16 Facts About Jerry Yang

Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang is a Taiwanese-born American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist.

Jerry Yang was born Jerry Yang Chih-Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan, on November 6,1968.

Jerry Yang's mother was a professor of English and drama and his father died when he was two, by which time Yang had a younger brother, Chih-Kong Ken Yang.

Jerry Yang says that he only knew one English word, "shoe", when he came to America, but became fluent in English in about three years.

Jerry Yang graduated from Piedmont Hills High School and went on to earn both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Stanford University in four years.

Jerry Yang met David Filo at Stanford in 1989, and the two went to Japan in 1992 for a six-month exchange program, where he met his future wife, Akiko Yamazaki, participating in the exchange program.

Jerry Yang founded a venture capital firm called AME Cloud Ventures and, as of 2015, is on several corporate boards.

In 1999, Jerry Yang was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

Jerry Yang met Alibaba founder Jack Ma in 1997 during Jerry Yang's first trip to China.

Jerry Yang made an additional $9.4 billion in Alibaba's 2014 IPO.

In February 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that she raised issues about jailed Chinese journalists with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi; she cited a letter from Jerry Yang requesting her assistance in freeing the jailed dissidents.

Jerry Yang regained his former position as "Chief Yahoo" and remained on Yahoo's board of directors.

Jerry Yang is married to Japan-born Akiko Yamazaki, who was raised in Costa Rica.

Jerry Yang began the collection in the late 1990s; it contains about 250 pieces.

Jerry Yang was featured in Asian Americans, a PBS documentary series on Asian American history, in 2020.

Jerry Yang sits on the board of the foundation, described by its organizers as the largest-ever philanthropic effort to support the AAPI community.