Jerry Yang ( ; born November 6 1968) is an American entrepreneur and the Co-founder, CEO and Chief Yahoo! of Yahoo! Inc. As of 2008, his net worth is estimated to be US$2.3 billion and is ranked 524th among the richest people in the world according to Forbes.

Early life

Born in Taipei, Taiwan on November 6, 1968, Yang moved to San Jose, California at the age of ten, with his mother and brother. His father died when Yang was two. He claimed that despite his mother being an English teacher, he only knew one English word (shoe) on his arrival. Mastering the English language in only three years, he was soon placed into an AP English class.

Yang graduated from Sierramont Middle School, and Piedmont Hills High School, then went on to receive his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

Career

While he studied in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, he co-created in April 1994 with David Filo an Internet website consisting of a directory of other websites called "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web". It was renamed "Yahoo!" (an exclamation). Yahoo became very popular, Yang and Filo realized the business potential and co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in April 1995. They took a leave of absence and postponed their doctoral programs indefinitely.

Yahoo! started off as a web portal with a web directory to providing an extensive range of products and services for online activities, it is now one of the leading internet brands and has the most trafficked network on the internet.fix: text=citation needed

Personal life

Jerry Yang considers himself a Chinese American. Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, who was raised in Costa Rica. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in industrial engineering. The couple met at the Stanford in Kyoto overseas program in 1992.

Yang is currently on the Board of Directors of Alibaba, the Asian Pacific Fund, Cisco and Yahoo! Japan, and is also on the Stanford University Board of Trustees.

Philanthropy

In February 2007, Jerry Yang and his wife gave USD $75 million to Stanford University, their alma mater, the bulk of which went to building the "Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building."

Criticism

Jerry Yang was criticized for a statement regarding the role of Yahoo! in the arrest of mainland Chinese journalist Shi Tao by Chinese authorities.

While in China, Shi Tao used a Yahoo email address to notify a pro-democracy website that the Chinese government ordered the Chinese media not to cover the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 on June 4th. Yahoo! provided the Chinese security agencies with the IP addresses of the senders, the recipients and the time of the message. Tao was subsequently convicted for “divulging state secrets abroad.” Yang was heavily criticized and Reporters Without Borders called Yahoo! “a Chinese police informant” whose actions led to the conviction of a journalist and writer.