jerry yang

Destiny and hard work play a vital role in the success of a person. Not neglecting the hard work, to achieve something big, you have to be at the right place at the right time. The Taiwanese-American Internet entrepreneur, Jerry Yang had his circumstances, that brought him from Taiwanese to California, when he just knew a single word from Engish, i.e. Shoe. It took him only three years to master the language. As soon he became proficient with English, his aptitude proved his excellence in other fields too.

Early Life

Yang was born on 6 November 1968, as Yang Chih-Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan, to an English professor mother. He lost his father at the age of two. Yang was just ten, when his mother, along with him and his younger brother, moved to San Jose, California, in 1978. His mother taught English to the other immigrants, and the two children grew with their grandparents.

Yang joined the United States Educational System in San Jose, where he excelled at every other subject. His remarkable performance made his teachers to put him in advanced classes for gifted students. He attended the Stanford University, where he earned the bachelor’s as well as the master’s degree in electrical engineering, just in four years. In 1989, at the university, he met his future partner and a fellow Stanford student, David Filo.

Founding Yahoo!

During the time, Yang was studying at the Stanford University, the internet was making its base in the city of San Jose. Yang became familiar with this new technology and decided to learn more about it. In 1994, he along with his friend David Filo created a web directory, that included the names and addresses of other websites. The two, named the website, as Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. After a few months, it became popular and was renamed as Yahoo Inc.!! Within a few months, the website gained 100,000 unique visitors.

With the increasing popularity, Sequoia Capital became its first official investor by investing $2 million in the venture. Yang and Filo becoming the Chief Yahoo appointed Tim Koogle as the first CEO of the company. Within one year of Yahoo’s launch, it gained the attention of other venture capitalists too, gaining more and more fundings.

In 1998, Yahoo was the most popular starting point for web users, and by 2004, Yahoo had its own search software. In 2007, Yang replaced the second CEO of Yahoo, Terry Semel and served as the CEO for two years. In 2012, Yang left Yahoo.

Share in Alibaba

In 1997, Yang had gone for a trip to China, where he met the founder of Alibaba; Jack Ma. At the time Jack Ma was working as a government employed tour guide and had taken Yang to the Great Wall of China. Their meeting included a conversation based on the development of the web. And after a few months, Jack Ma started working on Alibaba.

In 2005, Yang made Yahoo buy a 40% stake in Alibaba paying $1 billion. Yahoo, under Yang’s direction also bought the assets of Yahoo! China, for $700 million. Later, there was an alteration in the shares, as Yahoo sold a small portion of it, later buying another portion from the Alibaba stakes, again.

Yang as an Angel Capitalist

In 2015, Yang started his capital venture named as AME Cloud Ventures. According to another venture capitalist, Rob Solomon, Yang was “a great founder, evangelist, strategist and mentor”, having “created the blueprint for what is possible on the Internet. Till date, Yang has funded over 50 startups including Tango, Evernote, Wattpad, Vectra Networks Inc.

Personal Life

Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, whom he met during his student-exchange program to Japan, in 1992. The two are currently living in Los Altos Hills, California. Yang is the member of the boards of many technology companies and is also involved in philanthropy.