Yahoo

Yahoo, founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo as a directory of websites, initially soared as a go-to portal for internet surfers. Once the titan of early web search and email services, Yahoo stumbled into a series of missteps that included a disastrous $4.5 billion acquisition of Broadcast.com in 1999 and a failure to capitalize on its search engine advantage. After a peak valuation of $125 billion, the company’s decline was marked by controversies such as massive data breaches and an ill-fated attempt to challenge Google and Facebook in the digital ad market. In 2017, Yahoo was sold to Verizon for about $4.48 billion, reflecting its decline from an internet powerhouse to a digital relic. Key figures like Marissa Mayer, who served as CEO from 2012 to 2017, had mixed success in reversing Yahoo’s fortunes.