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© History Oasis / Created via Midjourney
(1995-2001)
Yahoo’s first CEO, also a jazz bassist, transformed what was a Stanford directory into a billion-dollar company.
He oversaw the 1996 IPO, which saw stock prices jump by 270% on day one.
Koogle had Yahoo acquire GeoCities for $3.6 billion and Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion.
The stock peaked at $475 per share in 2000 before crashing 90% during the dot-com collapse.
Koogle stepped down as the bubble burst.
(2001-2007)
Terry Semel was a former Warner Bros executive who brought Hollywood sensibilities to Silicon Valley.
He had some interesting personality quirks—notoriously, he never used email personally—assistants printed messages for him.
He grew revenue from $717 million to $6.4 billion and made Yahoo’s most valuable investment: $1 billion for 40% of Alibaba in 2005.
But he made a couple of mistakes.
Semel rejected a $1 billion Facebook acquisition and a $3 billion Google purchase.
He resigned after taking $71.7 million in compensation while stock prices fell.
(2007-2009)
Jerry Yang was one of Yahoo’s co-founders who returned when the stock price was plummeting.
Born in Taiwan, Yang moved to America at age 10, knowing only the word “shoe” in English.
He successfully rejected Microsoft’s $44.6 billion acquisition offer in 2008.
This decision devastated shareholder value—within months, Yahoo was worth a fraction of the offer.
His tenure ended with Yahoo’s stock down 60%.
(2009-2011)
Carol Bartz is a former Autodesk CEO who arrived with a reputation for blunt talk.
At Yahoo, she cut costs, improved margins, and outsourced search to Microsoft.
But the board fired her via phone call in September 2011.
Bartz said the board “f***ed me over.”
A cancer survivor who returned to work weeks after mastectomy, she earned $47.2 million in 2010 while Yahoo continued declining.
(2012)
PayPal’s former president lasted 130 days—Yahoo’s shortest tenure.
Thompson’s resume scandal ended his career when activist investor Daniel Loeb exposed Thompson’s fake computer science degree. He actually held an accounting degree.
Thompson resigned in disgrace, collecting $7.3 million for four months’ work.
He later revealed a thyroid cancer diagnosis kept private during the scandal.
(2012-2017)
Google’s 20th employee and first female engineer, at 37, became the youngest woman to lead a Fortune 500 company.
Mayer acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion (later sold for $3 million) and banned remote work while building a personal nursery next to her office.
Two massive data breaches affecting 3 billion accounts occurred under her watch, disclosed years later.
She departed when Yahoo was sold to Verizon for $4.8 billion.
(2021-present)
After Apollo Global Management’s acquisition, Jim Lazone, a Tinder and CBS Interactive CEO, took charge.
His focus so far has been on revitalizing Yahoo Finance and Sports through AI integration.
He had previously transformed Ask.com and spearheaded CBS’s streaming services.
His UCLA law degree and digital media expertise will hopefully help Yahoo become one of the tech giants it once was.
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