281–290 of 383 posts
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I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own the Huffington Post and Engadget now.
AOL was acquired by Verizon, so in a sense they still exist, but in another sense not. They did own/operate HuffPo, Engadget, and other properties for some time prior to the Verizon acquisition.
Rather than the inevitable bashing of Marissa that will undoubtedly unfurl on this thread, I'd like to put in a little reminder that we usually celebrate taking on big projects and big risks and that we should commend her for taking on the immense challenge of steadying the Yahoo ship. Yes, she wasn't able to keep the ship from sinking. But I do think she put in a good-faith effort.
yahoo was a sinking ship already but she illegally fired men because they were men and got rid of remote workers, is that really considered "good-faith effort"?
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-marissa-mayer-told-remote...
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Steve Jobs worked himself to the bone and took zero money for years when he was trying to save Apple. That's what a good faith effort looks like. If he had failed he would have wasted years and got nothing in return. If Mayer had done this I would be impressed. But Mayer had no vision, didn't put in the effort required, and milked Yahoo for a hundred million dollars she didn't earn. Silicon Valley loves failure like…
"... milked Yahoo for a hundred million dollars she didn't earn." "Marissa Mayer's failure at Yahoo was caused by pure incompetence, negligence, and laziness of all involved. Nothing about it that deserves praise." I just wanted to thank you for this comment, because it is important that we get the facts straight. There was not one thing she brought in the company that showed a hint to financial success. She is overr…
Fraud isn't a function of magnitude. A $2 fraud and $2 billion fraud are both fraud.
What matters is intent, the concealment of material facts and the victim's harm resulting from the foregoing.
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She did the bare minimum that needed to be done to keep flickr alive, I'm not sure it's worthy of praise. Flickr is currently comatose or dead, given that they haven't updated their mobile app in over a year, let alone anything else on the site. Yahoo could've used flickr to pre-empt YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram all in one, but Yahoo instead neglected it and ran it into the ground. I feel bad for the engineering…
The ads on flickr wrecked it 4 me
This new name is a confusing mishmash.
Rather than the inevitable bashing of Marissa that will undoubtedly unfurl on this thread, I'd like to put in a little reminder that we usually celebrate taking on big projects and big risks and that we should commend her for taking on the immense challenge of steadying the Yahoo ship. Yes, she wasn't able to keep the ship from sinking. But I do think she put in a good-faith effort.
I think there is absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in flames, could have saved Yahoo. So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad.
She took on the job, promised results, and demanded (and got) enormous compensation. Part and parcel of that is accepting responsibility for failure.
Keep in mind that if she had turned Yahoo around, she would have gotten the credit.
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It was both and more. I started there back when Bartz was CEO. Bartz continued down the media company path that was already established. Thompson doubled down and cut huge amount of tech talent to focus on media. Like he literally almost completely killed labs the PhD wing that did research. There are other things that elaborate on that really hurt and created the outcome we see today. When MM started she had no idea…
> Yahoo invented web at scale This is true, and what Yahoo did in its early days was definitely impressive, but the talent that did it moved on, and was never replaced. When I joined in 2013, I encountered a lot of systems/processes/whatever that would have been impressive in 2003, but hadn't been updated or replaced in 10 years, and the culture inside Yahoo was still stuck in a weird not-invented-here bubble where a…
It's worth note that Facebook also had some similar challenges. They had so much in PHP and if you are an idiot and think just rewrite well then you would be doomed to failure. The advantage that Facebook had a few years back was that the didn't go through a period of removing tech talent in the same fashion that Yahoo did. They also had cash, a lot of cash. They could afford to pay for things like HipHop. By the time Yahoo needed a tech refresh they had already burned the cash and caused the talent to leave.
I know that sounds bleak, but at the same time while I was there after MM I did find really great talent. Some of that existed before she was there. I can think of several folks on tech47 project and they know who they are. They don't really need to be told they are talent. At the same time I can think of many new guys that brought it on. I still think one of the better talks I had was a with the new guy that wrote some of the Android network stack. Without telling names, he was describing the issues between dropping WiFi and dropping cell. One is easier then the other, if I drop WiFi and still have cell I can continue. If I drop cell I can only hope for WiFi. Either case is hard because the stack needs to understand an IP address shift and adjust accordingly. When you have that talent that understands and can code it, then you get things done. Unfortunately with everything else in the valley getting a quick hit and retaining are two different things.
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She was very well compensated for her time sinking Yahoo. I think this kind of tone policing is unhealthy.
I'd want to be well compensated for taking on a job where I was fairly certain I was doomed to fail because the company is being eaten alive by its competitors.
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Of course not, but then when I failed which would have been pre-ordained and actually entirely foreseeable, bashing me here would NOT be really, really pointless and sad . However, if you are respecting her for picking up a paycheck, that is your right.
I think it's pointless and sad to bash her because, once again, I don't think it can reasonably be said that somebody else had the expertise to save Yahoo. We'll never know, of course. Also, being the CEO of an "old and out of touch" company with services that only grannies use nowadays leaves you open to lots of undeserved bashing. So bashing her is easy. But she should be bashed if she was a bad CEO (which she wasn…
Yahoo owns both Flickr and Tumblr which are both popular with younger crowd.