After months of speculation, expectation [pick your own verb] Yahoo! co-founder and current CEO Jerry Yang is stepping down.

I have great respect for Yang, but little respect for his tenure as CEO.

It hasn’t gone well.

Yahoo is well on its way to becoming the latest version of Netscape, which is – to me – painful.

Yahoo is a great brand, and – more importantly – a great groundbreaking company. (As was Netscape.)

However, over the last few years – especially under Yang – Yahoo has done poorly, and shows no signs of really getting ahead of the curve.

Yang’s departure is a milestone, but a good move, to me. Yang and David Filo founded and built the company, but – today – Yahoo is a completely different company, and Yang has not adapted. Hell, I wouldn’t either. Not a ding; just a reality.

NOTE: I’m not at all mentioning the Microsoft/Yahoo merger/takeover talks here. Just Yahoo.