Yahoo! Inc. CEO Jerry Yang is drawing a lot of heat from the media. He can ignore bloggers like me making fun of his Icahn FAQ, but when Techcrunch and the venerable New York Times start piling on, its time for Jerry Yang to find a bunker or head for the hills.

I don't want to waste time on the same arguments about the loss to shareholders and the Yahoo brand, the severance poison pill and anti-trust and stuff like that. I've made my thoughts on these matters perfectly clear in previous posts. Check out the archive for full Microsoft-Yahoo coverage on this blog.

What I want to do here is to list, in chronological order, all the offers and counter-offers made and refused, by both sides. Just so we get a clear picture of exactly who did what and who gets blamed.

• January 2007 - Microsoft makes $40 offer. Rejected by then Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel with authorization from Yahoo Board. Stated reason: Yahoo not interested in 'broader strategic transaction'.
• Feb 2nd 2008 - Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer makes $31 public bid for Yahoo. Rejected by Yahoo Board Feb 9th. Stated reason: Offer 'undervalues' Yahoo.
• May 3rd 2008 - Microsoft increases offer price to $33. Rejected by Jerry Yang. Microsoft withdraws bid. Stated reason: Yahoo wants at least $37.
• June 12th 2008 - Microsoft refuses full Yahoo acquisition, even at the $33 level previously offered. Stated reason: Time sensitive offer which expired end of April.
• June 12th 2008 - Microsoft offers to buy only Yahoo's search business with an investment of $9 billion for acquiring 16% of Yahoo. Rejected by Yahoo. Stated reason: Not in the interest of Yahoo shareholders.

My point in rehashing the chronology is that Jerry Yang is following a pattern here - Dragging his feet for a specific price until he's sure Microsoft is no longer interested, and then saying yes. $31? If they offer $40 I'll take it. $33? If they offer $37 I'll take it. Don't want to buy? But I'm willing to sell for $33.....

Now there's a lot of inferences and little side-notes to be discussed here, but the core issue is this. Yahoo had a $40 bid. They didn't take it. End of the day, under pressure from shareholders, Yang agreed to sell for $33, but Microsoft didn't want it any more. Assuming Yahoo retains its independence (which is another story altogether), the share price will likely end up hovering just below $20 (YHOO stands at $23.47 now. It hovered in between $25-28 in the month of January 2007). The crux of the issue is that the Yahoo Board has denied shareholders a profit of $15 to $20 per share.

What I'm saying is that Jerry Yang has wilfully and knowingly played this game for a year and a half, all the while destroying Yahoo's inherent value, just so he can maintain control over his 'baby'. Everyone from major Yahoo shareholders to the tech media elite and Wall Street analysts are now demanding that Yang should step aside now. I say the sooner the better, because he sees it simply as a game of survival, and like as not will be more than willing to play the same game again. Share price and all other aspects be damned.