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Jerry Yang's $500 Million Bet

Yahoo! Chief Executive Jerry Yang is so confident his company has a star-bright future without Microsoft, he's bet his job and more than $500 million dollars on it.

Yang--who owns slightly more than 54 million shares of Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people )in his name and through a family partnership--would have collected $1.7 billion in a sale to Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ).

Microsoft and Yang were unable to agree on a price, and Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer feared that even if he won, the costs of the battle would render it senseless by the end. Yang, confident in his company's future, fought Ballmer all the way, and wanted $37 per share. Microsoft wouldn't budge above $33 and yanked the offer Saturday.

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