Jerry Yang's exit from Yahoo! Inc. removes one of the last vestiges of a management team chided by investors for failing to find a buyer or negotiate a sale of stakes in Asian assets worth more than $10 billion.

Now that co-founder and one-time chief executive officer Yang has cut his leadership ties to Yahoo, newly appointed CEO Scott Thompson has freer rein to unwind the company's part-ownership of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Yahoo Japan Corp. He may also do a better job mounting a credible threat to Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. in online advertising, said Clayton Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co.

"He's been perceived to be an impediment to change," Moran said of Yang. "The founder has left, so even though Thompson is new, he is more in control today than yesterday," said Moran, who is based in Del Ray Beach, Florida, and has a "hold" rating on Yahoo.