“My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life,” Yang wrote in a letter. “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.”
The former Chief Yahoo, who owns a 3.6 percent stake of the Sunnyvale, California-based company, had served on Yahoo’s board of directors since March 1995. Yahoo, a website that began as “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” went public in 1996. Yang served as Yahoo’s CEO from June 2007 to January 2009, when Carol Bartz was hired, following the controversial rejection of a Microsoft buyout.