Yahoo! CEO to step down

Yahoo! co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang has decided to step down from his position as soon as the Internet giant finds a replacement.

Yang, however, will remain on the board and is leading the search for a replacement with Chairman Roy Bostock.

This comes as no surprise following two major setbacks for the company this year. First of all, merger negotiations with Microsoft fell apart and Google recently pulled out of a potentially lucrative advertising partnership.

Many of Yahoo!'s shareholders were a little aggrieved at the way Yang handled the talks with Microsoft and, as every day passes by, one can understand exactly why – Yahoo! stock is worth only a third of the $33 Microsoft offered to pay when it was pondering an acquisition of the company.

Yahoo! stock rose by four percent in after market trading following the announcement and some analysts believe that if Yang hadn't been a founder, his tenure as CEO would have ended much sooner. Another analyst from UBS, quoted by the Associated Press, still believes that Microsoft will eventually own Yahoo! – Yang stepping down from his role as CEO will apparently accelerate this process.

The question is though: has Yang's decision to outstay his welcome done far too much damage to a company that was last taken seriously many moons ago? Share your thoughts in the forums.

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