Yang gets $1 golden handshake from Yahoo

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 1 May 2009 at 09:52

Former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was paid a mere $1 for his final year's work at the internet search company.

In an era where former executives of crumbling banks are walking away with lottery jackpot-sized payouts, Yang's final year salary wouldn't be enough to buy him a lottery ticket.

Yang's last few months at the internet company were hardly a roaring success, however. He steadfastly refused to countenance a takeover deal with Microsoft, preferring instead to throw Yahoo's lot in with Google.

However, when US anti-trust officials began poking around the potential search tie-up, Google got cold feet and cancelled the deal.

Yang was shamefacedly forced to plead with Microsoft to buy the company, before falling on his sword in January.

Yang's nominal salary isn't an act of punishment, though: he's only drawn $1 for several years after earning a small fortune from his substantial stock holding in the company.

The value of that stock has dwindled massively over the past year, with Yang's 3.9% stake worth about $600 million less at the end of 2008.

Yang remains with the company in his figurehead role as Chief Yahoo.