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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

#211

Post by malvosenior »

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…

This has nothing to do with her being a woman (other that that's the only notable thing about her hence she gets a lot of press over it). When was the last time you saw HN say something nice about Terry Semel? She was the final failed CEO of a failing tech company and she executed some really awful policies along the way. That matched with her outsized support from the press explains 100% of the ire toward her you see here.

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

#212

Post by thecleaner »

Was it really necessary to put in the phrase - "..bought with my babysitting money" ? Does she mean her job as a babysitter or is it just an adjective ? How much did babysitting pay that you could afford a computer with that stuff ?

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

#213

Post by Udik »

Aeolun wrote: post #109
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?!

I think you misread an emphasis where there was none. Coming home from a 140 hour work week it’s nice if you don’t have to also do cleaning, cooking and other maintenance at home. And to be fair, if you work that much you should probably have the money to pay someone to take care of that for you.

> Coming home from a 140 hour work week

There is no "coming home" if you work 140hrs per week (or 130, as MM claimed to have done in Google for years). I doubt it is sustainable by anybody (4hrs of sleep per night are simply not enough for anybody- assuming you can go from "work" to "sleep" and vice-versa in 0 time, excluding showering, dressing, teeth-brushing, eating and going to the loo-, you become unable to perform any intellectual job on that schedule). I suspect these figures come only from an extremely loose definition of "work" and are further inflated like the proverbial fish of fishermen's tales.

Probably the only hard limit to these claims is the fact that there are 168 hours in a week, otherwise it would be a contest between this CEO claiming he worked 190 and the other replying she worked 300.

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

#214

Post by Udik »

darkpuma wrote: post #173
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 don't think I've ever seen anything but glowing praise for Lisa Su on hacker news. Then again, HN seems to discuss her less than Marissa Mayer. Why is that? She's far more successful. When I think great women leaders in tech, she's the first I think of. Anti-hardware bias maybe? Or maybe it's a valley bias. After all, she came out of MIT rather than Stanford and lives in Austin rather than San Francisco. I don't kn…

Maybe she's just more private, or less attractive and fashionable? However, when I read comments about her on HN they were enthusiastic.

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

#215

Post by Udik »

hlurhhh wrote: post #196
JudasGoatse wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you'd find more role models if you didn't segregate by gender (that's sexist, after all). If you can only look up to people who share your genitalia then I think that's pretty limiting.

I don't think I'm asking for too much by wanting a woman in tech to look up to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's not sexist dude, I just want some representation in my role models.

I mean, apart from everything else in this thread, Marissa Mayer doesn't really seem to have done much: a good management role in Google, tanking a former internet giant and getting a lot of money for it, and setting up a company that doesn't seem to have produced anything so far.

Even if you look for women role model in tech, is it possible there aren't any more successful ones?

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

#216

Post by treis »

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…

>In regards to Marissa, I personally believe that the Glass Cliff is real

The glass cliff didn't make her buy Tumblr for 1.1 billion dollars only for it to be essentially worthless a few years later.

I also think people are a bit harsh on what situation Yahoo was in. They were still profitable, had a ton of users, and plenty of cash in the bank. Sure, it was being left behind but there was plenty of juice there to do something to become relevant again. In the five years she was CEO there's not really anything you can point to as a success. It raises the question of how important she was to the string of successful products that she headed at Google.

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

#217

Post by throwsadf1231 »

tomhoward wrote: post #209
throwkd29488 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 enou…

> This is false.

She might have built the first version of adwords, but she was a product manager for most of her time at Google. So my statement is not false, but true.

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

Says the person that is throwing personal insults in violation of hacker news rules. I prefer not to stoop to your level.

As much as you don't like it, sleeping with your boss no matter you are male or female does have an effect on one's career. Dismissing them just because you have an naive view of the world is your choice.

There are reason why people that do that tends to get fired in other companies. For example,

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/airbnb-china-chief-w...?

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

#218

Post by treis »

macspoofing wrote: post #11
node-bayarea wrote: post #9

She ruined Yahoo! Made stupid acquisitions like Tumblr and shit.

Tumblr wasn't a bad acquisition. I would also challenge that she ruined Yahoo. Yahoo was already on a downward trajectory with an existential identity crisis. At worst, she couldn't change the direction.

>Tumblr wasn't a bad acquisition.

I would like to see your justification for this. Because Yahoo paid 1.1 billion dollars for it and they wrote down pretty much all of the value within a few years. It looks especially bad when compared with Facebook buying Instagram around the same time for about the same price.

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

#219

Post by raxxorrax »

duxup wrote: post #36
Harj wrote: post #2

Marissa described possibly the most thorough and analytical job search process I've heard from anyone, when she was talking about how she joined Google. I really liked her reflection on this in hindsight on how being overly analytical is dangerous and it's something I try to remind myself of when I'm in danger of overthinking a decision: "I think this is a common thing that very analytical people trip themselves up w…

As someone who feels they're from the outside looking in (left college to work, still ended up in the technology but without a traditional college education) one of the most frustrating things is watch folks who I perceive as traditionally trained CS and similar folks ... is their desire to go hyper analytical ... and then REALLY commit to the result as the best choice above all others because of whatever analysis th…

Even without unknowns people elevating rationality to something that would in consequence just be horrible for everyone. Shouldn't be too hard to see if you follow through with the consideration.

Hard data also suggest how often the allegedly rational result suddenly became wrong. The rational conclusion here should be to decrease hubris then, shouldn't it? Nope...

And this is already a stereotype for softies...

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

#220

Post by antt »

shaki-dora wrote: post #201
mintplant wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you're going to stalk me do it right.

I called Holmes, Musk, Jobs and Gates attention whores. That's three men and one woman. One of them is dead and I'm still shitting on them, and it's not a woman. You also missed the post (just above the one you selectively read) where I call male CEOs coked up failures who come off badly when compared to chimps.

You must really want to see sexism everywhere you look to have reading comprehension that low when the tune I'm singing isn't one already in your gramophone mind.

I have a lot more choice things to say about people like you but I don't want to give poor Doug even more work.

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