Jerry Yang's $500 Million Bet

[Michael]

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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[thenetfool]

You know my feeling on this: Breaking News - Microsoft Walks Away From Yahoo Deal | The Net Fool

I'm frustrated at Yang, he completely screwed all of the Yahoo shareholders out of a good deal. A. I can't believe that stubborn, arrogant Ballmer actually budged enough to bump up the bid to $33 per share.. but to have Yang reject that is beyond me!

Yahoo isn't worth $18 a share, much less $37. He put his own, now bad, reputation in front of everyone who gave a damn about Yahoo... and now they are going to all suffer the consequences. Shares of Yahoo of course nosedived 15% the next day, but that's not even enough. I see them trading under 20.

It's good for Microsoft to walk, I'm just frustrated at how stupid Yang was.

[konquer]

Since I don't own any shares in Yahoo! I don't really care much. :P

But why would you want Micro$oft to have ANY share in Yahoo!?
lol, It's Micro$oft. Get real.


Partnership with google would be interesting. Yahoo! and Google are like main competitors.
Wouldn't it be good to have a google with the news coverage that Yahoo! provides?