Jerry Yang built-up his name by transforming a start-up tech firm into a multi-billion dollar global company, becoming the toast of the tech world in so short a time, which lasted until Yahoo's gradual and eventual decline.

Google came to town and suddenly Yahoo started its slip and slowly faded into the background of a fierce search engine competition that saw Google collecting billions in revenue, leaving out Yahoo for the most part and becoming one of the key players in the lucrative online advertising market.

But when Yang co-founded Yahoo with David Filo in 1995, tech watchers loved the fact that he fronted for the company and supervised on its incredible growth while Mr Filo focused on tinkering and improving the company's technology.

Fresh out of Stanford University, Messrs Yang and Filo rode the waves of the dot.com tsunami that had hit the tech world in the late 1990s, taking advantage of the innovations that flooded the industry at that time.

The duo's collaboration successfully inched Yahoo into prominence, overtaking earlier search engine players then like Alta Vista and with Mr Yang endeavoring to attract the big money by selling the company to advertisers - a field where he proved his immense skill.

The Wall Street Journal called Mr Yang as Yahoo's 'rock star' but he was more like the deal-maker who delivered the goods, pleasing the company's investors in the process, while at the same time donning his naturally amiable personality that endeared him to Yahoo employees.

Strings of success garnered by Yahoo in the North American region had emboldened Mr Yang to look Far East and re-trace his roots, giving him the China platform in the form of a personal and business connection with Jack Ma.

Mr Ma heads the Chinese Internet behemoth Alibaba Group and in him, Mr Yang saw a golden opportunity, which saw the two firms sealing a deal in 2005 that allowed Yahoo presence in China.

That agreement resulted to Yahoo acquiring 40 per cent interest in Alibaba, then worth $1 billion, which according to WSJ has grown into $14 billion, proving once again that Mr Yang's vision was instrumental in enriching the company.

Yet the same gift will work against Mr Yang as other firms were at the same time rising to give Yahoo a good run for its money.

Indeed they did, in the from of Google and Facebook, which both earned much of their keep by slowly chipping away market shares that Yahoo used to dominate.

In the end, Yahoo was overtaken and was reduced into trying to figure out how to keep pace with its competitors who have been gobbling billions in revenues that the former market leader had at its command.

Then another opportunity came in 2008 as Microsoft Corporation dangled a serious takeover offer to Yahoo worth some $45 billion.

Mr Yang turned down the bid and earned the ire of Yahoo investors, starting off series of setbacks for the company that were highlighted by dwindling revenues and leadership crisis that saw the Yahoo co-founder relinquishing his CEO post after only more than a year of tenure.

His replacement, Carol Bartz, was not destined to stay long too as Yahoo grappled to rediscover its old form, which shareholders had hoped would re-emerge when former PayPal executive Scott Thompson was tapped as new chief just two weeks ago.

On Tuesday, Mr Yang announced his complete departure from Yahoo's board, merely reasoning that "the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside Yahoo."

In a statement, Mr Yang declared that all his positions in the company, specifically in Yahoo Japan and Alibaba will be relinquished.

Mr Yang's move, tech experts said, could prove as Yahoo's new second wind and should provide Mr Thompson a clean slate to start with and rebuild the ailing firm.