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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

#71

Post by dingbat »

cft wrote: post #29

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…

who needs functional email.. Y! really needs more katie couric, to retain loyal users like your mom

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

#72

Post by rpgmaker »

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.

It's funny how people pretend that it's a sure thing that Yahoo can be saved. Saving Yahoo has always been more like a moonshot than a long shot and this was true way before they even hired Mayer. Sure, she has failed to do so (expected) but let's not pretend that there was much that she or anyone else could've done to save the company at this juncture. Her pivot to content failed but in many situations you don't know what will work until you try it. She had her shot, she failed and will probably be fired now but let's not pretend that there was much that she could do in the first place. Yahoo looks a lot like a lost cause.

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

#73

Post by GlideCleanser »

crikli wrote: post #44
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, ...)

Mayer is a prime example of what happens when someone whose career should have peaked at COO becomes CEO. You see it all the time in sports when guys who are brilliant technical coordinators get moved to head coach and subsequently flounder. There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than technical proficiency and strategic capability. There's a mix of requirements that are hard to quantify: h…

> There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than technical proficiency and strategic capability.

Eh, not that I totally disagree with you, but I dunno that that's really true. There are plenty of head coaches (and CEOs) who are just so technically proficient and/or excellent strategists that their lack of charm/empathy/charisma is a non-issue.

Belichick and Jim Harbaugh (say what you want, but he's successful by any sense of the word) are two examples of very successful head coaches who aren't well-known for being particularly charming or empathetic (one is an emotional brick wall and the other is a screaming psychopath).

There are CEOs who aren't particularly well-known for their people skills, but they're so good at strategy and execution that it really doesn't matter much. Anecdotally (from my tenure there), Bezos never gave/gives the impression of being particularly charismatic or charming. He's just really good at building the juggernaut that is Amazon.

I'm not saying those skills are unimportant and certainly people like Belichick are the exception, but it's entirely possible to just be so good at strategy that the rest doesn't really matter. Mayer just doesn't seem to be quite at that level.

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

#75

Post by jsjohnst »

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, ...)

Yahoo! previously had someone with a turnaround under her belt (Carol Bartz) and it was a disaster.

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

#76

Post by SeeDave »

GlideCleanser wrote: post #73
crikli wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mayer is a prime example of what happens when someone whose career should have peaked at COO becomes CEO. You see it all the time in sports when guys who are brilliant technical coordinators get moved to head coach and subsequently flounder. There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than technical proficiency and strategic capability. There's a mix of requirements that are hard to quantify: h…

> There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than technical proficiency and strategic capability. Eh, not that I totally disagree with you, but I dunno that that's really true. There are plenty of head coaches (and CEOs) who are just so technically proficient and/or excellent strategists that their lack of charm/empathy/charisma is a non-issue. Belichick and Jim Harbaugh (say what you want, bu…

I encourage you to read the book 'First Rate Madness' to get an understanding of the link between crisis leaders and mental illness.

Meyer appears to be a peacetime leader, not a crisis leader. Yahoo honestly needs a nutjob the likes of Steve Ballmer to survive.

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

#77

Post by manishsharan »

I am sorry to say that Yahoo management doesn't have a clue about what its doing. Case in point : I used to be a avid fan of the show Community and was elated when Yahoo picked it up. However for Canadian viewers I learnt it was only available only certain days of the week. WTF? And don't event get me started on the streaming issue. They couldn't even get the basics of online video right.

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

#79

Post by braythwayt »

Maybe instead of beating up on MM, we could look at Yahoo the way we look at Twitter: Yahoo could be great if the world would let Yahoo be Yahoo.

But Yahoo being Yahoo would be a smaller company, with smaller, focused business, and happy customers. But it would have a smaller market cap, and today’s investors would take a massive haircut. So they keep plowing ahead trying to be a tech giant.

Because they bought tech giant shares, and it’s tech giant, or collapse until it’s sold for scrap. And MM has to parrot the “this is the road back to being a tech giant” line to keep the illusion alive.

I’m not sure that anyone can do any better given the “tech giant or nothing” circumstances.

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

#80

Post by lisper »

bane wrote: post #69
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, ...)

My problem with her all along is that before Yahoo she literally has only ever had one job. And that job was part of the management structure with a successful company. While there she developed a reputation as a data-driven iterator, not a visionary leader who can create direction and focus. She inherited what others had already started, and figured out things to measure, then analyzed the measures very competently.…

> She inherited what others had already started

I am not Marissa Meyers' biggest fan, but I feel I have to come to her defense here. She was employee #20 at Google. She didn't inherit anything, she helped build Google from the ground up.

There are a lot of reasons why Marissa is not a good CEO, but a history of riding on other people's coattails is not one of them.

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