371–380 of 383 posts
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For sure. For perspective, that's around 2000X more than an average tech salary in Silicon Valley. I'd be thrilled to [Not Turn Around Yahoo] for that much money. Hell, I could have done it for a fraction of the cost!
Did you add an extra 0? The average programmer salary is around $27,000 per year in Silicon Valley?
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She was very well compensated for her time sinking Yahoo. I think this kind of tone policing is unhealthy.
(reasonable) tone policing helps prevent a bunch of armchair quarterbacks with modestly successful programming backgrounds from assuming they have any idea what happens at the executive level of a company like Yahoo.
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.
Out of curiosity, why do you call her by her first name instead of her last name (Meyer)? Is there another famous Meyer such that there could be a confusion here?
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Out of curiosity, why do you call her by her first name instead of her last name (Meyer)? Is there another famous Meyer such that there could be a confusion here?
Eh? Does it matter? Some people are referred to frequently by their first names (Sergey, Larry, Joel), some by their last name (Woz, Jobs), some by both or either. Are you trying to imply something?
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> What exactly do you want to accomplish with this comment? Reduction in unsubstantiated nasty comments. A better conversation. > Are you really suggesting that we shouldn't analyze and criticize Marissa for failing? No, I'm not suggesting that. > Why is it important to you to create a safe space for this CEO? I'm not. > And what are this big risks you are talking about? Attempting to save a company that appeared at…
> Reduction in unsubstantiated nasty comments. A better conversation. At the time you wrote this, there where zero nasty comments. Not even substantiated ones. > Attempting to save a company that appeared at the time to be completely unsaveable. Why do make that claim? This and similar is repeated here often: "A sinking ship", "Could not be saved even by Jesus", ... This is completely wrong! Either a company is beyon…
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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…
Sorry to drag in politics, but I could not resist this cheap-shot.
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She also joins a line of failed CEOs at Yahoo . Trying to tie this to her gender would require a lot of evidence to be remotly meaningful. Yahoo has been failing for a decade and a half, largely punctuated by a couple of lucky investments (Google and Alibaba). I also see little evidence of rabid defenses of her. I see some that don't believe she deserves to be crucified for failing to save a company that's been faili…
Here's the thing: If Yahoo was in such dire shape that it couldn't be saved (that seems to be the consensus), it should have been scrapped and sold for parts to maximize shareholder value. Instead Marissa squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on random acquisitions and Katie Couric. In my mind there is nothing noble or defensible about coming into a dire situation, throwing a Hail Mary and then shrugging when it…
And lo and behold: When she joined the share price was below $16. It's now above $42. A lot of that (maybe all?) is the Alibaba holding, but the point is that whether not Mayer did a good job or not, Yahoo! as a whole is still worth a lot more today.
But presumably this is part of the reason they took the risk: Yahoo!'s core businesses were valued extremely low - the total value of the business is tied up in the Alibaba holding. As such spending hundreds of millions to try to turn things around meant betting with a miniscule proportion of the value of the company with a potential for huge payoff if it succeeded, and very little downside.
In retrospect its easy to say she didn't achieve what they hoped. But it's not so easy to say the alternatives would've been better.
I'm sure she did stupid acquisitions. I'm also sure most of Yahoo's CEO's have done plenty of stupid acquisitions. I'm equally sure Yahoo's board signed of on all of them.
The point isn't that she has no blame. The point is that she is par for the course for Yahoo, and there's little indication someone else would have achieved better results.
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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.
> 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. I mean, Yahoo has essentially failed so there is no way to validate your or my claims, but I disagree very much with this. If Yahoo had focused on its core strengths versus its flipping and flopping between becoming a media company or not, I think it could…