Value of a CEO? Jerry Yang vs. Steve Jobs

Cleve Nettles
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November 18, 2008
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Yahoo's stock today jumped on the news that Jerry Yang would be stepping down as CEO.  Not just a blip either...it jumped almost 20%...to the tune of $2 billion in market value.  Not a great sign of confidence in his abilities to run the company...or sell it off to Microsoft in pieces (as it were).

Contrast this with Steve Jobs.  A fake news report comes out that he's had a heart attack and the stock drops by 20%.   Even losing a few pounds seems to hurt the stock. 

Is one person at a company enough to shift the value that much?  If so, a good CEO is actually worth the outrageous money they make.

Honestly, this is a sad moment for Yahoos even if the stock holders are happy.  Yahoo, as we know it, will likely cease to exist as we know it.  In the long term, we'll probably be worse off than before as Web users for his departure...have your say?

 

Comments (4)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 18, 2008 - 9:09am

Yangster needs to go. Hopefully the next guy/gal doesn't sell out to MS. Yahoo has a lot of value and is way undervalued at the moment. a Steve Jobs type character could really bring that out.

Dan Birchall (not verified) | November 18, 2008 - 9:26am

Just what is that supposed to be?

I "knew" Yahoo in 1994, back when it was the biggest guide to everything, and submissions to its searchable index were actually vetted by humans. Those days have been gone for a long, long time.

Allan (not verified) | November 18, 2008 - 2:27pm

I was just thinking about following up on this. It so interesting to draw the comparisons. If you look a little deeper, both CEOs have traveled similar paths until now. Both Jobs and Yang were both co-founders in revolutionary tech companies of their day. They both left active management of their company (Jobs was forced out but Yang just kind of took a back seat). They both were asked to return to as their companies struggled. Where their paths diverge is that Jobs was able to save his company and arguably make it stronger than it has ever been before while Yang has tried to fight a struggling market. I don't fault Yang too much for not being able to help Yahoo! more. He had an uphill battle with a treacherous stock market. Even Steve Jobs' Apple and Schmidt's Google have seen their stocks take a big hit. In a more forgiving environment, I think that Yang would have been given more time to figure it out. Nevertheless, your post is a great illustration of the power of Jobs' personal brand and the diminished power of Yang's brand. I think Yang is a genius and will look for him to return to the scene with something entirely new in the future.

HOWEVER... (not verified) | November 18, 2008 - 4:37pm

Yang never inspired me when talking onstage, but when people blame him because he rejected $33 when the stock is now $11, consider that Ballmer, Icahn and others all thought that $33 was a good idea too. They all failed to predict the 66% drop in stock price too.