Someone once told me: "Never tell anybody that you're good. If you're good, they'll tell you."
"So, son, why do you think you're fit for this job?" "No idea sir, you tell me."
Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
21–30 of 49 posts
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#22I know almost nothing about her, but Marissa Mayer doesn't come off as a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk-like "visionary" who will drive Yahoo to unexplored and unexpected market openings. Her approach seems to be to make Yahoo a great place to work, attract and empower talent, and let said talent churn out great products. Some would say that she should focus on changing the market direction of the company, and that's certai…
> Her approach seems to be to make Yahoo a great place to work, attract and empower talent, and let said talent churn out great products Why isn't that, in itself, "visionary"?
I would say that is a standard job description for a CEO in certain types of company, particularly most smaller growing enterprises.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#23Some things they mention should be done at every tech company: 1. Give employees free lunch 2. Give every employee an iphone 3. Github for code review
Actually, I wouldn't be terribly happy if my company gave me a daily free lunch. It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. (I work in a big city, where diverse types of food are a short walk away. If you work in an office park in Silicon Valley, I can see why a free lunch might be more appealing.) A…
I really like the "we'll provide free food onsite, and if you go out to lunch with anyone, we'll pay for that too (but keep it reasonable)" -- encouraging employees go to out to lunch together, or to have lunch with people from other companies, or potential customers, or hires, or whatever, seems worth the cost of lunch. You may or may not be able to deduct the cost of the meals (depending on who they're with), and only at 50%, but who cares.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#24So far all of Marissa Meyer's moves (at least the one's getting publicity) have made Yahoo! a bit more Google-like. While that's probably for the best, I will be real interested to see when/where she breaks with Google culture for the first time.
Interesting, sure, but most of that stuff worked amazingly well for Google back when their engineer headcount was at what Y!'s is today.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I wouldn't be terribly happy if my company gave me a daily free lunch. It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. (I work in a big city, where diverse types of food are a short walk away. If you work in an office park in Silicon Valley, I can see why a free lunch might be more appealing.) A…
> It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. If stepping away from your coworkers makes you happy and productive, your company has bigger problems than charging for meals.
I actually like my co-workers very much, but being an introverted type (as I suspect many developers are), I need a break from people once in a while. Even being with my best friends for ten hours straight would be a bit tiring for me.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#26Some things they mention should be done at every tech company: 1. Give employees free lunch 2. Give every employee an iphone 3. Github for code review
You mean a smartphone, right? Why does it have to be an iphone? And why even that? A laptop I could understand, but phone?
The argument could be made that a smartphone-as-tool-for-company-business should be as appliance-like as possible.
Years ago, that would have meant BlackBerries all around. Today, it means iOS.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#27So far all of Marissa Meyer's moves (at least the one's getting publicity) have made Yahoo! a bit more Google-like. While that's probably for the best, I will be real interested to see when/where she breaks with Google culture for the first time.
Interesting, sure, but most of that stuff worked amazingly well for Google back when their engineer headcount was at what Y!'s is today.
Correlation is not causation. We don't really know what combination of the many factors in Google's culture made them so successful. For all we know, it may have been due entirely to the people they hired, and the same team might have produced great results with or without all the perks that Google is famous for.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#28The perks are certainly nice and likely a good move all things considered, but at some point she is going to have to inspire and innovate.
A "Google-like office", without a seriously great product, will probably be tough sell, longterm.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#29Some things they mention should be done at every tech company: 1. Give employees free lunch 2. Give every employee an iphone 3. Github for code review
Actually, I wouldn't be terribly happy if my company gave me a daily free lunch. It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and more productive. (I work in a big city, where diverse types of food are a short walk away. If you work in an office park in Silicon Valley, I can see why a free lunch might be more appealing.) A…
Google gave out cell phones as a gift to promote interest in their mobile business. Then they gave out cell phones for traditional work related purposes as well.
Re: Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'
#30The perks are certainly nice and likely a good move all things considered, but at some point she is going to have to inspire and innovate. A "Google-like office", without a seriously great product, will probably be tough sell, longterm.
Based on the things that came out of google labs, I think it's more than possible that a seriously great product can be a byproduct of a google-type office and not just a prerequisite for said office environment.