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What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

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Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#201

Post by whamlastxmas »

Lagged2Death wrote: post #38

I'm no biz-geek, I probably can't name a dozen CEOs. But for years, MM's name was called put in every critical mainstream headline about Yahoo, of which there were many. I do not believe that's an accident. I do not believe a man would have been treated the same way.

MM seems to be very polarizing because she got so much praise and attention when she became the Yahoo CEO without actually doing anything. She was the golden child CEO without any merit. I think people found this frustrating (I did) and so when we saw Yahoo doing poorly it's easy to point out that maybe MM isn't so great just for being a CEO who's also an attractive woman who will pose for magazine covers in a tight dress. Additionally, not many CEOs have a personal brand. MM obviously does, and so even despite everything I mentioned previously, she is going to get lots of attention, good and bad.

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#202

Post by jelenaw »

Thanks for all the great discussion here & thank you Jess for submitting my article to HN. (In case anyone is curious, Medium currently credits this post with 13,362 views on my Medium post.) I have another HN account--sadly underutilized, I have to admit--but didn't want to tie it to my real name, so here's a brand new baby account for this thread...

I'm glad to see a few comments here from other ex-Yahoos who felt the same thrill I did when Marissa came to Yahoo. It really was like night and day.

I've seen a lot of discussion here, on Twitter and on Medium critiquing the way I responded to Marissa's late-night email habits. For a lot of people it seems late emails from an executive are a negative and demonstrates an expectation that others also be on email at 1 AM. I was surprised by that because I've always really enjoyed working for workaholic/fanatic CEOs, but I understand because I've also encountered some toxic personalities who do use late night email runs to demonstrate that they're "working harder" than everyone else (when in reality they're only putting more work into playing the game, not into deliverables). Because that was never remotely the case with Marissa, I didn't even think about it while writing. With Marissa, hearing from her late at night sent the message "I'm always thinking about what you need from me," not, "I'm always thinking about what you should be doing FOR me."

Of course, I'm a little bit of an unhealthy fanatic workaholic type myself, which is definitely part of why Marissa is such a powerful role model for me. She doesn't pretend that her sleeplessness or fanaticism is the most healthy or balanced way to live, and she doesn't advise others to be exactly like her. She just demonstrates that being naturally that sort of person is survivable and is compatible with having love and happiness in your life. That alone was huge for me. If I can be who I authentically am and survive it and have people around me who love me anyway, even if I shorten my life and don't necessarily have human relationships that are AS fulfilling as a Type B personality might be able to have, I'm ok with that outcome.

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#203

Post by freyir »

smhost wrote: post #177
freyir wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interpretation based on speculation, not a correction. She might have looked at the turnstile and thought, "This is probably annoying to the other employees, so it has to go." We don't know, and 1024core doesn't know. Or maybe the OP was correct, and an email complaint really did contribute to the decision. Without further evidence, or unless 1024core is actually Marissa Meyer, we simply don't know.

Speculation is how we judge other people, and our social space doesn't have objective truths. Narratives are all there is, so narratives are what matter most. It's legitimate to correct offending narratives that conflict with your version of reality.

> It's legitimate to correct offending narratives that conflict with your version of reality.

You're not "correcting" someone's interpretation simply by stating a different interpretation, unless there's some grounding in evidence and objective truth. Core1024 may have evidence that supports his interpretation, but he didn't present it. As such, it doesn't qualify as a correction.

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#204

Post by zekevermillion »

collyw wrote: post #133
zekevermillion wrote: post #24

From a non-insider perspective, it certainly looks as if MM accomplished the mission. Stock price went up, and she locked it in with a well-timed sale. Her compensation package appears to have been designed to produce exactly this outcome. It's not Steve Jobs' return to Apple. But she did help the investors salvage a respectable outcome.

Was it down to luck more than anything else? She made a few bets. Most failed. One did spectacularly , yet seems to have very little to do with Yahoo as a company.

She inherited a depreciating asset in core yahoo, managed to hold the line on further losses. She is also managing a "strategic transaction" that could go very wrong if done poorly. I would guess that (if successful) this deal will be thought of as a success, and probably comes as a relief to the board and officers. But again, I only know what I read on the Internet which surely is missing some important facts.

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#205

Post by rhizome »

Spooky23 wrote: post #107
1024core wrote: post #91

It makes me angry and sad to see all the sniping about her $200M (or thereabouts) earnings over 4 years. The spotlight has always been on her, and her failings are magnified beyond reason. Is it because she's young woman and pretty? I was at Yahoo from 2004 through 2015. I saw some seriously stupid CEOs. One of them being Terry Semel. He made more than $200M in just one year (and even more, according to rumors). Here…

He also didn't invest a lot of time and energy on self-promoting PR. You knew who he was, but nobody else did. Meyer did and has for years. She wants this attention as part of a broader personal branding effort. Everyone knows that Yahoo was a dead man walking, and the details of her tenure will be forgotten quickly -- but lots of people know who she is. Anyone who watches CNBC knows who she is, and many other people…

Wasn't Yahoo essentially unsellable when she took over? Tying the company's future to her personally may have been pretty much the only way they could disturb investor sentiment and inertia.

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#206

Post by [deleted] »

ebbv wrote: post #129
1024core wrote: post #91

It makes me angry and sad to see all the sniping about her $200M (or thereabouts) earnings over 4 years. The spotlight has always been on her, and her failings are magnified beyond reason. Is it because she's young woman and pretty? I was at Yahoo from 2004 through 2015. I saw some seriously stupid CEOs. One of them being Terry Semel. He made more than $200M in just one year (and even more, according to rumors). Here…

> It makes me angry and sad to see all the sniping about her $200M (or thereabouts) earnings over 4 years Why? That is $50mil/year which is an insane amount of money for any one person to receive. Yes you can point to tons of examples of people earning even more, but that's still way more money than most people will ever see in their lifetimes per year to fail. It's a total cop-out to say that "Well Yahoo was already…

[deleted]

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#207

Post by rhizome »

thehashrocket wrote: post #160
1024core wrote: post #91

It makes me angry and sad to see all the sniping about her $200M (or thereabouts) earnings over 4 years. The spotlight has always been on her, and her failings are magnified beyond reason. Is it because she's young woman and pretty? I was at Yahoo from 2004 through 2015. I saw some seriously stupid CEOs. One of them being Terry Semel. He made more than $200M in just one year (and even more, according to rumors). Here…

I think back to AT&T CEO John Walter who was barely at the job 11 months before he was forced out. He made a nice tidy sum of money plus a new house for his efforts. " Under the terms of his contract, Walter, 50, will receive separation payments totaling about $3.8 million, AT&T said. This is in addition to the $22 million provided to replace salary, pension and bonuses Walter forfeited when he left R.R. Donnelley &…

This is in addition to the $22 million provided to replace salary, pension and bonuses Walter forfeited...

Shouldn't investors at any company that does this be angry at having to reimburse executives for opportunity cost?

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#208

Post by stinkytaco »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #200
twblalock wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only insane if you assume the success of the business is the goal, rather than the success of the shareholders.

Success of the business and success of the shareholders is not a zero-sum game. You can usually have both. What is insane is sacrificing the success of the business for the success of shareholders. That affects employees, and you end up getting situations where entire towns get fucked because the profitable-but-not-profitable-factory gets shut down because of some obscure metric.

I think a culture has developed -- in the United States specifically -- where we expect companies to act according to some undefined ethical principle. We're upset when they don't pay taxes, close factories, pollute the environment or whatever. The problem is these principles are always moving goalposts and more often than not, immeasurable. A business exists to make money. That is a concrete and measurable goal and thus one that the organization is made to pursue. If a business it not in it to make money, it's something else: perhaps a non-profit, an NGO, a union, a cooperative, etc. There are places for organizations that don't exist to make money, but publicly traded exchanges are not it.

It's really the responsibility of communities to plan, governments to regulate and enforce and people to rationally choose the best for themselves and their community. As pointed out above, there are a variety of ways to do this, it's a matter of choosing the right ones.

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#209

Post by eagsalazar2 »

excitom wrote: post #112
stinkytaco wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo is a publicly traded company. Selling Yahoo went very well for the shareholders and the first rule for any publicly traded company is to maximize shareholder value. I think it's very clear that the goal when she was hired was to sell the company and get the shareholder's some payout. Considering where the company was when she came in, I'd say she did an admirable job at this. You might say that's not success, b…

> the first rule for any publicly traded company is to maximize shareholder value. It always bothers me to see this, as I feel it is the reason many companies decline. The first rule should be "make the customers happy" and the second rule should be "keep the employees happy" since happy employees help implement the first rule. If rule one and two are achieved then as a side effect shareholder value is maximized.

I think you are confusing strategic principles with actual goals. Unless you are essentially an NGO and your investors are donating money as philanthropists, the #1 goal of a public company is never anything but make money for the shareholders. The goals of the investors and owners are the goals of the company. Focusing on customer and employee happiness are just means to that end.

Re: What Marissa Mayer Brought to Yahoo That Can’t Be Bought or Sold

#210

Post by stinkytaco »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #196
kalsk wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that should matter is which text editor she uses.

She did not use the text editor with its own email client(s), which is all we really needed to know.

But she did use an email client with it's own text editor.
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