Uh, she faces more than a mere "morale challenge". Her job is impossible. Her company is a gigantic load of bovine excrement with literally no redeeming qualities, products, or domain expertise to build upon. It should have been shut down five years ago and put out of its misery.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
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Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#72You can bypass the paywall with this link: http://bit.ly/1XdzZgO (Google search the original URL in quotes in future) Sounds like she's in a tough spot. You're pretty much forced into a situation of focusing on the good numbers when you're a public company or you'll get beaten up by the shareholders and shorts. So it's difficult to shine sunlight on the bad stuff to disinfect because that's not what public investors…
Thank you, TBH I realize I should of investigated before commenting. Sorry. I am new to HN, bad manners will be corrected. I guarantee that.
Welcome to HN!
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> bad manners will be corrected. I guarantee that.
We'll hold you to your words. Do so, or the downvotes will follow. ;).
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#73The morale problem is a symptom of bad leadership. It's not going to be fixed with more bad leadership.
Steve Jobs could come back from the dead and he would be utterly helpless to revive the abject piece of crap that is Yahoo.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was part time for the quarter before that tho.
Yes, but you don't go around making big changes when you're in a temp position. Once he was the real CEO he had free reign to execute a new plan and has shown steps that he's doing that (Moments launched literally the next day!).
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Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#75Yahoo started as a couple of people who said "This internet thing has a lot of content now, let's try to organize it for people." They should go back to doing that, and throw 20 years worth of technology and cultural growth at the problem. Along with as much manpower and machine learning tech as hundreds of millions of dollars can buy.
I do enjoy the drama of the Mayer Saga, but it doesn't seem like any of Yahoo's attempts at innovation are working. They shouldn't be competing with Google in search. They should be redefining search. Some times the best way to change the game is to go back to basics. Of course if I knew exactly what that looked like, I would be too busy walking the path to wealth to write hn comments. But it does seem like Yahoo isn't doing anything innovative right now. Their most valuable properties, mail and the yahoo home page, are simply good enough versions of products that have become commodities. They began by offering a service that no one else was providing, and have ended up being relegated to being the internet's generic alternative to everything.
It's Hail Mary time. If I were in Mayer's position, I would find a way to burn a few hundred million dollars of the alibaba money on a moon shot before the board had time to vote me out. The odds against may be overwhelming, but it's better than slightly slowing the angular velocity of their circle around the drain. With the recent tone of press articles about her tenure and what that does to an executive's reputation, I don't see what she has to lose.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#76Sometimes, well it actually happens quite often, a company just runs its course and is better off just winding things up and closing shop. IMHO it looks like the likely end game for Yahoo is: - taken private by a Private Equity firm - divest Yahoo Japan and Alibaba - any divisions that aren't making an actual profit, (tumblr, flickr, fantasy sports, etc, will be shopped around and sold if possible, or shuttered if no…
Having watched way too much "House of Lies" where consultants often seem to be brought in to back-up the viewpoint of a given executive and make the case for whatever that person's agenda is...what would such consultants likely be doing in this case in "the real world?" I admittedly haven't had the experience of working with any consultants, so I'm curious for opinions from those who have what happens when they come…
I spent a few years as a management consultant. Consultants are almost never hired to provide truly objective analysis. In most cases, they're hired to "back-up the viewpoint of a given executive". This is done by the executive to hedge the political risk required to go through with their action. They can point to McK when they defend their strategy to the board and then throw them under the bus if things don't pan out.
The rewards for the consultant are high fees and living a luxe lifestyle of staying at high end hotels, traveling first class, and dining at michelin starred restaurants (all of course on the client's dime). Plus of course guaranteed future work. Even if the project tanks and the executive is fired, they'll be sure to hire McK again at their next gig.
What most people don't realize is that consulting engagements are a careful collaboration between consultant and client. The findings are almost always driven by an iterative process where you go through review cycles with the buyer until you reach your "objective" conclusions, which by the very nature of how the work is performed, is totally subjective and biased. Doubly so for turnaround projects like this one. (not to mention that consultants are constantly trying to recycle previously performed analysis, regardless if it at all fits or applies in the target project).
Management consultant is the biggest circlejerk profession. Even moreso IMO than ibanking. Classic self-serving MBA type job. Management consultants are to entrepreneurs what food critics are to chefs.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#77Yahoo started as a couple of people who said "This internet thing has a lot of content now, let's try to organize it for people." They should go back to doing that, and throw 20 years worth of technology and cultural growth at the problem. Along with as much manpower and machine learning tech as hundreds of millions of dollars can buy. I do enjoy the drama of the Mayer Saga, but it doesn't seem like any of Yahoo's at…
> They shouldn't be competing with Google in search. They should be redefining search.
Yahoo is hardly trying to compete with Google in search; they have literally been outsourcing search to Bing for several years now.
The problem is that they're trying to figure out what they should be doing instead, and struggling.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#78"Ms. Mayer called a meeting with senior executives in August and asked them to sign a written agreement to stay with the company for at least three more years, according to two people familiar with the meeting." Is such an agreement enforceable? Or is this some meaningless pledge? If you want people to stay, give them a decent financial incentive.
_If you want people to stay, give them a decent financial incentive._
Nah. That doesn't work (assuming you're already paying well). Best people will consider this a sign of desperation and leave, and bottom of the barrel will stick around for stuff to vest. Fail/fail.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#79Uh, she faces more than a mere "morale challenge". Her job is impossible. Her company is a gigantic load of bovine excrement with literally no redeeming qualities, products, or domain expertise to build upon. It should have been shut down five years ago and put out of its misery.
You do realize that "gigantic load of bovine excrement" describes, like, 90% of Silicon Valley, right? :-)
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a strong cult of personality around our industry, in general. The belief that a special CEO can make a billion dollar company. It ignores the role of luck, the other employees (sometimes there are thousands of employees, as in the case of Yahoo!, and every single one of them can make or break the company in small ways every day), changes in the market, etc. Steve Jobs is the epitome of the Magic CEO archetype…
I wouldn't call NeXT an expensive failure, especially seeing how it laid the framework for Apple's current success. It is hard to say what would have happened if Steve Jobs stayed at Apple in the 80s....he was never actually CEO before 1997 (see http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/08/25/a-look-at-apples-ceos... ).
NeXT effectively replaced Apple's leadership post-1996. Arguably NeXT affected the single most successful 'reverse takeover' of all time.