The story of Jerry Yang and Yahoo

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Yang Zhiyuan 1967 born Monkey

Unlimited Business Opportunities Online,
Wise men beat the beat;

Yahoo! What is the meaning? Who is the largest media company in the world?

Ph. D. In the Department of Electronic Engineering, Stanford University;

His name is Jerry Yang, a few years ago nothing, is now a billionaire;

Reuters to work with Yahoo;

' There's a feeling of jumping off a cliff, ' Mr. Yang said.

Yahoo is not only a symbol of network culture, or a symbol of popular culture;

Yahoo has launched an onslaught on the world's number one media, Time magazine.

Navigating the ocean of information on the Internet (Internet) is certainly not possible without proper navigational tools. The first savvy people to develop these tools are now rewarded handsomely.

Netscape's Clark and Andisson (Mare Andressen) developed the Netscape Navigator (Navigator) in 1995, which brought Clark's property to $565 million trillion and Andisson to $58 million. This article to say "Yahoo" (Yahoo! The company has the same glorious experience. April 12, 1996 Yahoo shares listed, the opening price set at 13 U.S. dollars, because of the alarming demand, prices were quickly pushed to 24.50 U.S. dollars, the highest reached 43 U.S. dollars per share, and finally a share of 33 U.S. dollars closed. Yahoo's market value for the day was 850 million dollars, 200 times times higher than a year ago.

"Netscape" and "Yahoo" are dealing with the network, but there are significant differences. Netscape has developed a user-friendly, practical web-based software that allows users to browse the world's WWW pages and so on, and its success is expected to be somewhat predictable. And Yahoo, in strict sense never independently developed any new software and hardware products, "Yahoo" is just an ordinary web search engine, initially provided only information "directory", on the internet it in the form of www.yahoo.com. However, this is a noteworthy place, this distinction fully illustrates the "knowledge economy" era of a feature: the reorganization of knowledge and information will produce great economic benefits.

1. Yahoo: a loud name

Now "Yahoo" is one of the world's most famous brands, as intangible assets it is worth at least billions of dollars. But it was interesting because it was a night in 1995 by Jerry Yang and friend Filo, who turned the Merriam-Webster dictionary into the name of their "product" in a shabby activity room. One of the "Ya" from Yang's surname, they have envisioned a series of possible names such as Yauld,yammer,yardage,yang,yapok,yardbird,yataghan,yawn,yaxis, suddenly they think of Yahoo this letter combination, Then quickly opened the Webster's English Dictionary at hand, found that the word from Swift's "Gulliver Travels", refers to a vulgar, low-level humanoid animals, it has a variety of human vices. The word is obviously not very elegant, but carefully pondered, "use it against its righteousness". On the Internet that emphasizes equality, everyone is a township bar. In order to increase the positive color, followed by an exclamation point, so there is a "Yahoo! ”。 "Yes, great, that's it, it's Oracle!" “

Finally they set the company name Yahoo! , now many media mention "Yahoo" often miss Exclamation point, this is wrong. Yahoo! Read as Yahhh-hoo, not read as Yaaaaa-hoo.

The "Products" of Jerry and Ferro happen to be a list of grid resources organized in the form of "Hierarchical Orakzai" (Hierarchical Oracle) databases. Oracle is intended to be "Oracle", "God", in the information industry, it is well-known large database software brand, the major libraries use such databases.

2. Stanford meets confidant

Jerry Yang was born in Taiwan in 1967 and spent his childhood in Taiwan. His father died when he was two years old. His mother, a professor of English and drama, raised his Aunt Yang and his younger brother Ken Yang, who lived in the United States for the sake of education and future development, and the family moved to the United States to settle in San Jose, California. Jerry Yang studied very hard and entered Stanford University in 1990. He likes the rigor of engineering courses and is deeply influenced by Silicon Valley, a marvel created by engineers and Stanford University, which has a major role in electronics engineering. Despite the tight curriculum, Jerry Yang took part in many social activities and joined the fraternity of college students, which inadvertently tempered his social skills and laid the foundation for future Dudangyimian and a vigorous media company. He also took a course in economics, he has a hazy idea, will also have to do their own company, but never dreamed of such a successful. He gets on well with his brother Ken Yang. Ken came to Stanford two years later, both in the Department of Electrical Engineering and in the exact same doctoral thesis research project.　　But they are two kinds of people, Ken is a vegetarian, like hiking and camping, he meditation but not a monk. Jerry Yang spent 4 years finishing his undergraduate and master's degrees, and became acquainted with ferro-Ph. They became intimate with each other in their study, work and subsequent entrepreneurial processes. Actually, in fact, Philo was also a tutor for Jerry Yang, who joked that he had only given him a B-grade score. Yang is a complementary talent, in the terms of Taoism, Jerry Yang represents the "yang" (literally), while the Ferro represents "Yin". Yang likes communication, is a thinker, the ability of social activities is very strong, and ferro knowledgeable, work solid, he wrote the search engine most of the program code. Of course, Yang's professional foundation is also very solid, work very calm. After that, Yang said he and Ferro are the best combination, "in the business sense is difficult to find a better complementary type of partner, we can be considerate of each other, although the nature is stubborn, but at the critical moment can understand each other, performance is not stubborn." They have a similar view of the world, affairs, and technology, and they even have a common ph. D., and Philo lives in the dorm next to him.

3. The first to enter the sea music endless

Jerry Yang and Philo in the initial stage of the PhD, would like to engage in automatic software development work, but because a small number of large companies monopolize the market, the remaining opportunities, they do not know how to start. They decided to do something else to avoid the choice for the time being.　　At the time, when Stanford had an educational partnership with Japan, Jerry and Ferro decided to take the opportunity to teach in Japan, which they regarded as free travel. The deep friendship between them was established in Japan. They are all foreigners in Japan, so they often work, eat and play together. Their common hobby is to watch the sumo game. During his stay in Japan, Jerry Yang met a Japanese-born girl in Costa Rica, her name is Aquico (Akiko).

Aquico is also from Stanford University, but she was sent as a student instead of a teacher. Back in the United States, they often date, 1996 summer engagement.

Back at Stanford, Jerry Yang and Philo set up the small movable house on campus, each with their own homes, but all day long, where they named their base of work with the names of sumo wrestlers they worshipped. They had to reconsider the doctoral research project that had put them in the brain. As the instructors were on vacation abroad, they were not immediately urged.

Just then they suddenly became obsessed with the Internet, which changed their fate. Every day, they have a few hours on the internet, the information they like to link together, there are a variety of things, such as research projects, tennis game information. Yahoo has developed from here. At the beginning, they independently set up their own web pages, only occasionally interested in each other's content to each other reference, gradually they linked to more and more information, their pages are also placed together, collectively known as the "Jerry World Wide Web Wizard" (jerry\\\ 's Guide "to the" Wide WEB), "Jerry" is Jerry Yang's English name. They share this resource.

This "guide" is rapidly expanding, the classification is more and more thin, and spread, widely disseminated online, anyone who knows their web site can use it. Free users around the world, after browsing their "wizards", often feed back some useful information, which helps them understand what is useful and popular. The situation lasted until the winter of 1994. They are somewhat concerned about the continuous and rapid development of the "guide", which takes up a lot of time and is restless. The thought of "serious business"--to pursue a doctorate, is more disturbing. But eventually they made the choice to give up the business for the time being and focus on building the search engine.

At that time, there are some similar search engines, such as Lycos and InfoSeek, they can also search the keywords entered the web, and finally return a detailed list. But compared to the elegant, these index search tools are too mechanized, Yahoo is based on the "manual" classification of the editorial information on the basis of relatively more intelligent, more practical, with a simple algorithm is not able to replicate Yahoo. This certainly does not mean that "indexed search" is meaningless. Yahoo also includes indexed search, but not limited to this, the information is organized more standardized. The Yahoo engine takes a layered approach to organizing information, which is more appropriate for scientific researchers to easily find the information they need. For example, an archaeological scientist and astronomer can quickly search their professional topics and dynamic information, and generally there will be no major omissions, which is unmatched by other engines.

The search engines that layered information were not just Yahoo, such as "einet" and "the World Wide Web Virtual library," but by the end of 1994 Yahoo was soon the industry leader. Jerry Yang and Philo on the one hand tired miserable, on the other hand for their sudden success ecstatic. They found that the unique opportunity of history has finally arrived: Netscape's navigator test version just released, HotWired also opened the network advertising site, the time to make money through the network began to mature. The first company to look for was Reuters, a veteran news and financial information company headquartered in London with a value of $5 billion. Although Reuters in the United States is not big, compared to the Associated Press, but in the world it has a large impact, it has been operating a news business for more than 150 years of history. John Taysom, deputy director of Reuters marketing, went out and read about Yahoo in a local newspaper, and he later frequented Yahoo sites on the Internet. Tyson quickly realized that "Yahoo" eliminates the distance and the connection between the user and the information they are looking for, and Reuters can use it to expand its influence. Jerry Yang said to Tyson: "If you don't come to us, we might want to see you too." Yahoo is not just a directory, it is a media asset. ”

Reuters and Yahoo are friends, but not partners, in the process of cooperation, Yahoo did not get much benefits. Smart Jerry Yang realized that he had to make a careful business plan for me to make a profit by advertising. Yang finds his old classmate, Brady Tim Brady, who is studying at Harvard Business School. Yang Heb Bradi, referring to the hotwired company's experience in advertising profitability, quickly drafted a business plan. With this proposal, they look for venture capitalists everywhere.

While maintaining an expanding network of resources, they are looking for business opportunities, sleeping only 4 hours a day.

"It's a tough job, but it's fun," Yang recalls. Sometimes I have a feeling of jumping off a cliff, sometimes like in the movie "Selma and Luis" and I don't know how it ends. We want to do everything with the Internet, maybe we can't do anything. But we don't care, we don't lose anything. "Jerry Yang has found Sequoia (Sequoia) capital, the Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture capitalist, and has invested in companies such as Apple (which led the PC Revolution), Atari (the leader of the video game industry), Orakzai (a large database vendor), Cisco Systems (network hardware). But Moritz, the Sequoia company, was hesitant at first because Yahoo was so different, unlike Netscape, where Yahoo itself only "served online" and was free, where is its commercial potential? In the end, Yang to persuade the Moritz, so he does feel "these few boys do have eyesight, preemptive occupy the advantage of the online position, if the development of a smooth, its strategic advantage is very obvious." "April 1995 Sequoia investment Yahoo 4 million dollars."

Then AOL, the world's largest commercial online service company, is missing a search engine that America Yahoo to take on the job. AOL's intention is to buy Yahoo, so that Yang Ferro become their employees, to ensure that they can become rich. But it also threatens to push another engine company to cross Yahoo if it does not sell Yahoo.

Yang Ferro, after careful consideration, rejected AOL. They want to run their own Yahoo, this is not entirely a matter of making money, Yahoo is a carefully nurtured the cause of the creation and maintenance of the elegant family is a pleasure, they are their own masters, do not need to find a Buddha to dictate. They are also worried about selling Yahoo to AOL, which may eventually ruin Yahoo.

Yang You then negotiated with MCI, Microsoft and CNET, but only with Netscape's support. The Netscape Navigator's Internet Directory button provides a Yahoo! The direct link (lasted a year), which greatly improved the visibility of Yahoo, since Yahoo is the most World Wide Web users open the browser when the default address. AOL eventually acquired WebCrawler, a company that had long been an index-search service, and the browsers of AOL and BNN, an Internet service provider acquired by AOL, pointed to it. But compared with Yahoo WebCrawler lacks characteristic, its influence is declining.

4. Selling Brands

In the fall of 1995, Yahoo had to start a second round of investment war, which had a lot of advertising revenue but a very limited amount of money converted into cash. At this time, a large Japanese consortium SoftBank began to invest in Yahoo, which makes Yang Zhiyuan company moved to a new stage. SoftBank was founded in 1981 by Masayoshi Son, an American-educated Korean descent, and by the early 90 it was Japan's largest software wholesaler, claiming to share half of the market. The 1994 SoftBank acquisition of the Ziff-davis company's sales department caught the attention of Americans and soon bought the company's publishing department with 210 million of dollars, a deal that had just been delivered before being invested in Yahoo.

SoftBank through Sequoia Company to know Yahoo. Jerry Yang learned that SoftBank to invest very excited, which is the best time to create a Japanese native Yahoo in Japan. By November 1995 SoftBank eventually bought 5% of Yahoo's shares (and then increased significantly). Two companies quickly set up a joint venture with the Japanese company Yahoo. Yahoo's second round of investment has enabled it to expand its services and successfully cope with adverse realities. Netscape's navigator soon shifted the default configuration of the Internet directory button to Yahoo's competitor Excite (officially called architext), while the Navigator's second button, Internet search, had long pointed to InfoSeek. Mr. Yang began haggling with Netscape, Netscape suggested: " Search engines are arranged in alphabetical order. "This is the most damaging suggestion, because the Yahoo engine starts with the letter Y!" Netscape's changes have reduced Yahoo's information retrieval traffic by 10%, but Yahoo has quickly weathered the storm. At this point SoftBank has made a huge foray into the internet, with only 60 million dollars invested in Yahoo. By the autumn of 1996, SoftBank purchased all or part of I/pro, Intervista, PointCast, agents, Electricminds, Freeloader, onlive companies, Shares of companies such as USWeb and CyberCash.

Yahoo is becoming a star in the market segment, partly because Ya?hoo! The name, in part because the company has outstanding talent such as Jerry Yang and Ferro, whose successful legends are spread all over the world. Yang is frequently on television and magazine covers, including Wired and Forbes ASAP.

Jerry Yang realized that the most important thing now is to further expand the impact of the Yahoo brand. In addition to doing advertising for themselves online, there are also big moves under the Web: such as the publication of a large circulation of books Yahoo Passepartout (Yahoo!) Unplugged). Yahoo also cooperated with Ziff-davis, the latter's original magazine "Internet Life" renamed "Yahoo: Internet Life" published, the move is a pair of heavy (Yahoo company rarely participate in the editorial work). The magazine is sold in newsstands, airports and other public places, greatly improving the popularity of Yahoo, but also beneficial to Ziff-davis, after renaming the magazine circulation in the short term doubled, to 200,000.

Yahoo also advertises its brand through traditional advertising, the first Internet company interested in television, which is willing to buy time and space to advertise in various media. Edward (Karen Edwards) is the "Yahoo" brand's full-time defender, her academic background is not software and engineering, but "commodity marketing and media." Previously she worked in Clorox and 20th Century Fox. The success of Yahoo's brand has made her among the "Advertising Times" 1996 "Promotion 100 Good".

In the face of Nike's "ethically do It" and Bergkin (burgerking,1954), a fast-food company set up in Miami, McLamore and David Edgerton, is now spread across 50 states and 56 countries in the world. "Have It Your Way", Yahoo launched "Do you Yahoo! "This is a seditious advertising word. Edward put the phrase in almost all of Yahoo's ads.

She has a grand idea, the goal is to make Yahoo (Yahoo! Become a symbol of popular culture, not just a symbol of cyber culture, so that at least half of Americans know and endorse the name. She divides her customers into "proximity surfers", "Non surfers" and "current surfers", taking different promotional strategies to make them like Yahoo. Before the Yahoo IPO, Edward encouraged spending heavily to reshape Yahoo's position in the Netscape browser button, and took a special place in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, making it a link between about tens of thousands of corporate sites and personal pages on the Internet.

To expand the impact, Yahoo, while maintaining the organizational hierarchy of information, and strive to integrate a variety of practical information, such as news hotspots, local Yahoo, stock quotes, American electronic map, CNN news, NBA Events, people inquiries, Amazon Network Bookstore links and so on.

As you can see, Yahoo is hitting the world's biggest media. By the fall of 1995, Yahoo read 3 million pages a day, 21 million pages a week. By the spring of 1996, it has reached 42 million pages per week, reaching 100 million pages per week at the end of the year. Time Magazine in the United States, the peak circulation of 4 million, 100 pages per volume, counted up 400 million pages a week, assuming that half the page was read by the reader, there are 200 million pages per week. By the end of 1997 Yahoo will be able to surpass the times, and this century can surpass times. So who are the more powerful media assets of Yahoo and the Times? This is just a matter of definition. If the "strength" is defined as the editorial power, then Yahoo Lesser, but the strength represents the public understanding of the impact and the promotion of the ability of consumers, the fruit so, then Yahoo will undoubtedly win.

"Time" is a traditional media, through multi-level distributors to consumers "one-way", and Yahoo is a two-way "communication", powerful feedback, readers can choose what to read and how to read. So Yahoo can according to different readers, provide different types of advertising, so as to "give", and "time" do not.

5. Looking to the future

Yahoo is still developing, the world is changing, what will happen? Can Yahoo really surpass the Times-Warner group? Is there going to be a bunch of black horses in the middle? No one knows.

Mr Yang, though far-sighted, is unwilling to dream of the future. He said he would not give up Yahoo for at least 5 years. "I like doing what I'm doing right now, and there's no better job than that." "What excites him most is that he has the opportunity to become the first pioneer in the world, and to personally participate in the great project of integrating traditional media and information networks into a super media, with the help of Ferro, Netscape and others. Jerry Yang described himself as "jumping off a helicopter and sliding on a hillside for the first time, you don't know where there are trees or cliff." It's a wonderful feeling. This is like the first one to come to the golf course in the morning, with Dewdrops on the ground. It's like landing on the moon and leaving human footprints. Yet it is safer than all this. "

Why is Yahoo safer? "We're not going to lose anything," Yang said. When we started this business, we were empty-handed. I can honestly say that I don't care about returning to the state of nothing because I have plenty of time. "Jerry Yang works 6-7 hours a day on weekends, from 7 in the morning to 10 o'clock in the evening." He spent most of his spare time with Aquico. "I can't do Yahoo without her and my family, but they are sometimes annoying, and we want to say we have 20 or more different hobbies, but we don't." "In the fall of 1996, they bought their new home for the first time.

Jerry Yang's story has many, the limit of space can only stop here. Finally, a few revelations about Yahoo's success.

One revelation: The provision of "scarce resources". On the growing Internet, information is not scarce, and the "catalogue" of information is scarce, and Yang has long seen this, although he is not studying economics.

The second revelation: Seize the moment, or it is. Gain will have lost, see the bold action, the information industry first strike for strong.

Revelation III: The importance of Cai. Yang is not very old, but the arts and sciences through, comprehensive use of engineering, management, business, media, financial knowledge is very strong, at the critical moment he can employ Dudangyimian generals. So we have to associate him with the overall education and environmental influence at Stanford.

In addition, the manager's calm, courage, firmness is also very important, Yahoo has today, thanks to his several times resolutely refused to "hand over the gun", this so-called days down the big Ren Yang also. Jerry Yang and Ferro are more obsessed with careers than personal wealth.