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Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

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Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#21

Post by rhaps0dy »

parfe wrote: post #12
simula67 wrote: post #8

Why is HN obsessed with Yahoo ? See for example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796

Nothing to do with yahoo. Mayer failing makes hn happy. Wonder why?

Why? And I wonder if a sizeable (say, more than 10%) of the posters are actually happy about this.

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#22

Post by heimatau »

nabla9 wrote: post #7

Is she willing to take $1 pay and get rest of her compensation in stock options that expire 5 years from now? How much is she willing to invest in Yahoo stock or stock futures by herself? If I were in the Yahoo board, those would be my first questions. Best way to test her commitment and trust for her own strategy is to see how much she is willing to bet her own money on it.

I had a lot of faith in Mayer's turn around. Do I think she needs more time? Yes. Do I think she can do it in more time? I'm skeptical now. Will the board, that she created, try to keep her accountable like you're saying? I hope so.

I'm skeptical. It seems AOL/Armstrong really wanted to merge to become a new Yahoo. I'm curious on how Yahoo will pivot, with the time. FB, SnapChat, Instagram, Twitter, and Google are fighting for mobile ad revenue. It's my understanding that's how Yahoo is trying to reinvent itself. Might be too little, too late.

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#23

Post by shubhamjain »

revel wrote: post #15

Yahoo has already transitioned into being a niche advertising and media company. That's not necessarily a problem, but Yahoo still fancies itself as big tech player and that hasn't been the case for over a decade. It may make sense for Yahoo to try and become a better media and advertising company, but Marissa Mayer is surely not the best choice of CEO for that kind of company. I'm not even saying she's a bad CEO, ju…

I don't think Yahoo could ever make that transition without losing billions in market cap. I know that's what is happening right now but it is a tough call - make a last ditch try to be "genuine" tech company or kill everything to make business of whatever is possible. Considering that Yahoo still has tech talent and a tech executive as it's CEO, I can guess it will try to gamble on the former.

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#24

Post by marcuskaz »

simula67 wrote: post #8

Why is HN obsessed with Yahoo ? See for example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796

Historical sake, back in the early days Yahoo was king, it was Google before Google, the Google IPO wasn't until 2004, Yahoo went public in 1996. They were the biggest internet company for a decade.

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#25

Post by JoachimSchipper »

parfe wrote: post #12
simula67 wrote: post #8

Why is HN obsessed with Yahoo ? See for example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796

Nothing to do with yahoo. Mayer failing makes hn happy. Wonder why?

Seriously: are you trying to start a flame war?

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#26

Post by threeseed »

parfe wrote: post #12
simula67 wrote: post #8

Why is HN obsessed with Yahoo ? See for example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796

Nothing to do with yahoo. Mayer failing makes hn happy. Wonder why?

That is nonsense.

Yahoo is one of the oldest and most important web companies around. It's always going to be newsworthy. And people are a bit critical of Mayer because she promised a lot and really hasn't delivered anything.

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#27

Post by booop »

simula67 wrote: post #8

Why is HN obsessed with Yahoo ? See for example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796

For me, several years ago when the ISP technician finally setup my modem after spending hours doing do, the first site I visited in my life was www.yahoo.com :)

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#28

Post by mdorazio »

parfe wrote: post #12
simula67 wrote: post #8

Why is HN obsessed with Yahoo ? See for example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796

Nothing to do with yahoo. Mayer failing makes hn happy. Wonder why?

HN likes it when overpaid, over-hyped leaders fail in general, especially after doing massively unpopular and short-sighted things like killing work from home policies. If Mayer had actually done a good job at Yahoo and turned things around, HN would be propping her up as a hero. Instead, she proved her inexperience, inflexibility, and narrow focus make her a poor CEO for a company like Yahoo, and the board and media should never have propped her up as the harbinger of amazing female CEOs.

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#29

Post by cft »

One of their most valuable assets is Android Yahoo Mail app, that they are methodically killing: my mom (a loyal Yahoo user of 18+ years) says it has become too complicated (grouping conversations), with an unpredictable spam filter. Until recently it suffered from a serious memory leak (which was not fixed for years).

They already successfully killed the Android Yahoo Messenger app (remember when Yahoo Messenger was huge on desktop?). Ironically, WhatsApp founders are from Yahoo...

Re: Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo

#30

Post by aNoob7000 »

revel wrote: post #15

Yahoo has already transitioned into being a niche advertising and media company. That's not necessarily a problem, but Yahoo still fancies itself as big tech player and that hasn't been the case for over a decade. It may make sense for Yahoo to try and become a better media and advertising company, but Marissa Mayer is surely not the best choice of CEO for that kind of company. I'm not even saying she's a bad CEO, ju…

I couldn't agree more with your assessment.

I'm just amazed that the Yahoo board hasn't fired her yet with her overall performance in the past four years. She's been paid handsomely and delivered very little.

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