Who can tell me something about Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang?

abstract

Yang Zhiyuan was born on1October 8th in Taibei, Taiwan Province Province, China. His father died when he was two years old, and he and his younger brother were raised by his mother. My mother is a professor of English and drama. She led two boys to California to seek a better environment for their children to grow up. When Yang Zhiyuan 10 years old, he immigrated to the United States with his brother and mother and settled in San Jose, California, taking the English name Yang Zhiyuan; .

When he first arrived in the United States, Yang Zhiyuan's English foundation was almost zero. The only English word he knew at that time was Shoe. But after a period of running-in, he quickly integrated into this "foreign country." At that time he went to school and worked as a newsboy. Several years later, he recalled such a past event. Yang Zhiyuan said that life is like hell. After this difficult and dark day, Yang Zhiyuan entered Stanford University not far from home with an excellent score of 1990. The electrical engineering department of the school is a part of China in Silicon Valley. He took electrical engineering as an elective. It took him only four years to get his bachelor's degree and master's degree, and he met David? Philo, the two founded Yahoo on April 1994! Therefore, Yang Zhiyuan is called "the first person in the century's network", which opened the network era of human beings.

Wealth: 1997 was listed on the rich list of Fortune magazine,1April, 998, with a value as high as $8 billion.

Modem: 1997. He still uses a 28.8K modem to surf the Internet. He said that only in this way can we feel the real experience of users.

Favorite sports: sumo wrestling, playing basketball, hiking and cycling.

Favorite band: Couting growth；; Hutty and puffer fish

I like a bowl of Vietnamese beef noodles in 4 yuan.

Dress: linen shirt; Khaki pants

Start Yahoo!

At Stanford University. People who are familiar with him think that Yang is not diligent or even a little lazy in his studies, but he is active in thinking and sociable, and he is the leader of university clubs, which undoubtedly exercises his organizational ability as a business leader in the future.

When he graduated from college, he felt that he was not mature enough, so he stayed at school to do research. As it happens, david filo also stayed at school to do research. The encounter and friendship between the two are undoubtedly the key factors for Yahoo's success.

Yang Zhiyuan and Ferro are old friends. Ferro 1988 graduated from tulane university and served as the teaching assistant of coach Yang Zhiyuan. Yang Zhiyuan, who always got an "A", actually got a "B" in Judge Ferro's pen, and Yang Zhiyuan is still bitter about it. Later, they took classes in the same class and cooperated in business. Taking this as a starting point, the two became the best partners. Philo is a brooding and ostentatious person, while Yang Zhiyuan is active and a community leader. Ferro is good at sorting out the information on the screen. He has a feeling that he can rule the world as long as he is in front of the terminal. Ferro's lab is like a place ravaged by a storm. Yang Zhiyuan's residence is relatively clean, but there is no computer operation plan. Their laboratories are adjacent. Soon, the two signed up for Japan. There, they all became foreigners, and their friendship grew day by day. After returning to Stanford, they set up a small office in the school trailer.

1In April, 1994, Yang Zhiyuan and Philo, who were still studying at Stanford University, fell in love with the Internet and searched for information on the Internet all day. In this process, they collected a lot of interesting websites and added them to bookmarks, such as scientific research projects, tennis competitions and so on, so as to facilitate the search.

However, as more and more websites are collected, they find it inconvenient to find them, so they sort these bookmarks and subdivide them into subdirectories when there is no space in each directory. This core approach is still a tradition of Yahoo. It is compiled into software and put on the Internet for other surfers to enjoy. Soon, their website attracted many users and received great attention and wide welcome. People gave feedback and attached constructive opinions to make the content more perfect. If there were not so many foreign responses, we would not have continued, let alone Yahoo today. In the winter of 1994, they were so busy that eating and sleeping became a luxury and their studies were put aside. At that time, the name of this software was: Jerrys's World Wide Web Guide.

With the increasing popularity and attention of the guide, many netizens entered the workstation of electrical engineering department of Stanford University to use this software, which brought great trouble to the school and complained that this invention affected the normal operation of the school computer. However, Yang Zhiyuan and Philo are still working hard for this. They have launched special columns: "Cool Links" and "Unbelievable" and renamed the website: "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web". Limited by the conditions at that time, the data of the website were stored in Yang Zhiyuan's computer, nicknamed "Akbono"; The search engine is stored in Felo's computer and nicknamed "Little Ximu", which is the name of their two favorite wrestlers.

At that time, there were many competitors on the Internet, such as WebCrawler, Lycos, Worm, Infoseek and so on. These websites are all started by software automatic search, which is extensive but inaccurate. Yahoo, on the other hand, is handmade, which makes the search more accurate and practical. In fact, by the end of 1994, Yahoo had become the leader of search engines.

/kloc-one night in 1995, Yang Zhiyuan and Ferro consulted Webster's dictionary and named their products. Among them, "Ya" is taken from the surname of. They imagined a series of possible names, such as Yauld, Yammer, Yardage, Yang, Yapok, Yardbird, Yataghan, Yawn and Yaxis. Suddenly, they thought of this letter combination of Yahoo, and then quickly opened the Webster's English dictionary at hand and found that the word came from Swift's Gulliver's Travels, which refers to a. This word is obviously not elegant, but when you think about it, "it is used in the opposite sense." On the internet, which emphasizes equal rights, everyone is a bumpkin. In order to increase the color of praise, an exclamation point was added at the back, so there was "Yahoo!" . "Yes, that's great, that's it. It's an Oracle! "

Yang Zhiyuan and his partner will Yahoo! The website told a friend, and the result was widely circulated. Visit Yahoo at Stanford University Workstation! More and more people have brought great troubles to the school, complaining that this thing has affected the normal operation of the school computer.

Yahoo has become a search engine similar to the phone book, which divides the global websites into news, entertainment, science and education 14 categories, and then subdivides them into the following categories. Internet surfers can make it easy to surf the internet when you can't.

With the rapid increase of traffic, Yang Zhiyuan keenly discovered the huge business opportunities contained in it, so they carefully built their own websites and actively looked for potential investors to further develop Yahoo!

1995 In the first half of the year, Yang Zhiyuan began to contact venture capital companies in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is a paradise for venture capital. On average, one company goes public every day, and an average of 62 people are sent to the ranks of millionaires every day.

The first company that came to your door was Reuters. Tai Sen, deputy director of Reuters Marketing Department, once went out and read a report about Yahoo in the local newspaper, which made him interested. He will often visit Yahoo's website online in the future. Tai Sen soon realized that Yahoo had eliminated the distance and established the connection between users and the information they wanted to find, which Reuters could use to expand its influence. Yang Zhiyuan said to Tai Sen, "If you don't look for us, we may look for you, too. Yahoo is not only a catalog, but also a media asset. "

Reuters and Yahoo are friends, but not partners. Yahoo has not gained much benefit in the process of cooperation. The clever Yang Zhiyuan realized that he must make a careful business plan by himself and make a profit through advertising. Yang found Brady, an old classmate studying at Harvard Business School. Yang and Brady quickly drafted a business plan with reference to HotWired's experience in advertising profitability. With this plan, they looked for venture capitalists everywhere.

They look for business opportunities while maintaining the expanding network resources, and only sleep for 4 hours every day.

Yang Zhiyuan recalled: "This job is very hard, but it is full of fun. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to jump off a cliff, and sometimes I feel like I'm in the movie Selma and Louis, and I don't know how it ends. We want to do everything with the internet, but we may not be able to do anything. But we don't care, we won't lose anything. "

Then AOL came to you. The world's largest commercial online service company just lacks a search engine, and I hope Yahoo can take this responsibility. AOL's intention is to buy Yahoo, make Yang and Ferro their employees and make them rich. But they also threatened that if they didn't sell Yahoo, they would support another engine company to squeeze Yahoo.

After careful consideration, the two rejected AOL. They want to run Yahoo by themselves, and it's not entirely a matter of making money. Yahoo is a carefully cultivated business. It is a pleasure to create and maintain Hu Ya. They are their own masters. In addition, they are worried that selling Yahoo to AOL may eventually destroy Yahoo.

Later, Yang Zhiyuan negotiated with MCI, Microsoft and CNet, but only got funding from Netscape. Mark anderson of Netscape liked Yahoo's website directory very much at that time. 1995, 1 In June, 2006, he pointed one of the most important buttons of Netscape browser-online search to Yahoo. When the user of Netscape browser presses that button, he will be automatically taken to Yahoo's website. The success of Netscape browser made Yahoo quickly famous on the Internet.

AOL finally acquired WebCrawler (a company that has been engaged in index search service for a long time), and the browsers of AOL and BNN (an Internet service provider acquired BNN(AOL)) all pointed to it. But compared with Yahoo, WebCrawler lacks features and its influence is declining.

Finally, Yang Zhiyuan found Sequoia Capital, the most prestigious venture capital company in Silicon Valley. He has invested in companies such as Apple (leading the personal computer revolution), Atari (the leader in the video game industry), aarak (a large database supplier) and Cisco Systems (a network hardware supplier).

However, Maurizi of Sequoia hesitated at first because Yahoo is so different from Netscape. Yahoo itself is only "providing services online" and it is free. Where is its commercial potential?

So far, Maurize recalled his visit to Yahoo 1995 in June! The original "office" scene still relishes: "It's really a mess. Yang Zhiyuan and his partner are sitting in a small room. The server has been heating up. The answering machine rings every minute. Pizza boxes were thrown all over the floor. The golf clubs are casually placed in the corner. The phone was thrown on the floor. There is not even a chair in the whole room. The room was dark and dirty clothes were everywhere. I think Yang Zhiyuan and Ferro probably can't tell the difference between innocent day and night. "

However, Maurize was not scared away. Jerry Yang and Philo finally persuaded him, "These boys really have a good eye and seized a favorable position on the Internet. If it develops smoothly, it has obvious strategic advantages. This new thing contains huge business opportunities! " 1April 1995 Sequoia invested nearly $2 million in Yahoo. It is the first and only venture capitalist of Yahoo. Later, Sequoia's share capital has appreciated to $3.4 billion. "Everything else has become history." They said.

After Sequoia Capital Company decided to invest, Yang Zhiyuan 1995 gave up his doctorate and founded Yahoo! Company and Yahoo brand; At that time, the title printed on Jerry Yang's business card was CEO of Yahoo! (Chief Yahoo)

At the same time, Sequoia Capital also found a suitable general manager candidate-Tim? Kugger is also an alumnus of Stanford. With Kugger in charge of management affairs, Philo and Yang Zhiyuan can concentrate on their research work. Later, Ferro was in charge of technology development and Yang Zhiyuan was in charge of external public relations.

Of course, Yahoo's most valuable products are Jerry Yang and Philo. Yang Zhiyuan is extroverted and often indulges in the past. Philo, on the other hand, is very introverted and always tries to refuse interviews with reporters. "They are really selfless." Allen. Smir said. He is a veteran of Yahoo and vice president of business development and strategic planning. "Even the recently recruited employees feel at home and dare to knock on the door and chat with them." Colleagues think that Jerry Yang is an energetic and sensitive prophet, and Philo is the soul of Yahoo, and he is considerate in every detail.

Yahoo! The establishment of the company undoubtedly injected more passion and encouragement into the two young people and began to commercialize the online search engine. During the initial period of the company, Yang Zhiyuan rented relevant equipment from mark anderson Netscape Company, including telephone lines, four silicon graphics workstations, four Pentium computers and a T3 special line. Yang Zhiyuan's "Yahoo!" Index software is provided to users free of charge, and the company's profit mainly depends on advertising revenue.

Because few companies were able to provide free information retrieval services at that time, Yahoo! Widely recognized by the market. Daily "Yahoo!" Add more than 200 new directories to the software. Because "Yahoo!" The retrieval system is really convenient, the prospects are generally good, and the advertising revenue is also quite optimistic.

But Yahoo! Still facing fierce market competition, we must find funds as soon as possible and develop as soon as possible!

1in the autumn of 995, Yahoo had to launch the second round of investment war. Although there was a lot of advertising revenue before, the amount converted into cash was extremely limited. At this time, a Japanese consortium Softbank began to invest in Yahoo, bringing Yang Zhiyuan's company to a new stage. Masayoshi Son, president of Softbank, met Yahoo through Sequoia. Yang Zhiyuan is very excited to learn that Softbank will invest, which is the best time to create Yahoo in Japan.

1995165438+10 In October, Softbank finally bought 5% of Yahoo's shares (after which it increased its holdings significantly). The two companies soon established a joint venture company Yahoo Japan. The implementation of Yahoo's second round of investment has enabled it to expand its services and successfully cope with some unfavorable realities. Netscape's navigator quickly changed the default configuration of the "Internet Directory" button to point to Yahoo's competitor Architext, while the navigator's second button "Internet Search" pointed to InfoSeek for a long time. Yang Zhiyuan began to bargain with Netscape, and Netscape made a suggestion: search engines are arranged in alphabetical order.

"This is the worst advice, because the Yahoo engine starts with the letter Y! The change of Netscape reduced Yahoo's information retrieval traffic by 10%, but Yahoo quickly overcame the difficulties. At this time, Softbank has made great strides into the Internet, and only Yahoo has invested 60 million US dollars.

Yahoo! What is the direction? After several months of thinking, Yang Zhiyuan thinks that Yahoo is not only a website that provides classified catalogues, but a new media. Thousands of people through Yahoo! Entering the information superhighway is a necessary gateway.

This kind of thinking and thinking is innovative and pioneering! The direct consequence is that Yang Zhiyuan decided to go public, make an initial public offering, and then use the listed funds to develop Yahoo faster!

Facts have proved that Yang Zhiyuan's thoughts and actions are correct! He leads Yahoo! Go to a broad road! It also brought mankind from the door into the network age! Therefore, it is called "the first person in the century network"

On March 7th, 1996, Yahoo shares were officially listed. Although its two major competitors Lycos and Excite ranked first, this day was still rated as "Wall Street Incident". It was officially traded on April 12, which coincided with Friday. The stock was initially priced at 13 USD. However, the trading frenzy, with an average of 6 transactions per hour, soared to $43 and finally closed at $33. Yahoo's market value reached $850 million, 200 times that of Sequoia Capital. Created a record of "the second largest first-day increase in nasdaqs history".

1April, 1996, the first international version of Yahoo-Yahoo Japan Station was established, followed by Yahoo sub-stations in France, Germany, Canada and Britain. The effect of the first brand is gradually emerging, but Yang Zhiyuan is not keen on all kinds of predictions. He said he would definitely cooperate with Yahoo for at least five years. "I like my present job very much. I don't even think this is a job. " "Will originally be a technology, computer crazy world, and the mass media together. I think Ferro and I and our working group are the first people to combine the two. " "We are like the first person to jump off a helicopter and slide down a snowy slope, just like landing on the moon. Although I haven't really experienced it, I believe it must be a great feeling. "

"When we started our business, we knew that none of us would be CEOs, and we knew that none of us would listen to each other, so we had to have a third party to arbitrate." They are going to find a professional CEO. Someone knocked at the door, but he said, "The first thing I did when I took office was to change my name." Hearing this, the two men immediately opened the door to see Fu Jian. Today, their title is "Chief Yahoo" and the company's first "portal".

"If we were for money, then we might have sold Yahoo long ago. I can tell you a secret. I watch the stock market at the close of every day, and I don't know how many stocks I have. I'm not yet 30 years old. I don't want money, I don't want money, and I don't want sharpness. All my money is on the books, all in stocks, and the amount is very large. It seems that I don't believe this is true. "

After the success of IPO, Yang Zhiyuan's commercial potential began to explode. Yang Zhiyuan has realized at this time that search engines are just the tip of the iceberg of new media. He believes that in order to let users come, we must desperately promote the brand. He decided to do a lot of publicity in traditional media, and he wanted to build and expand this Yahoo! Brand. He almost reached the point of fanaticism for this purpose. From the beginning, it spent $5 million on TV advertisements, which became the largest check written by the company at that time. Stock quotes, maps, chat rooms, news, weather forecast, sports news, yellow pages, etc. , so that users can't see things. This idea predates his competitors by six months. In the Internet age, six months is enough to do anything.

Yahoo! The slogan is you Yahoo! Comparable to Nike's Just Do It. This slogan was bombarded by radio stations, TV stations, magazines and newspapers. You can see Yahoo online or not! A striking sign.

"Yahoo! Cool, it is not a technology company, but a brand and a culture, which makes Yahoo! Extremely cool! " Wall Street analysts commented.

Others said: Yahoo! The coolness is mainly Yang Zhiyuan and his friends. Their self-made legend is the focus of countless media attention, Yahoo! It was built according to his wishes: independence, youth, creativity and humility.

Yahoo! The real advantage of our company is that it has a super-strong staff. They are very young, and both have received college education. They classify websites accurately and meticulously, and it is difficult for opponents to imitate them. The general portal has only two or three floors, while Yahoo! There are more than ten floors.

Advertisers swarmed in. News, telephone yellow pages, classified ads, online mall, Yahoo! Our service has created a new generation of media.

By the end of the second quarter of 1996, 2 million netizens visited Yahoo every day, totaling14 million times a day. 75% of them are repeat customers. But Yang Zhiyuan is not satisfied with just having a brand that can attract repeat customers. He said, "If we were a software tool company, we would be crushed by Microsoft. If we are a publication with a group of loyal readers like Time Magazine, we will develop for a long time. "

1996 in the first quarter, compared with its competitors Infoseek, Excite and Lycos, Yahoo's daily visits exceeded twice that of its competitors. By the end of 1997, the average daily traffic reached more than 90 million, exceeding the sum of all competitors' traffic. Even Infoseek's boss has to admit that Yahoo has surpassed other rivals. Indeed, Yahoo is not what it used to be: the company has many admirable management talents, a complete marketing strategy, and the most important cash of $654.38 billion. One analyst said: "Yahoo has been ahead of its peers in many aspects, and it is not appropriate to compare it with other search engines."

1997, Yahoo made a profit of $67 million and lost $23 million. On the books, this company is a complete failure. But on the internet, it is the biggest star. The market value surpassed Netscape and rose to $2.8 billion. 1997 in the third quarter, Yahoo's market value surpassed Netscape, the king of browsers, for the first time.

Yahoo has become the darling of Wall Street, and Yang Zhiyuan's wealth has also risen. Of course, the greatest happiness is not money. "The most beautiful thing is that you are changing the world every day. You wake up every morning and ask,' What am I doing up?' Then you think that if you don't go to work, Yahoo may have problems. The small website we set up at that time is now used by millions of people every day. Whenever we see this situation, we will say,' Wow!' Even a chill. This is really a wonderful feeling. "

1998 In the first half of the year, at least 30 million users visited Yahoo every month! , the daily browsing and downloading volume reaches 1 100 million pages!

1998, Forbes magazine announced the top 100 of high-tech billionaires, and their wealth jumped to 16 with 10 billion dollars, surpassing the CEO Wang and becoming the high-tech billionaire in China.

1April 1999, the official net income was $2,565,438+million, and the income was $8,665,438+million. The company still maintains strong growth.

From 65438 to 0999, Yang Zhiyuan and Ferro have become the helmsmen of online media companies, with a market value of $39 billion, while Yang Zhiyuan's book wealth reached $7.5 billion.

Page views increased from 65,438+65,438+67 million in February of 1998 to 235 million, an increase of 4 1%, and registered users increased from 35 million to 47 million. The growth rate of users in February was the best among the top ten websites, which was twice the average growth rate of the whole network.

Yang Zhiyuan's personality characteristics

Yahoo! This success is inseparable from Yang Zhiyuan's hard work. Clear and agile thinking and unremitting efforts to the cause make him stand out in the IT industry with fierce competition and numerous giants! The approachable style and modest and prudent life have also left a deep impression on the public. Yang Zhiyuan actively participated in various social charity and social activities, gave speeches at famous universities all over the world, told young friends about his growth and success, and became a new generation of intellectual idols. I remember he once said in an interview with CCTV: "I am not afraid of losing. Even if I fail, I have the courage to start again. " The young man's spirit of not being afraid of losing also brought out the essence of this legendary figure.

In today's IT industry, three people ran out to start a company before finishing college, and finally became famous billionaires. Are they Bill? Gates, Mike? Dell and Jerry Yang.

Bill? Gates is the richest man in the world and a leader in the IT industry, but he is older and can be said to be an old man in Lian Po. At least two people-Dell and Jerry Yang-inspired Bill to become a hero.

Interestingly, in history, Dell is more successful than Bill at any age. Yang Zhiyuan seems even more terrible. He quickly completed the process of cooking billionaires. His identity has completely ignored gravity and soared like a rocket-at present, Yang Zhiyuan is the richest man in American Chinese.

Compared with the stories of Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford, which took a lifetime to complete the original accumulation, the experience of Dell and Yang Zhiyuan is really a myth, and their speed of gathering wealth is unprecedented.

More importantly, they are spokesmen for new values. They are young and creative. They wear jeans and T-shirts to work and work barefoot in the workshop. They never like giving orders and hate the power class. This makes them fashionable and appear crazily on the cover of magazines.

Fortune Global Forum held its annual meeting in Shanghai. Bill? Gates didn't come, and Dale Yang Zhiyuan was invited. Among the well-behaved and gentle presidents, they are different.

Yang Zhiyuan is still wearing jeans and a T-shirt in the well-dressed crowd, completely like a man next door. Although Dell wears a suit and tie, he doesn't sit still like other CEOs in the CCTV studio. As soon as he came on stage, he crossed his legs. His body language tells others that he is just chatting with you in the street and talking about some interesting topics.

Yang Zhiyuan obviously has a higher degree of attention. The young man was taken special care of by his compatriots. He told reporters that he came to Shanghai from Beijing to buy economy class. He was very happy when he got on the plane, and somehow he became first class.

Some people say that if you look up the history of computers, there are only four people from China-Wang An in front, Wang Heshi in the middle, and the newcomer. Different from the painstaking efforts of Wang An and others, our success is considered accidental.

Critics regard this accident as the inevitability of the Internet age. They quoted Yang Zhiyuan as saying: Everyone said that there were many opportunities in the United States, but at that time, no one could have expected the opportunity to come, just like Yahoo.

But Yang Zhiyuan told reporters that opportunities are accidental, but success is not the case. It takes a lot of effort for you to turn a hobby into a career.

Yang Zhiyuan said, "I like my present job. What excites me most is that I can integrate the traditional world into the new era. " "Run Yahoo! It feels like the man who was thrown from the helicopter and then skied on the mountain. He doesn't know where there are trees and cliffs. I won't lose anything. I started from scratch. I don't care even if I'm empty-handed. "

"Maybe it's strange for me to say this, but I really don't think I have succeeded yet." Yang Zhiyuan said. "I still have a lot of things to do ... so I should continue to be modest and persistent." "We seldom have time to reflect on what we have done. However, once I have time, I will pay close attention to the partners who participate in Yahoo. Looking at them, I feel proud and satisfied. "