to prepare for the scale involved,” says Yang. “And if the business model won't scale up, then in the end it won't work.” Lesson #2: Sharpen Your Organization’s Goals In 2007, Yahoo! was the setting for a major Silicon Valley shakeup. The company’s then CEO Terry Semel was ousted and replaced by its original co-founder, Yang.

It was a tumultuous time for the company, which was suffering from much shareholder criticism in the face of rising competition from Google. But Yang was determined to rise to the challenge. Upon taking office, Yang’s first order of business was not to completely overhaul the company with new staff or new projects. He did not criticize Semel for mistakes he might have made, or blame Yahoo!’s industry dominance slip on any one action or individual. What he did do, however, was telling of the way in which Yang was able to grow Yahoo! into an Internet behemoth in the first place. The very first thing Yang did was conduct a business review of Yahoo! “We conducted an intense review of our business, examining everything from our strategy and culture to our competitive position and how the marketplace is evolving,” says Yang. “We knew we had to change not only our business, but also how we prioritize and make decisions.” Yang gathered together senior leaders from across the company – leaders who had been with the company even through its downward slip – to discuss new visions and new priorities. “We had to shift from a siloed mentality to a more collaborative organization that marches toward a common horizon,” he says.

“We had to determine which businesses to invest in, and which to begin to exit or de-emphasize.” What Yang and his associates found was potential, and lots of it. “We defined a strategy that revolves around making Yahoo! indispensable to an ecosystem of consumers, advertisers, publishers and developers while tapping into three key differentiators,” says Yang, “generating and leveraging insights, deploying open platforms, and becoming partner of choice.” Yang wanted to reorient Yahoo! towards a focus on increasing its relevance for each member of its “ecosystem.” To that end, he established three long-term objectives. First, Yahoo! was to become the starting point for the most customers, the site “that helps you better manage your life and connect you to what matters most to you.” That goal led to such recent moves as the new Yahoo! Mail and the acquisition of Buzz Tracker. Second, Yang wanted Yahoo! to become the “must-buy” for advertisers. “What’s key here is our transformation from selling inventory on primarily the Yahoo! network,” says Yang, “to becoming an advertising company that delivers comprehensive, integrated, and targeted solutions on Yahoo! and beyond.” Third, Yahoo! was to start delivering open, industry-leading platforms that attract more publishers and developers.

“We have phenomenal technology platforms and data infrastructure, and it’s time to share,” says Yang. “The possibilities are endless and ‘open’ is all part of a new way of operating at Yahoo!” Yang set out on a mission to identify past weaknesses and outline clear goals for the future to compensate: “We’ve scripted our strategy, sharpened our organization, determined how we’ll prioritize, and zeroed in on our big bets,” he says. Lesson #3: Focus On the Inside Out “I believe that Yahoo! is too often defined by the competitive landscape, rather than by what we can accomplish with our assets,” says Yang. “I’m determined for us to define our own path.” Yahoo! is a major player in an industry with some of the most major players in the world. But Yang has striven to make a name for himself not based on how he does in comparison to the rest. Yang always wanted Yahoo! to succeed on its own merits rather than relative to others. Step number one towards making that happen was by bringing on board the appropriate management team and partners. “The more I look back, the more I realize how fortunate we were to find the right partners, the right management,” says Yang. “It seemed natural and intuitive then.

Now I realize what key parts of our business they are.” The Stanford connection played a large part in developing Yahoo!’s strategy and brand early on. In addition to Yang and Filo being graduates, so too was Tim Koogle, Yahoo!’s former CEO, and Tim Brady, a VP of production. But, there was more to it than that. “Stanford had a huge part in shaping us,” says Yang. “We saw Jim Clark (co-founder and chairman of Netscape) coming to school. Bill Gates came and built his building next to our trailer. The venture capital is there. If you are interested in starting a business, you’ll find other people talking about launching companies.” Yang and Filo have always been of the belief that the team behind a company is more important than any one individual, even themselves. “Do not be surprised if you don’t see a lot of me in the press in the near future as we keep our heads down working through the challenges and opportunities at hand,” Yang once said. “I’m sure not everyone will agree with that approach, but it feels right to me. I’m a big believer in doing versus talking.

We’re focused on making changes from the inside out and we’ll get out there when the time is right.” Yahoo! has no technological advantage over its competitors per se. As a result, Yang and Filo knew that in order to stay ahead of their competitors, it would have to rely on its own people. “Technology is an important component of what we do,” says Yang, “but our real competitive advantage is to apply technology to become the best web-based communication, content, and commerce service.” In the end, that task would come down to the brains behind the company. Yang and Filo always kept a close eye on their competitor’s moves, but they kept an even closer eye on their own team. They were always on the hunt for bright minds that could help take Yahoo! to the next level. By focusing on strengthening the company’s own structure before looking to the outside world, the Stanford duo was able to build up its significant industry presence. Lesson #4: Give Your Business a Little Brand Aid “Originally, it was Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web, but we settled on Yahoo!,” says Yang.

“It is a pretty recognizable brand name.” Despite Filo’s admission that he was “not crazy about the name at first,” he now concedes that they made the right choice. “It grew on me,” says Filo, who is now grateful they selected a name that is “so memorable and that conveys the sense of fun involved in all this, the sense of adventure. This is what really distinguishes our site.” The company’s goofy but memorable name is one of its strongest advantages over its competitors, whose names get lost by the wayside. “It is a place for adventures,” says Filo. “A place to discover things.” And, its name perfectly conveys those sentiments. Yahoo! was one of the first Internet companies to extend its name into a brand, something which Filo and Yang made a conscious decision to do. First, they chose to stay away from some of the more well-known high-tech advertising agencies. Instead, they went with a smaller company who understood Yahoo!’s needs to grow past its reputation as an Internet search company. The ad agency created a series of television commercials called “Gone Fishing,” whereby an old fisherman would dip into Yahoo! for fishing tips and come up with one huge fish after another.

The ad accurately conveyed the idea behind Yahoo! as a search company, but it stayed away from anything too techie. Yahoo! was on its way from being an Internet company to a comprehensive new-media company with a broad appeal. The “Gone Fishing” television ads had drained Yahoo!’s budget, but the company’s momentum was rising. Soon, they were followed with posters on construction sites, promotions at major concerts, and even partnerships with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Yang and Filo were putting their logo everywhere they could think of. Yahoo!’s strategy was working. By 1998, its earnings were $203.3 million, up from $70.5 million the year before. But Yang and Filo were not only proving their adeptness in selling themselves. They were also demonstrating their skills when it came to bringing on board other companies to advertise on Yahoo! Most of that $203.3 million revenue was coming from short-term contract banner advertisements. The company soon branched out into sponsorships, contracts that lasted between three months to two years. E-commerce also made up roughly 25 percent of the company’s revenues. “Advertising on the internet is still very much in the beginning stages,” says Yang.

“I think there are a lot of things happening that are making it better for both advertisers and consumers.” One of those things was that technology was improving, allowing for ads that were more visually appealing and relevant to users. “Our purpose/goal is the same, to keep the internet free to the users and make the business part work by finding sponsors and advertisers who want to reach our audience,” says Yang. “I think it is one of the keys to keep improving the usefulness of the web and make sure that as many people as possible can use it and derive value from it.” Lesson #5: Create a Company Culture Worth Caring About “You have to realize when David and I were doing this it was just for fun,” says Yang. “We never thought it would even become a business.” Yang and Filo turned their hobby of surfing the Internet into a billion-dollar business. In the process, however, they never lost sight of how it all began. They were just two post-graduate students who found themselves bored with school and decided to have some fun instead. That is the bottom line behind the creation of Yahoo! And that is the bottom line the two wanted to maintain throughout the company even after its infancy. Going to work at Yahoo!

is a far cry from what most CEOs might be used to. The average employee is 29 years old and actually enjoys going to work. Why? Because it is not only a creative atmosphere, but a fun and casual one as well. The company’s slogan early on was “Do what’s crazy, but not stupid!” Yang and Filo understood the importance of creating a fun atmosphere at work. The employees work long hours, but management is all too aware of that. As such, they make sure that the work environment caters to their every need. From video games throughout to catered lunch programs, Yahoo!’s internal culture is one of the company’s top priorities. Yang and Filo wanted their company to be a place where people loved coming to work, just as they did. By focusing on creating a culture that makes employees feel at home, they have begun finding many employees who prefer staying at work over going home, simply because it is more fun. That image has also been used in the company’s branding campaigns. Yang and Filo opted for a cool California image and a bright logo to represent their company, and they have placed it on everything from sailboats and parachutes to skateboards and hockey rinks. Yahoo!

is not about being cooped up in an office, so why would its advertising be? On top of that, Yahoo! also lets full-time employees in the U.S. become part of an incentive-based stock option plan. Rewards are given out based on reaching targeted goals and obtaining advertising contracts. But, more importantly, it places part ownership in the hands of employees, something which Yang and Filo feel has been essential to their success. Employees are also able to deduct 15 percent of their earnings to purchase company stock. That stock price is further discounted to 85 percent of the going market value. Yang and Filo want to encourage their employees to be as interactive as the product they work so hard to create. Yang and Filo could have walked away as millionaires when the first offer came to buy their company years ago. The likes of America Online and Netscape Communications were all vying for a piece of Yahoo! They chose to stay, however. “We're not in this for the fast money,” says Filo.

“Really, what we want is to be part of this industry.” Searching for the Stars: How Yang and Filo Took Their Business to New Heights “I think that it's always possible to have a great company if you have great ideas,” says Yang. “I will say that since the web has become more commercialized, it also takes some good financial resources to build a great business, but as I always say, you have to have the idea first.” Yang and Filo found their idea while students at Stanford University. With little more than their own creativity and hard work, the pair managed to secure funding, launch their business, and become the poster boys of a burgeoning industry. How did they do it? Expansion: “The time is now,” says Yang. “The Internet is still young, the opportunities ahead are tremendous, and I’m ready to rally our nearly 12,000 Yahoos around the world to help seize them.” From day one, Yang and Filo have implemented a flexible strategy of growth and expansion. By seizing new opportunities and planning ahead, the duo restricted their thinking to the long-term.

Goals: “While our business continues to grow, we need to dramatically improve our performance and I intend to put us back on a winning path,” says Yang. “There’s a lot of heavy lifting ahead, but I’m feeling good about our awesome assets, our initial progress against our challenges, and our vast opportunities if we nail down and execute against the right plan.” By assessing the company’s past and laying out clear goals for the future, Yang and Filo made sure they were ready for what was to come. Focus: Yang and Filo are two of the first people to reflect on and be grateful for the success they have achieved thus far. Yang says, “A lot of the credit goes to the smart and great people that have since joined Yahoo!, because they took it upon themselves to make Yahoo! great.” It was in part by focusing on the team – the people working to take the company to the top – that they were able to get there in the first place. Branding: These days, it seems as if whacky names are the norm when it comes to Internet companies. But when Yahoo! was launched, it was the first of its kind.

With a name that conveyed the company’s sense of youth and creativity, Yang and Filo worked to extend that image into a branding behemoth. Culture: “I feel pretty lucky,” says Filo. “I mean I work all day and sometimes all night, but I like the people I work with and I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing.” Yang and Filo are living their dream jobs, and they want the rest of their team to feel that way too. From creating a casual environment to providing endless on-the-job perks, the two sought to give their workers a true home away from home. “I have absolute conviction about Yahoo!’s potential for long-term success as an Internet leader,” says Yang. “Yahoo! is a company that started with a vision and a dream and, make no mistake, that dream is very much alive. I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to transform Yahoo!

into an even greater success in the future.” David Filo and Jerry Yang Quotes Jerry Yang Quotes For those of you who've done any kinds of thesis work, it's pretty laborious and tedious, to say the least, so at the beginning of 1994, we started to procrastinate and spend a lot of time on the newly emerged ‘web.’ Really, we'd do anything to keep from working on our theses. And then, a funny thing happened. We called it ‘Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web.’ Before we knew it, people from all over the world were using this database that we created. It was a really gradual thing, but we'd find ourselves spending more and more time on it. It was getting to be a burden. They told us we were crashing their system and that we’d have to move the thing off campus. Actually, we were doing him a favour. He needed a real idea to work with. We worry about staying competitive as well as continue to come up with new things. What I can say is that look for Yahoo! to continue to push the envelope on what we can offer for free, as well as a continued focus to develop the Yahoo! set of services around the world.

Okay, just think about it for a moment. I mean, just look at this. Web sites change all the time; this one is not the same as it was yesterday. So how often are they going to review their reviews? Will those reviews really be current and meaningful? I mean, with a few thousand sites it might be practical. But with 100,000 sites? How many sites can one reviewer review in one day? I mean, it would take an army. We get a thousand requests each day to have sites added to our list I think in this business you really have to prepare for the scale involved. And if the business model won't scale up, then in the end it won't work. We conducted an intense review of our business, examining everything from our strategy and culture to our competitive position and how the marketplace is evolving. We knew we had to change not only our business, but also how we prioritize and make decisions. We had to shift from a siloed mentality to a more collaborative organization that marches toward a common horizon. We had to determine which businesses to invest in, and which to begin to exit or de-emphasize. We defined a strategy that revolves around making Yahoo!

indispensable to an ecosystem of consumers, advertisers, publishers and developers while tapping into three key differentiators, generating and leveraging insights, deploying open platforms, and becoming partner of choice. What’s key here is our transformation from selling inventory on primarily the Yahoo! network, to becoming an advertising company that delivers comprehensive, integrated, and targeted solutions on Yahoo! and beyond. We have phenomenal technology platforms and data infrastructure, and it’s time to share. The possibilities are endless and “open” is all part of a new way of operating at Yahoo! We’ve scripted our strategy, sharpened our organization, determined how we’ll prioritize, and zeroed in on our big bets. I believe that Yahoo! is too often defined by the competitive landscape, rather than by what we can accomplish with our assets. I’m determined for us to define our own path. The more I look back, the more I realize how fortunate we were to find the right partners, the right management. It seemed natural and intuitive then. Now I realize what key parts of our business they are. Stanford had a huge part in shaping us. We saw Jim Clark (co-founder and chairman of Netscape) coming to school. Bill Gates came and built his building next to our trailer.

The venture capital is there. If you are interested in starting a business, you’ll find other people talking about launching companies. Do not be surprised if you don’t see a lot of me in the press in the near future as we keep our heads down working through the challenges and opportunities at hand. I’m sure not everyone will agree with that approach, but it feels right to me. I’m a big believer in doing versus talking. We’re focused on making changes from the inside out and we’ll get out there when the time is right. Technology is an important component of what we do, but our real competitive advantage is to apply technology to become the best web-based communication, content, and commerce service. Originally, it was Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web, but we settled on Yahoo! It is a pretty recognizable brand name. Advertising on the internet is still very much in the beginning stages. I think there are a lot of things happening that are making it better for both advertisers and consumers. Our purpose/goal is the same, to keep the internet free to the users and make the business part work by finding sponsors and advertisers who want to reach our audience.

I think it is one of the keys to keep improving the usefulness of the web and make sure that as many people as possible can use it and derive value from it. You have to realize when David and I were doing this it was just for fun. We never thought it would even become a business. I think that it's always possible to have a great company if you have great ideas. I will say that since the web has become more commercialized, it also takes some good financial resources to build a great business, but as I always say, you have to have the idea first. The time is now. The Internet is still young, the opportunities ahead are tremendous, and I’m ready to rally our nearly 12,000 Yahoos around the world to help seize them. While our business continues to grow, we need to dramatically improve our performance and I intend to put us back on a winning path. There’s a lot of heavy lifting ahead, but I’m feeling good about our awesome assets, our initial progress against our challenges, and our vast opportunities if we nail down and execute against the right plan.

A lot of the credit goes to the smart and great people that have since joined Yahoo!, because they took it upon themselves to make Yahoo! great. I have absolute conviction about Yahoo!’s potential for long-term success as an Internet leader. Yahoo! is a company that started with a vision and a dream and, make no mistake, that dream is very much alive. I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to transform Yahoo! into an even greater success in the future. David Filo Quotes I was terribly bored. It was the real early days of the Net. We'd wander around the Net and find something interesting, and then I'd ask Jerry, 'Hey, where was that cool page we saw the other day,' and we could never remember where it was. I mean, it could take us hours to just get back there, to find it. There was no bidding war. We liked the deal with Sequoia. For us, the most important thing was that we could hold onto it. We really weren't into this for the money or for the fast payoff. Thousands of people were producing new Web sites every day. We were just trying to take all that stuff and organize it to make it useful.

As it became more popular, it became pretty clear we would have to get more people involved. It grew on me. It is a place for adventures. A place to discover things. We're not in this for the fast money. Really, what we want is to be part of this industry. I feel pretty lucky. I mean I work all day and sometimes all night, but I like the people I work with and I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. David Filo (Founder) - Pics, Videos, Dating, & News David Filo Male Born Apr 20, 1966 David Filo is an American businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. His Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side software used to dynamically serve variable web pages, called Filo Server Pages, on visits to early versions of the Yahoo!

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Activist Investor Renews Call For Yahoo To Sell Core Business Yahoo News - Dec 04, 2015 ' SAN FRANCISCO/BENGALURU (Reuters) - An activist investor on Thursday renewed its push for Yahoo Inc to abandon its plans to spin off its valuable stake in Chinese e-commerce giantÂ Alibaba Group HoldingÂ LtdÂ and instead sell its core business \"at the highest price possible.\" The pressure from Starboard Value LP came as Yahoo\'s board, in a three-day meeting that started on Wednesday, was reportedly weighing a number of options for the troubled company. Alibaba, seen by some as a potential ... Activist Investor Renews Call For Yahoo To Sell Core Business Yahoo News - Dec 03, 2015 ' SAN FRANCISCO/BENGALURU (Reuters) - An activist investor on Thursday renewed its push for Yahoo Inc to abandon its plans to spin off its valuable stake in Chinese e-commerce giantÂ Alibaba Group HoldingÂ LtdÂ and instead sell its core business \"at the highest price possible.\" The pressure from Starboard Value LP came as Yahoo\'s board, in a three-day meeting that started on Wednesday, was reportedly weighing a number of options for the troubled company.

Alibaba, seen by some as a potential ... Signs That Twitter May Be Preparing For An Ipo San Francisco Chronicle - Sep 07, 2013 ' Months after becoming Twitter\'s finance chief, Mike Gupta is talking to banks about handling the company\'s initial public offering, a sign that the most anticipated stock market debut since Facebook is getting closer - and that Gupta will play a key role in it.\n\nTwitter, based in San Francisco, is awaiting third-quarter financial results before deciding whether to file the IPO paperwork with regulators this year or next, said people who asked not to be identified because the plans are c... Yahoo History - Yahoo! Inc. History: In 1994, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Yahoo History Yahoo History - Yahoo! Inc. History: In 1994, David Filo... SCHOOL View Full Document Yahoo! Inc. History: In 1994, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University blew off their doctoral theses in pursuit of cataloguing their favourite web sites.

In a campus trailer, the pair created the web site that started out as “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” but was replaced with the name Yahoo!, an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” in April 1994. From the number of people accessing their guide, Jerry and David realized they were not the only ones wanting a single place to find useful Web sites. In the fall of 1994, Yahoo! celebrated its first million hit day. Due to the amount of audience, the founders knew they had a potential business. Therefore, in March 1995, Jerry and David incorporated the business and met with dozens of Silicon Valley venture capitalists. They eventually came across Sequoia Capital, the well known firm whose successful investments included Apple Computer, Atari, Oracle and Cisco Systems. With an initial investment of nearly $2 million, the Sequoia Capital agreed to fund Yahoo! Realizing their new company had the potential to grow quickly, Jerry and David constructed a management team.

They hired Tim Koogle, an expert of Motorola and a graduate of the Stanford engineering department, as chief executive officer and Jerry Mallett, founder of Novell’s WordPerfect consumer division, as chief operating officer. They secured a second round of funding in Fall 1995 from investors Reuters Ltd. and Softbank. Yahoo! Launched a highly successful Initial Public Offering in April 1996, raising $33.8 million, by selling 2.6 million shares at $13 each. This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version. View Full Document On March 8, 1997, Yahoo! Acquired online communications company Four11. Four11’s webmail service, RocketMail, became Yahoo!Mail. Yahoo! also bought ClassicGames.com and turned it into Yahoo!Games. On October 12, 1997, Yahoo! then attained the direct marketing company, Yoyodyne Entertainment, Inc. The following year, on March 8, 1998, Yahoo! lauched Yahoo! Pager, an instant messaging service that was renamed Yahoo!Messenger a year later.

On January 28, 1999, Yahoo! bought GeoCities, a web hosting provider. On June 28, 2000 another company Yahoo! purchased was eGroups, which was renamed Yahoo!Groups. Throughout its years as an incorporation Yahoo! had acquired many services to strengthen its services to its users. Today, Yahoo! is a global Internet communications, commerce and media company that offers a broad branded network of services to more than 345 million individuals each month worldwide. Senior Officials: Carol Bartz President and Chief Executive Officer Ms. Carol received a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin- Madison in 1971. On January 13, 2009, Bartz was named her current position as the Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining the Yahoo! she was the Chairman, President, and CEO at Autodesk. Roy J. Bostock This is the end of the preview. Sign up to access the rest of the document. TERM ACCOUNTING Gr 11 Acco - Winter 2011 GROUP PROJECT PART 1 TD Bank The Coca-Cola Company Dr.

Mendelssohn BAT4M1-02 Friday A Accounting Company Analysis Project Yahoo! CEO and Founder Jerry Yang - TIME Follow @TIME The announcement that Jerry Yang will step down as CEO of Yahoo! was welcome news to investors still seething that the founder turned down an acquisition offer from Microsoft earlier this year worth some $46 billion. (After Yang demanded $4 more per share than Microsoft's offer, the software giant walked away.) Yahoo! is in trouble  its stock price has fallen to around $11 from $29 in February 2008 and it's way behind Google and others in the fast-moving Internet innovation game. (The stock rallied slightly upon news of Yang's departure.) Yang, who took the job as CEO in June 2007, 13 years after he founded the company, said he'll stay on as chief executive until a replacement is found. Fast Facts:  He was was born in Taiwan in 1968. His father died when he was a toddler and his mother, an English professor, moved with her two sons to the U.S. in 1978.

According to published reports, the only English word that Yang and his younger brother knew when they arrived in America was "shoe." The family eventually settled in San Jose, Calif.  Yang graduated first in his high school class, while also finding time to play tennis and serve as student body president. He got his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering at Stanford in four years, while working part-time jobs to make money. Yang stayed on at Stanford to get his doctoral degree, but because he left school to start Yahoo!, he never finished.  While attending a six-month Stanford program in Japan, Yang met his wife Akiko Yamazaki, who was also a Stanford student. They have one child.  Yahoo! started as a project between Yang and fellow grad student David Filo, who started a listing of their favorite web pages in 1994.

(Yang had also tried designing web pages, including one devoted to sumo wrestling.) Yang and Filo initially called the service, which was used mainly by their friends, "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web." The two eventually changed the name to Yahoo!, claiming it was an acronym for "Yet another hierarchical officious oracle."  Yang and Filo incorporated Yahoo! in 1995, secured venture capital and eventually took the company public in 1996.  From the beginning of the company, Filo and Yang have called themselves "Chief Yahoos." (Yang will revert back to this title when his successor takes over as CEO.)  Yang owns a 4% stake in Yahoo! At one point, the company was worth as much as $130 billion; it's currently valued at about $15 billion.  Earlier this year, Forbes estimated Yang's total net worth at $3.2 billion.  As Chief Yahoo and currently as CEO, Yang accepts only a $1 annual salary from the company.

Quotes by Yang:  "When we argue, Akiko says I always have the advantage because English is my second language but it's her third language."  talking about his wife, who was raised in Costa Rica, (Fortune)  "We have a very clear strategy in place and we are executing on it...I very much see the CEO role as something I plan to do for a while."  upon taking the reins as Yahoo! CEO in June 2007, (New York Times)  "We got made fun of a lot at first. I didn't even know who the faces were on the paper money."  on his early days in the U.S., before he spoke English, (Fortune)  "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."  in a November 2007 statement after Yahoo! agreed to compensate Chinese journalists jailed after Yahoo!

turned over details of their pro-Democracy Internet activity to Chinese authorities  "All of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple."  referencing the company's signature color in a memo sent to Yahoo! employees Nov. 17, the day Yang announced he was stepping down as CEO of the company Quotes about Yang:  "He's everything from technical visionary to chief strategist to corporate spokesman and cheerleader to Washington lobbyist to the company's conscience."  Stanford University president John Hennessy, who was a faculty adviser to Yang (Fortune)  "It took a tongue-lashing from Congress before these high-tech titans did the right thing and coughed up some concrete assistance for the family of a journalist whom Yahoo! had helped send to jail...What a disgrace."  Former California Congressman Tom Lantos, after Yang appeared before a Congressional committee to discuss why Yahoo! had turned over details of two Chinese journalists' Internet activity to Chinese authorities (San Francisco Chronicle)  "In my opinion, you might have to get rid of Jerry and part of the board to bring back Microsoft."  Activist Investor and Yahoo!

shareholder Carl Icahn, after Yang turned down Microsoft's 2008 buyout offer (New York Times) Jerry Yang, David Filo and Yahoo.com's History 22 Today we will lead you to a new world, the kingdom of Yahoo.com . It is of the most important players in the history of the Internet and possibly the largest existing portal which is inspired by the story of two young entrepreneurs . How Yahoo.com Was Started In the spring of 1994 Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen founded Mosaic Communications. At that time Jerry Yang and David Filo were just graduated students who were looking for a job . In a busy office, located at the campus of Stanford University and not far from the laboratories where Sun Microsystems, Cisco and Silicon Graphics had once started to create a history, Yang and Filo used to spend their afternoons devoted to surfing on the Web. Filo was the one who discovered the existence of the Mosaic browser shortly after it had appeared on the Web. They were both attracted by the new browser. In order to keep track of all the visited pages by topic, they made their ‘Jerry’s fast track to Mosaic’.

It was divided into topics such as News, Health, Science, Arts, Recreation, Business and Economics. Yahoo Inc. – Logo Simply a consumer service, nothing more than an exhaustive index to all who had the direction of Yang and Filo’s Guide in Stanford’s computer network. It was mostly text, devoid of flashy graphics and flashing icons. He was armed by hand, included searches of Web pages that otherwise had time to locate. The Mosaic browser, created by Andreessen and his friends from Illinois, was the product of a fine technology and ultimate design features. According to many writers who focus their books on the history of the Silicon Valley and thriving companies, including the present web hero, Yang and Filo created the expanded directory, because they were surprised by the fact that nobody had ever thought of compiling the information. ‘Jerry’s fast track to Mosaic’ became a well known name such as Wal-Mart and the subsequent replacements were not much better, “Jerry Yang’s Guide to the WWW” and “Jerry and Dave’s Guide to the World Wide Web “. Yang and Filo decided to substitute all of them with something more suitable for humans’ perceptions. Yahoo ! – this is undoubtedly a word that conveys such a meaning.

This is how today’s most famous web directory has been created. See also: When Did Twitter Start? How Jack Dorsey Founded The Company Both Yang and Filo received a lucrative offer from a group of investors who were willing to give one million dollars for Yahoo!, but they rejected the proposal, because they were sure that they would go further and establish a proper business model . This turned out to be one of the wisest decisions they had made and Yahoo would become one of the most successful companies in the field of technology in the next few years. Later other directories appeared on the Internet: Lycos, Infoseek, Architext, WebCrawler, some of which were more suitable for certain searches, but none of them managed to reach the number of followers of Yahoo. Yahoo’s Growth Yahoo’s traffic surpassed the 100,000 “hits” per day in the late 1994 and they started only with several thousands per day at the start of the official launch of the site . Yang and Filo could safely say they created more activity on the Web than anyone else in the world and this was done with zero marketing . As it usually happens with successful companies and brilliant ideas, what began as a hobby transformed quickly into a concern.

In the spring of 1995, Sequoia Capital, a venture capital company invested in Yahoo! 2 million dollars for 25% stake in the company. According to these numbers, Yahoo was worth $ 8 million. This proved to be the best deal in the history of Silicon Valley in these times. After Yahoo! began trading on the stock market, the value of a million dollars became almost $ 8000 million in the early 1999. Millions can become billions only in the magic ambiance of the Valley. Yahoo appears near deal to sell core assets Yahoo appears near deal to sell core assets Sophie Estienne Share 1 / 2 The latest Yahoo hacking is the largest on record and comes just months after the internet giant disclosed a separate breach of data from 500 million users The latest Yahoo hacking is the largest on record and comes just months after the internet giant disclosed a separate breach of data from 500 million users (AFP Photo/Ethan Miller) Yahoo is set to announce a deal to sell its core online assets, ending a 20-year run as an independent company for the internet pioneer.

Multiple reports said Yahoo, which introduced many users around the world to the internet, would be selling its main assets for $4.8 billion to telecom giant Verizon. The New York Times said the deal would exclude the hefty Yahoo stakes in Chinese online giant Alibaba and Yahoo Japan and that an announcement was due Monday morning. The online news site Re/Code reported earlier that telecom giant Verizon had emerged as the buyer unless another bidder boosted the price. The deal marks a dramatic fall for Yahoo, one of the best known names of the early internet era, which had a valuation over $100 billion before the dot-com collapse in 2000 and which in 2008 spurned a $44 billion bid from Microsoft. Yahoo has been in restructuring mode for nearly four years under chief executive Marissa Mayer, who came from Google in an effort to help the internet pioneer regain its past glory. The deal would allow Yahoo to separate its main assets from its holdings in Chinese internet giant Alibaba, which accounts for most of Yahoo's $37 billion market value. The exact terms of any acquisition were not clear. Yahoo declined to comment on the process "until we have a definitive agreement," a company statement said.

But any deal would almost certainly include the popular Yahoo News, Mail and other online services used by more than a billion people worldwide. Yahoo remains a major force online, but has lagged its rivals in its ability to "monetize" its audience through advertising that is linked to customers' browsing and other online activities. Several other bidders have been in talks, according to reports, including Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, who is being backed by billionaire Warren Buffett. But Verizon appeared to be the leading candidate, because of its ability to integrate AOL's advertising technology into Yahoo services. "We continue to believe Verizon is the most sensible buyer, to combine with AOL, cut costs and leverage proprietary first-party data," said Daniel Salmon at BMO Capital Markets in a research note. - Keeping Yahoo brand - The Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon would keep the Yahoo brand intact after an acquisition and use the huge online audience to build a rival to Google and Facebook in the field of online advertising. Yahoo earlier this month reported a $440 million quarterly loss, in part because of writedowns on the value of some assets. Mayer declined to comment on any bids at the time but said the company would pursue its reorganization at the same time it negotiates with bidders.

But Yahoo has been under pressure from shareholders to break up the company to "unlock" the value of its holdings in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, and to find a new path for the company after years of sputtering. In April, Yahoo averted a proxy battle for control of the company with a compromise Wednesday that added four new board members, including a hedge fund chief who has been critical of management. The deal was reached with Starboard Value, which had launched a bid to replace the entire board of the Internet giant. Reblog Yahoo! a huge WWW index site - Google Groups Yahoo! a huge WWW index site Showing 1-1 of 1 messages [From the Internet Business Journal, Dec. 1994) One WWW index known as Yahoo ( ) is a gateway to more than 25,000 Internet archives. Over 200,000 Internet members access half a million documents through the Yahoo everyday. You can include your WWW site in this index automatically by filing out an online form.

Yahoo is a free Internet service maintained by Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang Yang to step down after 17 months as Yahoo CEO - SFGate Yang to step down after 17 months as Yahoo CEO Business slumped during his 17-month tenure, and he was blamed for the failure of what was seen as a generous takeover bid by Microsoft Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP Close Image 1 of 3 ** FILE ** In this Nov. 5, 2008 file photo, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang listens to a question at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Yahoo said Monday Nov. 17, 2008 that Yang will step down as the Internet company's CEO as soon as a successor is found. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) Ran on: 11-18-2008 Jerry Yang said he will resign after a successor is found. He will remain on the board. Ran on: 11-18-2008 Jerry Yang said he will resign after a successor is found.

He will remain on the board. less ** FILE ** In this Nov. 5, 2008 file photo, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang listens to a question at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Yahoo said Monday Nov. 17, 2008 that Yang will step down as the Internet company's ... more Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP Image 2 of 3 David Filo and Jerry Yang started Yahoo (a directory for the internet) a year ago and are now taking a leave from their studies at Stanford to set up an office in Mountain View. David Filo and Jerry Yang started Yahoo (a directory for the internet) a year ago and are now taking a leave from their studies at Stanford to set up an office in Mountain View. Photo: Michael Maloney, The Chronicle Image 3 of 3 Yahoo! Inc. CEO Jerry Yang (L) testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Nov. 6, 2007 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. According to a statement by the company Nov. 17, 2008, Yang will step down as CEO once a successor has been selected. less Yahoo! Inc.

CEO Jerry Yang (L) testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Nov. 6, 2007 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. According to a statement by the company Nov. 17, 2008, Yang will step down as ... more Photo: Alex Wong, Getty Images Yang to step down after 17 months as Yahoo CEO 1 / 3 Back to Gallery Yahoo co-founder and Internet pioneer Jerry Yang will resign his post as CEO, the company said Monday, ending a brief, turbulent tenure that was marked by a slumping business and a failed takeover bid by Microsoft Corp. The Sunnyvale Web portal said that a search for a successor has started and that Yang will resign after his replacement is found. Yang took the helm 17 months ago and quickly found himself in a takeover battle with Microsoft Corp. Many investors later blamed Yang for not accepting the Redmond, Wash., software giant's offer of $33 per share - three times more than where Yahoo stock closed Monday - and called for his ouster. Yahoo's board talked with Yang over the past several weeks about the timing of his departure, according to people familiar with the matter.

Executive recruitment firm Heidrick & Struggles was hired to help find a new leader. "We all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level," Roy Bostock , Yahoo's chairman, said in a statement. Yang, 40, will revert to his previous role as "Chief Yahoo," a nebulous position that will allow him to keep his fingers in a number of projects but has no day-to-day management responsibilities. He will also remain on the company's board. "Having set Yahoo on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader," Yang said. "I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation." Yahoo co-founded in 1994 Yang created Yahoo with partner David Filo in 1994 while both were Stanford University graduate students. For virtually all of the company's history, they left the management to others.

When Yang took charge from predecessor Terry Semel , a former Hollywood studio executive in June 2007, Yahoo was already teetering in the face of stiff competition from Google Inc. and its own failure to capitalize on the emerging trend of social networking. He implemented a revival plan with the goal of making the Web portal a must-buy for advertisers and the main starting point for Internet users, but there has been only modest progress. Yahoo suffered serious financial blows, including an advertising partnership with Google that recently fell through after federal regulators threatened to file a lawsuit over antitrust concerns. The global financial crisis added to the company's misery by forcing advertisers to cut spending. Internally, Yahoo is reeling from a mass exodus of executives and plans for a second round of layoffs this year. Yahoo announced Yang's departure after the stock market closed Monday. Before the news, Yahoo's shares closed at $10.63, down 19 cents, or 1.8 percent. Anthony Valencia , an analyst with TCW Group, said that Yang needed to leave given Yahoo's poor performance. He said that he "dropped the ball" on the Microsoft takeover offer and presented no credible plan to revitalize the company. "They need new blood," Valencia said.

No leading candidates have emerged to replace Yang. One person being looked at is Susan Decker , Yahoo's president, although it's unclear whether someone from inside the company would please investors. Other possibilities include Jonathan Miller , a former CEO of AOL , and Dan Rosensweig , a former Yahoo chief operating officer. As have many other analysts, Valencia said that Yahoo is likely to end up being acquired by Microsoft. Investor Carl Icahn has pushed for as much since joining the board this year after the settlement of a brutal proxy fight. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that he is no longer interested in buying the entire company but has left the door open to acquiring only Yahoo's search business. Yahoo is also in talks to buy AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc. , although those discussions haven't advanced for some time. Analyst not surprised Analyst Charlene Li said she was not surprised by Yang's departure, saying the company apparently is trying to boost confidence by a changing of the guard. She said that while some investors called for his dismissal because of the failure of Microsoft and Google deals, the bigger problem for Yang was explaining to the company's employees and the outside world where Yahoo was headed.

"The big issue was, can you articulate where Yahoo was going to win," Li said. "Slowly and surely that vision is coming through, but it's taken a long time to figure out and then communicate." She added: "I think Jerry was a great founder, but I don't believe he was a good CEO." Jerry Yang

Question: Which internet service was set up by David Filo and Jerry Yang in 1994?
Answer: Yahoo