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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

#51

Post by dorfsmay »

BogusIKnow wrote: post #34
heimatau wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

I had no faith at all in Mayer. Not because she isn't a good product manager. Mainly because for a turnaround situation I would hire someone who was there before with a successful turnaround under h-- belt. Not someone without any turnaround knowledge (what to cut, high investor pressure, ...)

I think "their belt" is now accepted as the gender neutral way of saying this (I for one wish we just invented another word rather than make grammar more confusing and less logical, but I guess the people who can influence languages don't think the I do).

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

#53

Post by mdorazio »

threeseed wrote: post #38
BogusIKnow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no faith at all in Mayer. Not because she isn't a good product manager. Mainly because for a turnaround situation I would hire someone who was there before with a successful turnaround under h-- belt. Not someone without any turnaround knowledge (what to cut, high investor pressure, ...)

Yahoo reminds me a lot of Apple before Steve Jobs rejoined. They don't need a turnaround artist like Gil Amelio they need an insanely great product person to bring back some innovation, creativity and attention to detail. Based on her experience and from what everyone says about her she should have been perfect. And I'm quite baffled why she's not managing to get any runs on the board.

But Steve wasn't just a great product person, and it wasn't just a great product that turned Apple around. If you dig into the actual history, Steve significantly restructured Apple when he returned, killing licensing deals and products without a future, and refocusing the remaining product line before he set about creating a single new true innovation. And remember that Apple didn't really pick up steam until it capitalized on the iPod's traction years after Steve returned.

1997 Apple and 2016 Yahoo also exist in very different markets and very different landscapes, to the point that I'm not sure it's fair to say that Yahoo could even plausibly make an Apple-like turnaround happen without completely changing what it does. Apple's resurgence was as much about its great hardware as about its great software, and Yahoo doesn't really have either; it has services, which are a quite different beast these days.

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

#54

Post by 20andup »

threeseed wrote: post #38
BogusIKnow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no faith at all in Mayer. Not because she isn't a good product manager. Mainly because for a turnaround situation I would hire someone who was there before with a successful turnaround under h-- belt. Not someone without any turnaround knowledge (what to cut, high investor pressure, ...)

Yahoo reminds me a lot of Apple before Steve Jobs rejoined. They don't need a turnaround artist like Gil Amelio they need an insanely great product person to bring back some innovation, creativity and attention to detail. Based on her experience and from what everyone says about her she should have been perfect. And I'm quite baffled why she's not managing to get any runs on the board.

That's the exact problem. Mayors is not Steve Jobs. I feel like she is asking for 3 more year for a turn around simply because Steve Jobs took that amount of time to do so. But turn arounds aren't measure in how long it takes. It takes time for sure but thats only a small part of the equation. She doesn't understand even if she copied everything Steve Job did, she will probably not succeed.

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

#58

Post by threeseed »

cbeach wrote: post #37
threeseed wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also pre-dates the era of gender hysteria and other assorted identity politics brought to tech by social justice warriors. Sorry but this pretty much only exists in the minds of a niche group of disaffected, geeky men. The rest of the world has found more constructive ways to deal with the opposite sex and would find the idea we are living in an "era" of it frankly bizarre.

I don't think you understand my point. This isn't about eras of men or women. It's nothing to do with how men and women interact. My point was about eras of identity politics around gender.

You specifically said "era of gender hysteria".

But you're right maybe in the last 20+ years of being in IT I am yet to experience these mythical social justice warriors trying to infiltrate and corrupt the industry. Will definitely keep an eye out for them.

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

#60

Post by threeseed »

mdorazio wrote: post #53
threeseed wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo reminds me a lot of Apple before Steve Jobs rejoined. They don't need a turnaround artist like Gil Amelio they need an insanely great product person to bring back some innovation, creativity and attention to detail. Based on her experience and from what everyone says about her she should have been perfect. And I'm quite baffled why she's not managing to get any runs on the board.

But Steve wasn't just a great product person, and it wasn't just a great product that turned Apple around. If you dig into the actual history, Steve significantly restructured Apple when he returned, killing licensing deals and products without a future, and refocusing the remaining product line before he set about creating a single new true innovation. And remember that Apple didn't really pick up steam until it cap…

But killing off unsuccessful products and focusing on implementing successful ones properly is what good product management is all about. And it seems to be what Yahoo is still lacking.

And services are products too. Apple iCloud is a product just like Flickr, Yahoo Home Page, Yahoo Mail etc.

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