I know we're not normal," Jerry Yang says with a boyish grin, making a halfhearted effort to straighten up his cubicle for his visitor. It's not much of an office by mogul standards: just a nondescript desk, a couple of cheap plastic milk crates bulging with papers, an old futon. Magazines are piled in a corner, and a window offers a distinctly declasse view of the parking lot.
Of course, by the standards of David Filo, 32, Yahoo's other co-founder, 29-year-old Jerry's digs are West Coast Donald Trump. Filo's office is truly a Goodwill collection truck of a workspace, with dirty...