Tim "TK" Koogle's announcement last week that he would give up the chief executive post at Yahoo - a company he has managed for more than five years - caps a turbulent 12 months for the group, in which the company's share price has dropped by 90 per cent.
When Mr Koogle took charge in August 1995, he had hoped to steer Yahoo out of the pack of Internet portals and into the mainstream of companies. More importantly, Mr Koogle, now 49, had a business background lacking in the resumes of Jerry Yang and David Filo, who as Stanford University graduate students founded the now-ubiquitous Web portal only the year before.
Internet users typically use Yahoo - free of charge - for their searches, news, reference, e-mail, shopping and gossip. More importantly, from the investors' perspective, users soak up countless dollars in Internet advertising.
That indispensible source of revenue originated with Mr Koogle, who had to convince Mr Yang and Mr Filo not to keep their site completely unblemished by capitalism, as they had once hoped.
"I think he's very impressive," said Ms Andrea Rice, managing director at Deutsche Bank in San Francisco. "He came on board when there were about six people there, and he successfully navigated some very rocky and uncertain times on Internet."
But dotcom-related advertising is sharply down. And the Internet portal was recently struck with three high-profile resignations. The managing director and vice-president of Yahoo's operations in Asia quit one day after the managing director of Yahoo Europe announced she was leaving the company. Shortly thereafter, the head of Yahoo Canada resigned.
A race-car and electric-guitar enthusiast, Mr Koogle, a native of the Washington DC suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, has a somewhat unlikely background for a cyberspace pioneer. Mr Koogle's father, a mechanic with the US Navy, taught his son to build and fix engines, instilling in him a passion for engineering.
Mr Koogle took his interest to the University of Virginia, where he graduated first in his class in 1973. He proceeded to Stanford University for an engineering doctorate (1977), earning his tuition money - and amusing himself - by repairing the engines of other students' cars.
In 1983, Mr Koogle joined Chicago-based Motorola, taking various management and revenue-building positions, and in 1992 became president of InterMec, the Seattle-based data-services company (and inventor of the Bar Code).
Yet just as Yahoo ranks among the most widely-used and recognised companies associated with the Internet, its financial record in the last year has reflected a typical drop in the fortunes of Internet-based companies.
When the company went public in April 1996, it sold for about $3.50, spending most of the rest of the year below $2. Last January, the company's shares peaked at about $250.
But on Wednesday, Yahoo confirmed that 2001 earnings and revenue would fall below analysts' predictions. That sent the stock tumbling $5 to $20 in after-hours trading, below its previous 52-week low.
One analyst noted in January that Yahoo's growth would remain slow for some time, but predicted the company would survive.
Mr Koogle - who will stay on as chairman - has insisted Yahoo's innovations and smart management would see it through the unsteady markets. His resignation as chief executive means he and Yahoo are officially on the lookout for just such a manager.
