Jerry Yang only knew one English word when he arrived in the US
Jerry Yang speaks at the New Economy Summit 2014 in Tokyo on April 10, 2014..
YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images
Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang, born in Taiwan, was only 8 years old when he moved to San Jose, California, in 1976. As the story goes, Yang only knew the English word "shoe" when he first set foot in the country. He says it took him three years to become fluent in English.
But that didn't stop him from achieving academic excellence. Yang got both his bachelor's and master's in electrical engineering at Stanford University. There, he met David Filo, and together they cofounded Yahoo!, arguably the biggest internet portal in the '90s.
Yang stepped down as Yahoo CEO in 2009 and left the company in 2012. However, he was able to build an estimated net worth of $2.3 billion along the way and remains an active investor.