We want to share our pride, gratitude and excitement on this 15^th birthday, with all Yahoo! users (600 million of them), customers and partners.  It continues to be an incredible ride for the two of us, as well as for thousands of Yahoo! employees we have had the privilege of working with over the years.

We’ve had the unique opportunity to help create an industry and shape the online world, and will continue to focus on the values that brought us here —working hard, having fun, being passionate about your ideas, believing in each other, and always trying to invent the future.  And as we celebrate 15 years today, we are even more excited than ever about what lies ahead, and the potential of Yahoo! and the Internet.

Of course, we didn’t set out to start one of the world’s largest Internet companies or be leading a movement that has changed the world. We were just a couple of Stanford graduate students doing our research (supposedly) while our professor was on sabbatical.

More interesting than our research was our total fascination with the web and all the cool stuff it suddenly made available. But it was incredibly hard to keep track of the thousands of great websites sprouting up everywhere.  We thought it would be fun to catalog the sites by developing a simple directory. So all this began with nothing more than a hobby to help other early Internet users.

Amazing things happen when we’re doing what’s fun.

We soon learned a huge lesson just as relevant today as then: change and growth on the Internet happen at warp speed—especially if you’re filling a need. With the proliferation of websites and with hundreds of thousands of people accessing our guide, it was simply impossible for us to continue doing this on our own.

Taking big steps takes belief in yourself—and in others.

After many late nights and a lot of pizza, we decided to take the big leap, turn our hobby into a business, raise money and devote ourselves totally to building a company.  This was no sure thing.  For example, 15 years ago, we wanted a free service that was ad-supported. But the conventional wisdom was that our business needed to be subscription-based. Few people thought that advertising could be the key revenue generator for the Internet. Of course, the conventional wisdom was wrong and so today we know that August, 1995, the month our first ad went live, was a critical milestone in the history of Yahoo!, as well as the history of the internet.

Focus on the future: it still looks phenomenal.

Internet growth continues to be simply phenomenal, and we’re nowhere near done.  Fifteen years ago, there were 18,000 web sites and fewer than 10 million people globally on the Internet—less than one third of a single percent of the world’s population at the time. Today there are more than 200 million websites with 90,000 created daily. There are estimated to be 1.6 billion people on the internet today—about 25 percent of the world’s population.

These numbers are astonishing, but even more important and more exciting is the impact that the Internet is having on so many people around the world.  From socio-economic opportunities to more accessible health care to educating the next generation and beyond, the Internet has changed the way we live, work and learn.  It has overcome geographic and political barriers and has made it possible for people to raise their voices as they seek greater economic opportunity and freedom.  And Yahoo! has been a leader in enabling these tremendous technological advancements every step of the way.

Let’s aim to be even prouder fifteen years from now than we are today!

All this in just 15 years. Yahoo! has been built by thousands of dedicated employees, hundreds of millions of loyal users and scores of advertisers who envisioned a future that was exciting, challenging and at times daunting.  To work in the sandbox that is Yahoo! and the evolution of the Internet is truly amazing.

And yet as fast as the Internet and Yahoo! have grown and as remarkably our lives have changed, we are just at the beginning of this great transformation.

The Internet still has enormous and untapped potential.  There are billions of more people we need to drive online, and then provide them with relevant content and opportunities that they’ve never dreamed about before.

We are confident that 15 years from today, we will look back in marvel  at how far you, and the Internet have traveled in such a short time. Just as we are doing today.

Jerry Yang and David Filo

Co-Founders & Chief Yahoos

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sneakers. Ok, you might even say I am sneaker obsessed. From the walk-in closet with 160+ pairs of shoes, to my blog SneakerBlogger, to the custom Nike’s in Yahoo! colors I created for CES earlier this year, I try to find any way I can to incorporate them into my personal and professional life. So when I saw that Yahoo! was going to be hosting a Freecycle-inspired “Free is Good Fair” for employees on campus today (a belated Earth Day swap meet) and that one of the items being donated would be Chief Yahoo David Filo’s signature Adidas sneakers, I started cleaning out my closet.

Much to my wife’s delight, among other things I contributed were five pairs of sneakers and athletic shoes and I was able to actually watch people pick them up and give them a new home. (Yes, people WILL wear other people’s shoes…) Hopefully they will get some great use and their new owners will think hard about what THEY could give up to turn their personal trash into someone else’s treasure.

I’m told Yahoos brought in more than 2,000 items from closets and basements throughout the Bay Area that might otherwise have been destined for landfills. The more interesting things I saw included a vintage map of Silicon Valley businesses from 2000, a red lacy bra (which seemed to disappear quickly), last-generation Tivos, Rockem Sockem Robots, vacuum cleaners, a complete set of Star Trek: Next Generation VHS tapes, bunny slippers, fleeces galore, Yahoo! schwag (Yahoo! Chicago stickers, anyone?), and gently used sporting equipment. Items that had not seen the light of day for years were suddenly adopted by new guardians, who promised to put them into immediate use. Although I think the snow skis might have to wait until next season…

We duplicated this fair in six California, New York, and Oregon offices. And whatever wasn’t claimed was carted away by local charities like the Salvation Army.

So if you see me around campus with size 10.5 Adidas shell-toes, know that they will be well cared for and infused with the spirit of giving.

Hmm… I wonder what size Jerry wears?…

Here are some photos and a video recap:

Lucas Mast
Senior PR Manager
Connected Life

About 14,000 people around the world are heading out for the holidays tonight sporting fuzzy black fleece jackets, courtesy of our generous founders. As they have for the past 11 years, Jerry Yang and David Filo have generously bestowed holiday gifts on all good little Yahoos.

Past gifts have included free coffee for all (a tradition I cash in on every morning), a purple sleeping bag (presumably to get more work out of us), a purple gym bag (to offset all that work), an MP3 player (I think it fit 20 songs, but it was so newfangled back in 2001), a Yahoo!opoly game (a clever adaptation of the Milton Bradley favorite, complete with awesomely relevant metal game pieces), more jackets (they’re clearly a crowd-pleaser), and a $100 charity gift certificate (a favorite for many).

Over the last week, Jerry and David (and their many elves) personally helped employees zip up into their new duds. We threw together this little video of the handout process to get everyone into the holiday spirit. And notice the intrigue surrounding the “bonus” gift that came along with the jackets.

We’ll be home watching our video yule log next week, as I’m sure will you, so let me take this opportunity to thank all of our readers for continuing to read, comment, and repeat. Here’s to a yodelful 2008!

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor