Here’s the problem, Jerry. It’s not your baby. It hasn’t been since 1996, when Yahoo went public. At that moment, you suddenly had to answer to your new owners: your shareholders. In fact, Jerry, as a board member since Yahoo went public, it has always been your job to look out for Yahoo’s shareholders. But we sure wouldn’t know that from the way you’ve acted these past months. I haven’t seen this much contempt for shareholders since Robert Nardelli ran Home Depot.

I can hear you now, protesting that it was Microsoft that walked away, not you, that you were always open to a deal, and that you were just trying to negotiate a better price than the $33 a share Microsoft ultimately offered. That’s been your spin all along.

But how many times did Microsoft’s chief executive, Steve Ballmer, come knocking on your door the last few years, seeking a merger. Three? Four? I hear that about a year and a half ago, he offered $41.50 a share to your then chief executive Terry Semel  and no less an authority than Michael Milken told Mr. Semel that Yahoo’s shareholders were never likely to see that price again. (Your P.R. guy denies this offer was ever made.) Since then, your stock has been sinking.

By the time Mr. Ballmer made his $31-a-share proposal in late January  and announced it publicly to force you to take it seriously  your stock was so low that his offer still represented a 62 percent premium. Yet you and your board rejected it almost out of hand  while you went scrambling to find a white knight, as they used to call it back in the 1980s.

When it turned out that nobody in techland was much interested in playing that role  and your big shareholders were furious  you were forced to negotiate with Mr. Ballmer. It sure didn’t look as though you ever took those negotiations seriously. You rarely brought any of your investment bankers  thus casting aside the very people who know how to make mergers happen  and sometimes the only person you brought along was Mr. Filo  who isn’t even on Yahoo’s board!