Yang joins billionaire club
Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang has joined the billionaire club, after his company's stock soared to a record $199.25 Monday. Yang joins fellow co-founder David Filo, who hit the billion-dollar mark last Wednesday. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Yang owns 5.7 million shares of Yahoo! stock, putting his worth at $1.14 billion after today's run-up.
In the past several months, Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) has led a surge in Internet based stocks as investors bet on the e-commerce potential of portal sites. Yahoo! shares broke the $100 mark just three months ago.
Yang and Filo, who both hold the title of Chief Yahoo! at their Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, are probably the first owners of an Internet-based firm to hit billionaire status.
But that's small potatoes compared to guys such as Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who hurdled the $50 billion mark in April.
The incredible gains by Yahoo! and other Internet stocks come just two days before the Internet giant will announce its second-quarter results.