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Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

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Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#201

Post by shaki-dora »

mintplant wrote: post #127
ceph_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When she was talking about 140 hour work weeks she conveniently left out the fact she was paying someone else to do her domestic work HER domestic work? There is absolutely no reason why she should or would mention this other than your sexist expectations. Do you expect male CEOs to mention they pay someone to do their laundry and are abdicating their "domestic responsibilities"? Seriously?!

> Do you expect male CEOs to mention they pay someone to do their laundry and are abdicating their "domestic responsibilities"? Um, yes, if they're bragging about how much time they spend working? It indicates that their ability to put in that much time comes from a position of privilege (i.e., having the money to pay other people to perform tasks most people would have to take care of themselves), and hence isn't a…

I would be far more willing to believe this if it happened in a discussion of Elon Musk or Jack Dorsey.

But I do not remember this point ever being made in discussions of those workaholics. Until a woman came along.

Also: the same user calls Mayer (and Holmes) „attention whores“ downthread. I rest my case.

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#202

Post by shaki-dora »

guatepeor1 wrote: post #197

If Mayer was never hired by Google, Google would have been just as big. It's a shame how rich these executive starlets like Sanderberg, Mayer etc become: their roles are completely dispensable, but their wealth suggests that they weren't.

Funny how you meantime exactly two CXOs. And that those „useless“ two happen to be women, while something like less than 20% of tech leadership is.

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#203

Post by shaki-dora »

ckastner wrote: post #179
omot wrote: post #138

I'm always irked by hns attitude towards women leaders. There so many comments trying to discredit her or trying to shame her for self promotion. In general, there's always a sexist undertone, and I feel like the anonymity of hn brings the sexism of the tech community to the surface. In regards to Marissa, I personally believe that the Glass Cliff is real. It's inspiring that she was integral in creating one of the m…

> I'm always irked by hns attitude towards women leaders. There so many comments trying to discredit her or trying to shame her for self promotion. HN demonstrably shows the same attitude towards male leaders as well. Elon Musk is the poster child of this. This has nothing to do with the gender of the leader, but rather an aversion to self-promotion, hyping, or any other exaggeration of the self or one's accomplishme…

Nobody has ever accused Musk of outsourcing his dry cleaning when discussion his workload.

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#204

Post by C1sc0cat »

nostrademons wrote: post #139
toast0 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inventory is slots to put ads. AOL had the eyeballs, Google had the platform to turn eyeballs into money, better than AOL was doing by itself. Google provided a guaranteed rate (cpm? cpc?) so that AOL would have confidence it wasn't bait and switch. See also the Yahoo/Bing deal which didn't work out as well. Microsoft didn't end up actually hitting the targets, and convinced Yahoo to take less; and Yahoo also didn't…

"guaranteed rate (cpm? cpc?)" It was guaranteed revenue IIUC, something like "If you do not make at least $150M from this deal, Google will pay you the difference." That makes the deal a no-brainer for AOL, but puts Google on the hook for any shortfall, which could have potentially ended up bankrupting the company.

Cost per mille or cost for 1000 clicks -its an old-school advertising term

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#205

Post by frankdenbow »

ArcMex wrote: post #199

"Our final question: Why isn't everyone happy all the time? I don't know. Overall, I'm a pretty happy person, and one of my theories in life is that people fundamentally want to be happy. So, if you ever find a moment when you aren't happy, you should just wait. Something is likely to change in the scenario. Someone else will change what they're doing, or you'll get motivated to change what you're doing, so the situa…

I would say being patient is what she is talking about here, but are there other jobs that would be more fulfilling for you? Happy to chat and help. It gets better!

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#206

Post by guatepeor1 »

shaki-dora wrote: post #202
guatepeor1 wrote: post #197

If Mayer was never hired by Google, Google would have been just as big. It's a shame how rich these executive starlets like Sanderberg, Mayer etc become: their roles are completely dispensable, but their wealth suggests that they weren't.

Funny how you meantime exactly two CXOs. And that those „useless“ two happen to be women, while something like less than 20% of tech leadership is.

This is not a good forum for your gender battles.

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#207

Post by ckastner »

shaki-dora wrote: post #203
ckastner wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm always irked by hns attitude towards women leaders. There so many comments trying to discredit her or trying to shame her for self promotion. HN demonstrably shows the same attitude towards male leaders as well. Elon Musk is the poster child of this. This has nothing to do with the gender of the leader, but rather an aversion to self-promotion, hyping, or any other exaggeration of the self or one's accomplishme…

Nobody has ever accused Musk of outsourcing his dry cleaning when discussion his workload.

According to the HN comment search below, nobody has ever accused Mayer of that either, so what is the point of your comment?

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#208

Post by shaki-dora »

ckastner wrote: post #207
shaki-dora wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has ever accused Musk of outsourcing his dry cleaning when discussion his workload.

According to the HN comment search below, nobody has ever accused Mayer of that either, so what is the point of your comment?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19620176

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#209

Post by tomhoward »

throwkd29488 wrote: post #190
tomhoward wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elizabeth Holmes is facing fraud charges. Marissa Mayer was an accomplished engineer and then a senior executive at Google through its transition from startup to behemoth, then took on the impossible task of rescuing Yahoo when no comparably experienced man wanted to step up to the plate, and facilitated a solid outcome for shareholders [1]. Reasonable people can debate the merits of her performance and impact at bot…

> Marissa Mayer was an accomplished engineer and then a senior executive at Google through its transition from startup to behemoth She was a product manager not an engineer. Her greatest accomplishment according to her was keeping the home page simple by only including the search bar. She also made the right decision to invest heavily in google maps. You also left out the part where she slept with the founder during…

> She was a product manager not an engineer

This is false.

She completed a master's in computer science and had built machine learning systems in her studies and internships in the late 90s. She was in the first 20 employees at Google and started out as an engineer, building the first version of what would become Adwords.

Then she went into product management and engineering management. Perhaps she wasn't a good enough engineer; I don't know or care really. She was hired for her engineering talent, made a solid contribution as an engineer, then made an even bigger contribution as a product manager then as an executive - all for one of the most successful and internally-competitive companies of our generation.

You don't achieve that by accident or by dating the boss.

Your comment is pure armchair quarterbacking. People who have actually built or managed hugely successful companies don't make those kinds of dismissals.

Re: Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google

#210

Post by 4thaccount »

Udik wrote: post #87
4thaccount wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to comparing your existing job to a new one. Everyone does this and it can't be rare. You have to look at quality of work, work life balance, the area, commute time, cost of living, salary, 401k match, benefits, chance of advancement, company culture, job safety, bonus amount, job security...etc. For a lot of people the choice is a no-brainer, but there are comparable and even worse jobs out there. I ap…

The issue is that almost all the factors you mentioned- quality of work, work-life balance, chance of advancement, company culture... - are all aspects you can only have the vaguest of ideas about before you start in a new company. And a mistaken evaluation of even a single one of them can change completely the score of the offer.

Not 100% true. It depends on the industry, but I have a pretty good idea of the good and bad of many of our competitors. You're right that some of those factors are fuzzy.
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