Shares of Yahoo Inc. rose in premarket trading Wednesday, January 18 after company co-founder Jerry Yang resigned from the board of the struggling Internet company.Yahoo's stock was up 48 cents, or 3.1 percent, at $15.91, according to AP.
Yang had held a seat on the board since Yahoo's inception in 1995. The company's early success landed him on the covers of big business magazines. But Yahoo has stagnated for years, overshadowed by Google Inc. in the competition for Internet advertising dollars.
Yang's departure, announced late Tuesday, comes two weeks after Yahoo hired former PayPal executive Scott Thompson to be its CEO.
Thompson is the fourth CEO in less than five years to try to turn around Yahoo. Yang himself took a stab at it in 2007 and 2008. He had resigned as CEO in 2008 after shareholder anger over the company's refusal to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $33 per share.
BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis speculated on Tuesday that Yang might have lost control over the company's direction, prompting him to bow out. The new CEO may have an easier time of turning around the troubled company without Yang on the board, he said.
Yang, 43, endorsed Thompson as he resigned.
