Founder Jerry Yang exits CEO's position at Yahoo!

San Francisco: Struggling Internet giant Yahoo Inc was left adrift without any leader at the helm after chief executive Jerry Yang announced he was exiting his position. The firm also said it had hired a search firm to look for a successor.

Yang's sudden exit now leaves open the possibility that the iconic Internet firm may be open for acquisition. It was founded 13 years ago by Yang, when he was only a graduate student at Stanford University.

Earlier in the year, Yahoo, was also the target of a $47.5 billion unsolicited takeover attempt by Microsoft Corp.

Yahoo said it would consider internal and external candidates for the job. It was not clear why Yang chose to leave without putting a successor in place.

Meanwhile, Yahoo shares, which had fallen 1.8% to $10.63 during the regular session, jumped to $11.10 in after-hours trading, though still about half the level they were at three months ago.

With his resignation Yang would have finally yielded to tremendous shareholder pressure which began to mount ever since he rejected Microsoft's bid earlier this year. The pressure increased further as the firm's business deteriorated along with the slumping economy as it was more exposed to the slumping online display advertising market.

The company, once the leader in Internet advertising, had been steadily losing share in the market for Internet search to Google Inc. A near fatal blow to any chances for a revival would have been delivered with Google pulling out of a search advertising pact that had the potential to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue for Yahoo.