Is Yang right to run Yahoo?

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Still, Yang is seen by the staff as neither a savior nor a great articulator for Yahoo's vision. He's more of a behind-the-scenes man. For that reason, some current and former Yahoo employees also believe that Yang will act as CEO on an interim basis until the company gets back on track or until Decker is ready to take over.

Decker may be the "strategic powerhouse" and "financial wizard" that Semel said she is during the conference call, but Yang brings the technological know-how that neither Semel nor Decker possess, observers noted.

Plus, they said, Yang is beloved by the employees; he's close to engineers; and having served as the face of Yahoo since its inception, he's part of the brand.

"The combination of Sue and Jerry is pretty smart. I think of Jerry as a visionary who helped create the commercial Internet," said Rob Solomon, chief executive of travel Web site SideStep and former vice president and general manager of Yahoo's commerce unit. "Sue is one of the best managers in the world," he added, noting that she serves on the boards of Costco, Intel and Berkshire Hathaway.

"I think Jerry has a good rapport with people at the company and is more tech savvy," said Greg Morrow, former director of product strategy at Yahoo Music and founder of viral video site Pure Video.

"To Terry's credit, he brought some discipline and structure to the company that was much needed at the time and created a monetization strategy," Morrow said. "Now they just need to bolster their product credibility vis a vis some of the up-and-comers and Google...This changing of the guard will help."

Semel, recruited from Warner Bros. in 2001 where he was CEO, was criticized at last week's shareholder meeting for the company's lackluster financial results of late. A proposal to link his compensation--totaling about $70 million despite his $1 annual salary, making him one of the highest paid CEOs in America--with the financial performance of the company received a relative large number of votes, representing more than 30 percent support by shareholders. Meanwhile, shareholders re-elected the board with only 66 percent approval, far less than the typical 80 to percent 90 percent approval rate.

It's possible that Yang has learned some management skills from Semel during his tenure. Yang said during the conference call that Semel was his "role model" and "mentor." "I've learned how to become a better leader and a better person," a choked-up Yang said.

Yang said he was honored to be appointed CEO and that he was ready for the challenge. "I know the business and market dynamics well," he said, adding that he had worked over the years to drive the strategy at Yahoo.

Whether Yang will be able to get Yahoo back on course and regain the credibility, market share and leadership it lost when Google raced by is unknown.

"They still have real issues to solve," Sterling said. Yahoo has got to "regain their momentum, and this is a first step in a longer process."

Stefanie Olsen of CNET News.com contributed to this report.

[n3td3v]

Bring back Google search on Yahoo!

Everyone stopped using Yahoo when Yahoo dropped Google as their search engine.

Bring back Google as Yahoo's search engine, at least for the short term, while you work out a new long term business strategy/model.

Yahoo should drop the idea of being a media and content web site and get back to grass roots.

The guy from Warner ruined Yahoo's original business, its time for Yang to bring Yahoo back to basics again, and save the company anymore embarrassments.

[niravabhavsar]

Yang might be the right person.

Nobody else could have been perfect for this job than Yang. He is been in the industry for 12 years and has 4% share in the company. This should give him enough reasons to motivate him to do a turn-around for Yahoo!. think about Apple and Dell. It wasn't until their founders came back that they became industry leaders. Based on the exposure he would have gotten being the "chief yahoo" and working closely with top management; he would surely be able to do it.

[oxtail01]

Another uninformed, racially biased article

Where the hell you came up with the conclusion that Yang "lacks Semel's management expertise and business sense". On what basis do you make this claim except for the fact that Yang doesn't neatly fit into your narrow perception of what a top manager should be? In other words "white"?

[michaelo1966]

Uh...

I think they took this from some Forrester researcher named Charlene Li, who -- given the name -- I strongly doubt harbors anti-Asian feelings.

Where that analyst probably got it from, which is equally stupid, is that Yang is "only" a company founder and engineer, rather than a professional MBA-type. As far as I can see the only skill professional MBA-s seem to have is cashing large paychecks while "winding down" businesses others have created.

[elinormills]

Race is not an issue

Semel was co-CEO of Warner Brothers, where he worked for 24 years; he had management stints at other companies and serves on numerous boards; and at 64 has much more management experience than Yang, 38, who led Yahoo for a short while in its early days when it was much smaller. The same could be said of David Filo, who is caucasian.