Initially, Yahoo was just a hierarchical directory that simply classified websites to make website resources orderly and easy for users to search and use. Later, Yahoo gradually expanded and established an ecosystem that integrates search engines, email, instant messaging, web advertising and website building platforms, covering all aspects of people's lives. Yahoo has become the world's largest Internet portal.

By 1999, Yahoo had 120 million unique users, 100 million of whom had signed up for at least one of its channels or features, a number that is simply incredible in this modern era.

If such a leader in the Internet market rashly announced a reduction in its stock holdings, it would definitely cause market panic.

But Yang Jing still shook his head very firmly. He looked at Henry sincerely and said, "Henry, we are in the business of speculation and investment. The most taboo thing is to hesitate when we should make a decision! I admit that Yahoo is a good stock, and we have earned enough profits from it, but these profits are only data on paper after all. If we can't cash out Yahoo's stock, then it is not profit. Especially now that Yahoo's stock price is obviously going downhill, if we don't cash out while Yahoo's stock price is still high, do we have to wait until Yahoo's stock price falls below the issue price before cashing out?"

"Boss, how is this possible?" Henry would not believe such words. You know, although Yahoo's stock price has fallen from the highest price of 500 US dollars to more than 300 US dollars, it is still the same as the stock price in December last year. No matter how much it falls, it is impossible to fall below the issue price!

Yang Jing shook his head slightly and did not argue with Henry about this matter. Did Yang Jing tell Henry that although Yahoo's current stock price is over 300 US dollars, it will not take a year, by January next year, Yahoo's stock price will fall below the 30 US dollar mark. On the day Yahoo went public in April 1996, the closing price had reached 33 US dollars!

The most important thing is that Yahoo's stock price has not recovered since it started to fall in January this year. By October next year, Yahoo's stock price will even fall to $8.7 per share! Do I really have to wait until then to sell? But if I sell it then, who would be crazy enough to take it over?

The most important thing is that although Yahoo is now very prosperous, the head of Yahoo is really not very good. Although Yang Jing and Jerry Yang are compatriots and both have the surname Yang, Yang Jing, who is familiar with the development history of Yahoo, really does not approve of Yang's leadership level.

Yang Jing never denied that Jerry Yang was a talent. After all, he founded Yahoo. Just based on this, Jerry Yang deserves the title of "talent". But talent does not mean that one can become a good head of a family!

Yahoo's success is due to many factors, but the most important one is that it is the "number one" company. That is why Yahoo has been so successful over the years. Even in 2006, Yahoo was still the number one Internet company!

In 2006, it occupied three seats in the top 20 global Internet companies, with Yahoo!, Yahoo Japan and Yahoo China ranking 1st, 7th and 14th respectively. Google and Facebook in the United States, and the three major portals in China, Xinlang, Zhaohuli and Wangyi, are all its followers and imitators. The Yahoo "empire" at that time was almost invincible, and it could even be said to be equivalent to the entire Internet. No wonder some experts said, not without exaggeration, "The Internet will change the world one day, but without Yahoo!, the Internet may not even be able to touch the door."

Today, under the leadership of Yahoo, the Internet has found its way and is changing the world, but Yahoo, the pioneer, has lost its way.

In 1997, two students from Stanford University created a research project called "BackRub (web crawler)" and wanted to sell it to Yahoo for $1 million. This was the prototype of Google. The Google page in 1998 also had an exclamation mark after the logo, which was simply imitating Yahoo!.

But Yahoo was indifferent. In 2002, Yahoo repented and began to seriously consider acquiring Google, only to find that it could no longer afford it. Today, Google's market value exceeds $800 billion...

The same goes for Facebook!

In 2006, Yahoo offered $1 billion to acquire Facebook. Zuckerberg and Facebook's investors almost agreed to the deal. At that time, Facebook was in trouble both internally and externally, so Yahoo took advantage of the situation and cut the price to $850 million at the last minute.

Feeling humiliated, Zuckerberg tore up the agreement submitted by Yahoo in front of everyone at the board meeting. A few months later, Yahoo proposed a purchase price of $1 billion or even higher, but Facebook rejected it. Today, Facebook's market value exceeds $500 billion...

Of course, Yahoo missed out on not only Facebook and Google, but also Microsoft.

On February 1, 2008, Microsoft offered a high price of US$45 billion, a 60% premium, to extend an olive branch to Yahoo, hoping that through a marriage between the two, it could break Google's monopoly in the search and online advertising markets. However, Yahoo believed that the offer greatly underestimated Yahoo's market value.

Three months later, Microsoft raised its offer to $50 billion, but was still rejected by Yahoo. Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo was a topic that all parties had been optimistic about, but in the end, it came to nothing.

Having missed the opportunity to sell itself at a high price, Yahoo is like a discounted product on the shelf, helplessly waiting for bargaining and anxiously anticipating the arrival of a buyer.

As a result, on July 25, 2016, American telecommunications giant Verizon announced the acquisition of Yahoo for US$4.83 billion.

For the former Internet giant, this ending is more like a humiliation. The sale price of $4.8 billion is less than a fraction of the 100 billion valuation at its peak.

Although the fact that Yahoo was acquired by Verizon at a price that was almost humiliating had nothing to do with Jerry Yang, the fact that he missed out on Google, Facebook, or Microsoft was actually Jerry Yang's decision! Without those wrong decisions, who knows what Yahoo would have become? Perhaps Yahoo would have surpassed Apple and become the world's number one...

But it doesn't matter......

From this we can see that although Jerry Yang is a talent and even a genius, he is definitely not a qualified leader, otherwise Yahoo, once the world's number one, would not have fallen to this point!

Now is the end of Yahoo's glorious peak period. If we don't sell the Yahoo shares at this time, should we really wait until Yahoo is hopeless before selling? That is not what the Dragon Fund should do!

PS: I would like to thank "很懒的鱼" for the reward of 100.