Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang will step down as CEO and return to his former role as Chief Yahoo once the board of directors finds a replacement. Yang assumed the CEO role at the Board’s request in June 2007. He has led Yahoo through a strategic repositioning and transformation of its platform. 2008 has been a rough year for Yahoo with troubles in M&A with Microsoft, the Google ad deal and the newspaper consortium deal. Along the way, critics say Yahoo has lost the strength of the brand in losing focus. Once viewed as the enemy of traditional media during the heady startup days of the dot com boom, now that Yahoo has cast its lot with traditional media and no one has seen a payout, one wonders how traditional media will fare if the demise continues.
Advertisement