During his tenure he attracted stars like James Taylor and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney away from, respectively, Warner Bros. Records and EMI, and went on to "preside over the most profitable and prestigious stable of artists of all time.

Yetnikoff notes in the documentary film The Last Play at Shea that he had to threaten Artie Ripp to close the deal.

Following his discharge, he was hired by the law firm Rosenman, Colin, Kaye, Petschek and Freund, which represented William S. Paley and CBS.

[9] In 1962, Yetnikoff joined CBS Records as a staff attorney at the behest of general counsel Clive Davis, a former colleague from Rosenman & Colin.

In 1968, as general counsel, Yetnikoff was instrumental together with Harvey Schein in forming CBS/Sony, a Japanese joint venture which became highly profitable under Akio Morita and Norio Ohga.

[10] Yetnikoff forged a close and lucrative working partnership with Sony executives, thereby establishing a groundbreaking collaboration between a major U.S. company and Japanese corporation.

"[13] Yetnikoff was credited by Billy Joel with providing the necessary financial and promotional support that propelled his career to its eventual heights.

Yetnikoff relentlessly pursued Paul McCartney and finally persuaded him to sign a deal that put the ex-Beatle's North American releases on CBS.

Yetnikoff features prominently in Fredric Dannen's landmark 1990 book Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business, which chronicles Yetnikoff's many victories, as well as some of his less successful business deals, such as his costly decision to lure Paul McCartney to CBS by giving him the rights to Frank Music, the publishing company that controlled the music of leading composer Frank Loesser—a move which was later estimated to have cost the label around $9 million, and which gave McCartney sole ownership of one of the most lucrative publishing catalogues in the world.

Dannen also detailed Yetnikoff's volatile temperament, his notoriously abrasive and sometimes abusive personal conduct, and his intense business battles with other labels and executives.

The Jewish Yetnikoff noted that he viewed Father Puma as a mentor: "It'd be easier for the Pope to convert to Islam than for me to turn Catholic, but that didn't stop me from hanging out with a priest who understood the need for redemption.

Over the years, Yetnikoff received awards from many philanthropic organizations such as the TJ Martell Foundation and anti-defamation league of B'nai B'rith.