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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

#221

Post by eledumb »

mathattack wrote: post #163
NelsonMinar wrote: post #46

I was also at Google when the AOL deal was signed and remember the decision and outcome quite differently. It was definitely a high risk deal, deliberately so, but in no way was it only "the best-case scenario had us breaking even". Nor was it the case that "all of our models were wrong". The product manager in charge of ads at the time had a clear understanding of exactly how the deal could be hugely profitable for…

Execs rewriting corporate history after the fact. Go figure.

And unless the people who were at Google at the time were in the meetings, they are merely speculating.

I was at Netscape and was actually in meetings that marca, and others were not in, and it's funny to hear what they say happened, when they weren't in the room, nor were they consulted. Even the people at the top can be guilty of speculation.

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

#222

Post by commandlinefan »

rajeshp1986 wrote: post #10

"I realized that, while I had a very deep understanding of artificial intelligence, I did not yet have some of the basics down. I knew how a database worked. I knew how an operating system worked. I knew how a compiler worked. But I hadn't taken classes on those topics, so I went back for my master's and took the rest of the AI offerings as well as a lot of programming basics. That way, I could actually go and market…

> I've written a compiler. I've written an operating system. I've written a database.

Yeah... I did both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in CS, and I've never written a complete working compiler, OS or database - I've written and tested "toy" versions of such, but that claim seems to be a bit hyperbolic. Maybe she did do all of those things, but none of those were coursework.

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

#223

Post by tomhoward »

throwsadf1231 wrote: post #217
tomhoward wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Seriously, it's nice to hear you're concerned about the site guidelines.

The main concern behind my comments is that in the dismissals of Mayer (the original one I replied to and the two of yours) we've had comments that are uncivil and against the guidelines, by (1) likening her to an alleged criminal, (2) ignoring/diminishing her science/engineering qualifications/experience, (3) dismissing the entirety of her career achievements as being due to her being a woman and/or dating the boss, and (4) pinning all blame on her for the failure of Yahoo and indeed dismissing her tenure there as a outright failure.

Fair enough, (4) is worthy of discussion.

Everything else is sexist and/or disrespectful.

As for being personally insulting, I took care to criticise your actions, not you as a person.

These comments you've written are offensive and of poor quality, and I do encourage you to do some soul-searching about what motivates you to make them.

(Edited to clarify that not all civility breaches were in all of the comments upthread).

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

#224

Post by strikelaserclaw »

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…

You will wait forever dude. Don't take advice from someone who won the lottery. Try taking action if you can and put yourself in areas (or companies) where the chance to encounter good ideas and possibly build upon them yourself is greater. It is incrediblely different to work with motivated people who love what they do vs folks who just clock in and clock out.

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

#225

Post by GuiA »

treis wrote: post #216
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…

It raises the question of how much runaway success is due to pure luck, rather than repeatable execution.

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

#226

Post by phonon »

hlurhhh wrote: post #95
thenaturalist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wholeheartedly agree, and I think it comes down to "signalling by association". For sure she is a workaholic and that gets you far, but to me it seems like she is filling the gap of providing confirmation to insecure overachievers after she - being one herself - made mistakes and reflected on them. Mistakes that could have been avoided had you taken out the ego in the first place. In contrast to my hypothesis: If you…

I wrote this somewhere else in this thread, but I like her because she's one of the few (current) 'well known' women in tech that's successful and stylish. She's exactly the kind of representation I need and want.

I find someone like Susan Fowler much more inspirational, in just about every respect. (Not that I have anything against Marissa Mayer per se.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Fowler

https://www.ft.com/content/b4bc2a68-dc4f-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b...

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

#227

Post by throws18477 »

tomhoward wrote: post #223
throwsadf1231 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Seriously, it's nice to hear you're concerned about the site guidelines. The main concern behind my comments is that in the dismissals of Mayer (the original one I replied to and the two of yours) we've had comments that are uncivil and against the guidelines, by (1) likening her to an alleged criminal, (2) ignoring/diminishing her science/engineering qualifications/experience, (3) dismissing the entirety of her care…

> (1) likening her to an alleged criminal

> (3) dismissing the entirety of her career achievements as being due to her being a woman

> (4) pinning all the blame on her

I did no such thing. I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t put words in my mouth. I made sure to point out that sleeping with your boss whether you are male or female is inappropriate. I have 0 opinion on whether she is female or male. That has not been the point of the argument.

And no, I do not think of her as a criminal. Those are your own words, not mine.

As for the failure of yahoo, I only pointed out she stepped up because of the deal she got. I have not blamed her for the downfall. Those are your words again.

I think you are having an overreaction to my comments. I don’t need some soul searching as you suggest. Rather you need to learn to calm yourself down and argue less with your emotions. Most of these arguments you claim I am expressing are of your own skewed perspective.

I have no interest in arguing with someone that thinks of himself as better than others. You are entitled to idolise her as you wish, but people can have different opinions of her. You took a counter argument and drew a whole picture of my character based on that. The one with a problem is you. Since you asked me to souls search. I would kindly ask you to stare at the mirror. Have a good day.

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

#228

Post by reallydude »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #204
nostrademons wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

CPM = Cost per mill (cost per 1000 views)

CPC = Cost per Click (cost per 1 click)

These terms are widely used today.

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

#229

Post by kerbalspacepro »

sfblah wrote: post #151
nostrademons wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." -- Warren Buffett.

Yahoo is in a business that has fantastic economics. Try again.

Why do you say this?
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