Jerry Yang

The cost of saying no. Yang, Yahoo's co-founder and then chief executive, rejected Microsoft's offer of about $44.6 billion in 2008 as undervaluing the company. Shareholders sued, the activist Carl Icahn attacked the board, and Yang stepped down as chief executive later that year. Yahoo's internet business was eventually sold to Verizon in 2017 for under $5 billion, the most cited example of an independence defence that destroyed value.