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Having courage does not mean ignoring fear. It means facing fear head-on and doing the right thing anyway. At least that's my definition. If you fail to face fear and act appropriately you're not necessarily a coward, but you're not the best you can be either.

The most successful people on the planet are the ones who face the cold, hard truth of reality and act accordingly. They don't surround themselves with "yes men" and they don't view the world through rose-colored glasses. ... Read more

The Terry Semel era at Yahoo is officially over.

The former Yahoo CEO, who left that position last summer but remained as non-executive chairman of the board, is now out of the company altogether.

Yahoo announced Thursday afternoon that Semel will immediately relinquish his spot on the board.

According to a company statement, Semel began talking with other board members several months ago about stepping down and "targeted the time of the January board meeting for his departure."

Whether that's true or not is something we will likely never know, but one thing's for sure: there are a lot of people who won't miss the Semel era too much.

Of course, the Jerry Yang era hasn't gotten off to too hot a start either. The Yahoo co-founder ascended to the CEO role when Semel left the seat last summer.

Earlier this week, Yahoo announced that it was planning to lay off 1,000 people amidst lower quarterly profits than in the same time period a year earlier.

The company said it had earned $206 million, or 15 cents a share, on $1.4 billion in revenue. And while revenue was up, the profit number was lower than the $269 million it earned a year earlier.

Last June, Semel stepped down from the CEO position he'd held since 2001 after it became clear his leadership was not taking the company where it needed to be.

Now, with layoffs, lower profits and an unsure future, Yahoo, which for years until Google eclipsed it was synonymous with the growth and success of the Internet, is facing an extremely uncertain future and a need to examine and define its true identity.

Eric Jackson helped lead an investor revolt at Yahoo that presaged last month's resignation of former CEO Terry Semel. Don't look now corporate America, but Jackson is again poised to launch his own brand of Web-powered investor activism on a new target.

The CEO of a Naples, Fla.,-based consulting company, Jackson is not ready to disclose which company he's setting his sites on next, but he said Tuesday he plans to announce the name in coming weeks. This much is certain: The man, who challenged Semel during a recent stockholder meeting by asking him to apologize for Yahoo's lackluster performance, will try to rally disgruntled investors via the Internet.

Jackson 's strategy is simple. His goal is to extend the influence of small investors by helping them band together on the Internet. With Yahoo, he launched his grassroots movement in January by attacking Semel in a video he posted to YouTube. He then took to blogging and exchanged ideas with other investors about Yahoo's failings on a wiki.

"Web 2.0 has taught us that the collective is smarter than any one person," Jackson said. "We're hoping there is going to be a lot of interactivity (with the upcoming campaign). It won't just be Eric Jackson's ideas. I want to get the ball rolling and get a lot of people contributing."

It's hard to say for certain what impact Jackson's efforts had on Semel's decision to leave, but Yahoo's board was re-elected last month with only 66 percent approval. Typically boards receive between 80 percent to 90 percent approval.

Poor-performing executive teams should take note. Jackson just might represent a new breed of investor activist, one with a loaded Internet quiver.

When word came Monday that Jerry Yang was replacing the embattled Terry Semel as CEO of Yahoo, we couldn't help flashing back all the way to last week to the company's annual shareholders meeting.

Jerry Yang

(Credit: Yahoo)

It couldn't have been a happy occasion for Semel, who was on the spot to defend Yahoo's performance, its executive pay packages (that is, his own very generous compensation), the unexpected departure of Chief Technology Officer Farzad Nazem, and on and on.

On that date, Yang was serving as the interim CTO, so one shareholder asked whether the Yahoo co-founder--long known as Chief Yahoo, along with co-founder David Filo--should be appointed to that post permanently.

The now ironic reply from Semel, just six days before Yang took his job in the corner office: "If Jerry would think hard about being our CTO, I would be very flattered and honored."

Funny how things work out sometimes.

Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel is stepping down, and co-founder Jerry Yang will become the new chief executive, the company announced Monday. Semel will assume the position of nonexecutive chairman and serve as an adviser to the management team and board of directors. Sue Decker, former chief financial officer and head of the advertiser group, has been named president.

"This is the time for new executive leadership, with different skills and strengths, to step in and drive the company to realize its full potential--it is the right thing to do, and the right time is now," Semel said in a statement.

The company has been struggling to regain the leadership position it lost to Google in the search market. Yahoo also was late to counter Google's search advertising juggernaut, which has propelled Google's profits and stock price to record highs while Yahoo's have dropped.

A letter sent to Semel from Ed Kozel, on behalf of Yahoo's board of directors, is here. A letter written by Semel and sent to the board of directors is here.

Stay with CNET News.com for more on this developing story.

Yahoo shareholders on Tuesday rejected proposals that link executive pay with the company?s financial performance; oppose Internet censorship demands from China; and establish a human rights committee.

Shareholders also re-elected all the board members, snubbing a request by three proxy advisory firms to protest Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel's $70 million compensation package by kicking several members off the board.

The company is struggling in the face of formidable competition from Google in the search advertising business. Yahoo also has been sued over the jailing of a Chinese journalist who was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison after Yahoo provided information to the government.

A few proxy advisory firms are urging shareholders to protest Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel's $71 million salary package by voting against re-election of three members of the board at Tuesday's annual meeting, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Yahoo is struggling to get its ship back on course. After a company reorganization late last year and disappointing first-quarter results, some analysts have speculated that this year may be Semel's last. Last year, the company's revenue growth slowed, its net income slid 60 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2005, and its stock fell 35 percent in the face of formidable competition from Google and Microsoft jumping into the search advertising fray.

Meanwhile, Semel is one of the highest paid CEOs in the country, complains Institutional Shareholder Services. Semel's pay is more than 900 percent above the median his counterparts make at companies like eBay, says Proxy Governance.

"He's tremendously overpaid," compensation expert Graef Crystal says bluntly. "He's off the map."

Yahoo spokeswoman Helena Maus told the newspaper: "Under Terry's leadership, the company has a clear strategy to create stockholder value, and the company is well-positioned to capitalize on the substantial growth opportunities ahead for the Internet."

SEATTLE--Yahoo CEO Terry Semel kicked off his speech at a Microsoft conference without any direct mention of the company that hosted him and is rumored to be considering acquiring Yahoo.

Speaking at a Microsoft ad conference, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel called on the two companies to work together more on Internet ad standards.

(Credit: Ina Fried)

Instead, Semel launched into a presentation of how Internet advertising is moving beyond just the PC to wireless devices and IPTV.

"It's really more and more about those three screens and how those things happen," Semel said, launching into a discussion of how more people outside the U.S. access the Internet via cell phone and how TV was also moving toward being delivered via Internet Protocol.

As he was setting up for the keynote, Semel declined to speak to the gathering of reporters that had assembled near the stage to ask about the Microsoft takeover rumors.

On stage, in a question-and-answer session with MSN's Joanne Bradford, Semel didn't say whether he had "zillowed" his house, referring to the real-estate estimate Web site. But, he said, "I have zillowed my neighbors' houses. I'm more curious about what they think theirs are worth."

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates admitted Tuesday that he had zillowed his house, but said he believed the $135 million "Zestimate" was not fully valuing his estate.

Semel did make a call for his company and Microsoft to work together on Internet advertising standards.

"We should get the right people together," Semel said. Bradford concurred.