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Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

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Re: Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

#62
post #25
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the risk for her is just stunning" What risk? She's already achieved complete financial security from here time at Google. At Yahoo! she'll be taking the reins of a company that still attracts a massive userbase but is aching for someone with a fresh viewpoint on how to transform the company. Nothing buy potential IMO.

The risk of her reputation. Once you have money, reputation is of the things that keeps you going every day. Right now her reputation is golden.

If she fails it will not hurt her reputation. Yahoo has already gone through so many CEOs. I think that if she can't turn around Yahoo, no one else will. After all, she is better qualified than the previous executives.

Re: Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

#63
Historical precedent: Stephen Elop was head of Business Division at MS before he became Nokia CEO and then Nokia fully fell in MS's lap.

Prediction: Sometime in near future some sort of very close partnership will happen between Google and Yahoo, subject to regulatory approval of course.

Edit: Fixed "MS CEO" to "Nokia CEO" typo. Thanks kreilly

Re: Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

#64
post #49

This will play out much like Armstrong at AOL. Lots of flailing around, another attempt at altering Yahoo's trajectory, and ultimately a further devalued company (not specifically because of anything Mayer will do, but because there's nothing that can stop Yahoo's erosion). At some point the conclusion needs to be reached that the core of Yahoo is the problem. The products that generate the bulk of their sales are at…

I wonder what advice Michael Dell has for Yahoo.

Depends on if you think Mayer has some Steve Jobs magic in her.

Re: Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

#65

So she was head of Search at Google at one point right? I wonder what it would be like to become CEO of a company who has outsourced their whole search and advertising stack to Bing. Will Yahoo! start caring about search or ads again?

I wouldn't bother. They are so far behind both Bing and Google that trying to play catch up in the search game is simply a lost cause.

They have significant traffic and brand loyalty for certain services (finance, sports, etc). They need to focus on that, not chase a game they lost ages ago (search).

Re: Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

#66

Wow, what an incredible coup. I've always admired her, she seems to be very smart and has her finger on the pulse on what the Internet is all about, so if anyone can turn Yahoo around it's her. I sincerely hope she has the intestinal fortitude to do WHATEVER it takes to revitalize Yahoo. The first thing I would do is get rid of the entire board of directors, they need a complete reboot as well.

Ummm isn't it the board of directors that hires the CEO?

Yes. But if an incoming CEO has a lot of political capital, they can try and demand that certain board members leave as a condition of taking the job. It's unusual, and takes an unusual person to pull it off, but it happens. (For example, this is what happened when Steve Jobs was made interim CEO of Apple.)

Mayer is a big coup for Yahoo, and the investors may back her if she wants to clean house with the board, but I wouldn't necessarily expect it to happen; it's unclear if Mayer really sees the board as part of the problem, and as Mayer is coming from outside of the organization, she may lack the close ties to other Yahoo execs that would be necessary to pull such a move off.

Re: Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

#69
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I find it so hilarious. I worked at Yahoo and Google both. I know both their cultures (and especially the culture at Yahoo after all the good engineers left). IMHO, she is status quo - no different than the horrible string of CEOs being hired by Yahoo. In fact, I will put a stake in the ground that she will not move the needle further than what Scott/Bartz did. I just can't get over how hilarious this s…

Curious; care to elaborate from an insider's perspective? What about their cultures make this situation hilarious, and how come you're convinced that Mayer won't make a difference?

Not knowing much about Mayer and reading some comments here i have the opposite question, why Mayer should be able to make a difference?
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