54).

Indeed, the fact that the company's leadership team survived at all during its formative years speaks highly of the founder's vision and perseverance. In fact, Jerry Wang was originally rejected by a venture capital firm for suggesting to use what Hargrove (2001) indicates was "such a ridiculous name as Yahoo" (2001, p. 271). As Ashby and Miles (2002) also emphasize, countless up-and-comers at the time failed to make good on their plans for growing their businesses during the 1990s for a variety of reasons: "The decade departed in a rush of technology-driven euphoria that is not likely to be seen again for a long time; 21-year-olds are not likely to have another opportunity to raise millions of dollars on the strength of simplistic business plans favored simply because they contained the word 'Internet'" (p. xvii).

Despite these early problems with financing and credibility, the company's co-founder Wang and others...
[ View Full Essay]