Jerry Yang: from chief of Yahoo to entrepreneur and investment angel

Beijing Time March 7 News, according to foreign media reports, social news website Mashable recently published articles, introduced Yahoo founder Jerry Yang in early 2012 after leaving Yahoo, to switch investment areas, especially in the mobile sector of the start-up companies, and actively provide advice to entrepreneurs.

Jerry Yang and Marissa (Marissa Mayer) have at least one thing in common, apart from being the CEO of Yahoo for a short time: both pay close attention to startups in the mobile sector. But Ms. Mayer is looking for mobile startups to buy them, and then to get good engineers for Yahoo, and Jerry Yang is focused on mobile startups to advise them, a part of his life after he left Yahoo and became an investor in a start-up company.

More recently, Mr Yang has been involved in a 1.2 million-dollar round of funding from iphone app developer Polar, which has developed applications that help users quickly launch surveys in the community, including what to wear, and whether an Oscar-winning star should shake hands. Polar's move-first design helped it quickly provoke a user's willingness to interact, getting 1.5 million votes in the first month after the launch last November and attracting big-name investors like Jerry Yang.

"We have confidence in the polar team and their design direction, mobile experience development," Mr Yang said. "It is a great opportunity to move, so we are very happy to invest in a good resume." ”

Of course, polar is by no means the first and only mobile start-up company to invest in Jerry Yang. Since leaving Yahoo in early 2012, Mr Yang has funded more than 6 start-ups through his own venture capital Ame Cloud Ventures, including the ipad tourism application developer Jetpac, the enterprise mobile app developer Tomfoolery, etc.

So far, mobile is just one of the three key investment areas that Jerry Yang has focused on. "His investment is now focused on global trends in big data, cloud computing and mobile devices," said a representative of Jerry Yang's venture capital, "and his role in these investments is to advise and fund entrepreneurs with great ideas." ”

Jerry Yang and company representatives are reluctant to delve into the issue of investing in startups, but through interviews with several of his companies, past colleagues and other VCs, we can learn about the motivations and philosophies of Mr Yang's investment.

We will find that as a technology celebrity, Jerry Yang in the last few years of Yahoo, he began to focus on small companies, many of which are the founder of the former Yahoo employees.

Jerry Yang and David Fello (David Filo), who dropped out of Stanford University in 1995, co-founded Yahoo, and Jerry Yang became an early icon of the internet age. For more than more than 10 years, Jerry Yang has been working on the company's strategy as the "Chief of Yahoo" (figuratively Yahoo) and, by 2007, he succeeded Semel (Terry Semel) as CEO of Yahoo. Start tackling Yahoo's woes behind Google and Facebook. In his efforts to upgrade Yahoo's position in the technology world, Mr Yang eventually brought a bad impact on his reputation.

Mr Yang was not as expected to bring new life to Yahoo, or to boost Yahoo's performance, and later rejected Microsoft's offer, which made the frustrated Yahoo investor more dissatisfied. In this case, Jerry Yang left the post of Yahoo CEO in early 2009 and resigned as Yahoo's board of directors in January 2012.

In the last three years of Yahoo, Jerry Yang began to invest in early startups, and he worked closely with Yahoo Senior executive Asha Pater Ash Patel, who had served as Yahoo's executive vice president before leaving Yahoo and setting up Morado Venture partners. Morado, a company co-founded by Patel and another former Yahoo executive Michael Marquis Michael Marquez, Morado in Spanish means "purple" (Yahoo color). It is reported to attract a number of former Yahoo employees, including Jerry Yang, as well as some of the current Yahoo employees investment.

Mr Yang has invested in startups through Patel: Cloud storage services company Aerofs, platform, service provider DotCloud, and Polar founder Louck Verobruski (Luke Wroblewski) content sharing platform Bagcheck.

"When we accept the investment, we ask him why he is investing and he says he's just trying to help the entrepreneur," said Aerofs founder and CEO Yuri Sagalov Yuri Sagalov. "He did a very good job and wanted to repay." ”

Shortly after leaving Yahoo in 2012, Mr Yang set up his own venture capital (AME) in the San Francisco Bay Area, but he continued to work with Patel to provide assistance to start-up companies, including Jetpac, Tomfoolery, Metacloud, and founder of Yahoo employees. And now the polar.

Tomfoolery chief Executive Cacourt Srivastava (Kakul Srivastava), who served as vice president of Yahoo, said, "One of the big advantages from Yahoo is the vast network." She said that Patel and former Yahoo chief technology officer Sam Plara (Sam Pullara) and Jerry Yang discussed the investment tomfoolery matters. Even so, she argues that Yahoo's networking is not a major factor in attracting Mr Yang's investment. "Of course, he knows me because he knows what I've done at Yahoo, but Jerry Yang's network is very broad." ”

Paul Kodroski, an industry observer, argues that Mr Yang's portfolio of companies, and the investments of companies founded by several former Yahoo employees, Kedrosky that he remains "in his comfort zone" rather than Anderson (Marc Andreessen) Active investors like that. Anderson was also an early internet entrepreneur, and later turned to the field of investment. "If you look at Anderson's current portfolio, can you find out what kind of entrepreneur he was?" The answer is obviously negative. That is why he has succeeded. "Kodroski said," and for Jerry Yang, the answer to this question is obviously affirmative. ”

Although Mr Yang is not the most active investor, he is very active in advising companies he invests in, according to their knowledge of startups.

"I can get an answer in one hours every time I contact him about a problem or a relationship, or send an e-mail to him," Srivastav, referring to her relationship with Jerry Yang, said, "I think it's not easy." Solomon Hykes, founder and CEO of DotCloud Solomon Hicks, said that as a member of the board, Jerry Yang would meet with the company every six weeks to help them make strategic decisions and key jobs.

For startups, the incentive to work with Jerry Yang is clear: his name alone will give a reputation to a new company, and Mr Yang's connections and experience are valuable to entrepreneurs who want to explore the right products and strategic initiatives. In Hicks's words, "It's hard to focus on one person." "But for Mr Yang, the motivation is slightly different, after more than 15 years of the company's IPO, and once again engaged in the entrepreneurial world."

Kodroski, a venture capitalist, believes Jerry Yang has become an investor who wants to make some achievements in his career after Yahoo, thus realizing the "road of Self Salvation". He said: "Personally, if Jerry Yang did not do so, he left only in Yahoo's controversial performance, which is not to say absolute success." ”

Ellen Siminoff, who served as Yahoo's senior vice president in the 90 's, believes Mr Yang may be surprised at the Ellen Siminov of his curses at the end of his Yahoo career. These days, she says, Mr Yang has been more willing to deal with startups, where he can play a bigger role and reduce his dealings with the media and shareholders. "I think he just likes to be with entrepreneurs," she said. "It's fun and exciting, and maybe he thinks it's the most important area he can make." ”

On Mr Yang's future career in science and technology, Siminov and Kodroski suspect he will not take over a large company in the near term, leaving two options: either to continue as an investor or to start a company of his own.

"Maybe he has his own ideas, it's hard, and the expectations of his next company are very high," Siminov said. "He doesn't need to work for others or create anything, but he is a creative person who knows the field and knows the problem. By interacting with other companies, he can be a part of this. ”