 Yahoo Inc co-founder Jerry Yang has quit the internet company he started in 1995, appeasing shareholders who had blasted the Internet pioneer for pursuing an ineffective personal vision and impeding investment deals that may have transformed the struggling company.
Yang's abrupt departure comes two weeks after Yahoo appointed Scott Thompson its new CEO, with a mandate to return the once-leading Internet portal to the heights it enjoyed in the 1990s.
Shares of Yahoo gained 3 per cent in after-hours trade.
Yang - who is severing all formal ties with the company by resigning all positions including his seat on the board of directors - has come under fire for his handling of company affairs dating back to an aborted sale to Microsoft in 2008.
Yang's exit comes roughly a month before dissident shareholders can nominate rival directors to Yahoo's board.
The remaining nine members of Yahoo's board, which includes Hewlett-Packard executive Vyomesh Joshi and private investor Gary Wilson, are all up for re-election this year.
Yang's departure could be part of a broader board shakeup, said Ryan Jacob, chairman and chief investment officer of Jacob Funds, which owns Yahoo shares.
The company did not say where Yang was headed, or why he had suddenly resigned. Yang and co-founder David Filo, both of whom carry the official title "Chief Yahoo," own sizable stakes in the company. Yang owns 3.69 per cent of Yahoo's outstanding shares, while Filo owns 6 per cent, as of April and May 2011.
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