nerdhook

Jerry Yang will be stepping down as CEO at Yahoo, while the board conducts a search for his replacement via headhunter.

Turning down a $33 per share offer from Microsoft in May certainly looks foolish now; Yahoo! shares closed Monday at $10.63 (although, in after-hours at least, traders are taking favorably to the news of Yang’s departure). It would take years for Yahoo! to reach that level of market capitalization strictly through organic growth. The board and shareholders were obviously not pleased with Yang’s stubbornness with regards to the Microsoft negotiations, the eventual failure of the Google ad agreement, and his general lack of vision for the company itself.

Of course the irony is that the weaker Yang has made the company, the more susceptible it is to takeover. With someone new in place, Microsoft could be back in the picture.