No doubt some of you have heard that Jerry Yang has stepped down from Yahoo!.

Jerry joined Yahoo at a tough time back in July 2007. 7 months after his appointment, and Yahoo had to lay off staff in Feb 08. And as I mentioned earlier, Yahoo his expecting to lay off more staff by Christmas.

Shortly after the Feb 08 layoffs, there was the Microsoft bid. I think Jerry should have taken that deal. I mean, most of the analyst thought it was a dumb thing not to. Now, Yahoo! is worth a third of Microsoft’s initial US$45 billion offer.

Then there was the opportunity to partner up with Google and have Google sell their ads, which would have added an approximate $800 million a year to Yahoo’s bottom line. However Google pulled the plug on that deal due to regulatory objections. On Nov 11th, the share price for Yahoo! went up as analysts believed that Microsoft would make another offer since Google threw Yahoo out on the highway. But those rumours were dismissed by Yahoo spokesman Tracy Schmaler – who also denied that Jerry was on his way out.

We then have Carl Icahn, the man who owned a good amount of Yahoo! shares and pressed hard to get Yahoo back in talking with Microsoft for a takeover bid. With that failing, Carl tried to get on the Yahoo!’s board of directors. Yang and the board at that time put a notice on Yahoo!’s homepage suggesting that Carl didn’t know what he was talking about. Days after Carl got his seat on the board.

Sorry Jerry – but being a founder of a giant company doesn’t always mean that you’re the best CEO to run it. Back to Chief Yahoo! is it for you.

Now that Jerry is out, what is Carl’s plans for Yahoo!?

Yahoo!’s stock jumped up after Jerry’s announcement, on the hope that Microsoft may come back with another offer.

Steve, US$45 billion divided by 3 – it’s not hard.