March 8, 2006 Marissa Mayer prefers Pine to Gmail [mayer]Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products and User Experience at Google confesses to CNN Money that she doesn't use Gmail for her business mail. "I don't feel overwhelmed with information. I really like it. I use Gmail for my personal e-mail -- 15 to 20 e-mails a day -- but on my work e-mail I get as many as 700 to 800 a day, so I need something really fast. I use an…
People often talk about Mayer as the pinnacle of work ethic, but it often sounds to me like she needs more "work smarter, not harder". 10-14 hours of email once a week sounds like a remarkably bad idea to me. (Yes, I know she's also phenomenally successful, but so are MANY more people that don't share her methods)
I don't think if you work like crazy 24-7 there's any "ethic" in it. I'd say it's more of some sort of morbidness. Human beings are not meant to live this way, and exemplifying such an attitude really makes a perverse and toxic culture.