Jerry Yang: Bio And Career Highlights

5 ft 9 in (175 cm)

$2500 million, 2026 est.

Taiwanese American

November 6, 1968

Taipei, Taiwan

58 Years Old

Scorpio

Jerry Yang is a Taiwanese American internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist known for co-founding Yahoo. He helped transform a simple directory of web links into a dominant portal that shaped early internet culture and digital advertising.


Yang rose to prominence after launching a popular web directory while studying at Stanford University. That student effort quickly became Yahoo, and Yang is also known for collecting ancient Chinese calligraphy.

Yang was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and lost his father at age two. His mother moved the family to San Jose, California, where he learned English quickly and excelled at Piedmont Hills High School.


He later enrolled at Stanford University to pursue electrical engineering. Yang completed both his bachelor and master degrees in four years, laying the technical foundation for his future internet ventures.

During a Stanford exchange program in Japan, Jerry Yang met fellow student Akiko Yamazaki. The couple married in 1997 and built a quiet family life together in California.


They share two children and maintain a dedicated joint philanthropic partnership. Together, they have donated millions to higher education, Asian art, and environmental conservation causes across the US.

Yang co-founded Yahoo in 1994 alongside Stanford classmate David Filo. They built one of the earliest web portals, orchestrated a landmark initial public offering, and secured crucial early investments in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.


He later launched AME Cloud Ventures to invest in data-focused startups. Yang steers funding toward innovative technology founders while serving on prominent corporate boards, including Workday, Lenovo, and Stanford University.

“We started Yahoo because we wanted to organize the web for ourselves, and it turned into something larger than we ever imagined.”