Don't forget – Jerry Yang actually returned to Yahoo! for a period. And completely fucked the dog, screwing up a potential acquisition and being replaced by Bartz. Say what we will about Valleywag, they covered this period pretty well:
He screwed the company's owners out of many millions of dollars. Microsoft may well have killed and gutted the fish, but the CEO's responsibility is to the shareholders.
I see what you mean. But let's say he would have sold to Microsoft and then Microsoft would have killed and gutted the fish, you'd probably be criticizing him for having no vision by selling Yahoo to MS and letting it die like that.
1. he sells for MS.
2. shareholders get some above average return in MS shares.
3. a bunch of companies buy some dismembered yahoo pieces like flickr, babelfish, etc
4. those companies pays more returns than microsoft in 5yrs.
6. everyone criticizes him for not being able to see ahead and costing the investors money in the long run.
Oh sorry, it's just you who can see the future?
...only icahn and pension funds wants companies sold to microsoft. I know I don't. Then you can argue that it's yahoo... so what, those people invested in yahoo. bet they feel the same as i feel for companies i'm investing.
BSing the troops:
http://gawker.com/valleywag/tech/yahoo/jerry-yangs-fireside-...
Ballmer writing a polite letter killing the acquisition prospects:
http://gawker.com/386898/
"Hey guys, uh, Ballmer's very public proclamations notwithstanding, Microsoft didn't actually want to buy us:"
http://uk.gawker.com/5020835/yahoo-ceo-tries-to-convince-sha...