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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

#251

Post by ddt »

adventureful wrote: post #32

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…

Yahoo! and AOL are a classic examples of The Innovator's Dilemma. They can't separate themselves from the immediate needs of their customers to look at the patterns of what's next. They'll never take the leap of faith to do something completely new because they're not in a place where their culture and SOP allow it. The products that made them initially successful can't possibly carry them into the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

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

#252

Post by dspeyer »

klawed wrote: post #244

I'm genuinely surprised that no-one's discussing the possible acquisition of yahoo by google as a result of this. Or is that naive? Or cynical? Or perhaps just dumb...

Seems unlikely to me. The Motorola acquisition took forever to get through the EU, and that's a different industry. The legal burden of acquiring a major direct competitor like yahoo would be more than the company was worth.

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

#253

Post by duaneb »

stfu wrote: post #240
tjmc wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a good comparison. Meyer famously tested 41 shades of blue on Gmail. Optimising local maxima is hardly innovation. Jobs was more of the Henry Ford mindset that if he asked people what they wanted they'd ask for a faster horse.

I was wondering if there are any public and published research reports/papers that were written by her? At least something from her time at Stanford? So far the only thing I could find were some Google patents where she appears as a co-inventor. Edit: Oddly enough I can not reply to the comment below. My statement wasn't meant to be critical but more on the curious side. The "41 shades of blue" story sounded always i…

Even if she has, what of it? Academic success does not imply the ability to lead and vice verse. Steve jobs, bill gates, Zuckerberg all built businesses worth hundreds of billions of dollars without any degree at all.

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

#254

Post by nostrademons »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #245
nostrademons wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I like Marissa, and I've worked on projects (the 2010 websearch visual redesign, and doodles) for which she was the executive sponsor. No, she's not a nice person, and most likely she does not give a shit about you as a person. But she is very often right about her design opinions, and when she's not, she'll listen to data. I don't think Yahoo particularly needs a nice person as CEO right now. Their culture is dy…

Most observers seem to agree that Yahoo's problem is cultural in nature. It's not a Nokia-esque situation, where the company was heavily damaged by competitive forces before Elop even showed up. A big part -- a necessary part -- of the way Jobs changed the culture at Apple was by bringing in a lot of people who had been loyal to him for years at Next and elsewhere. I can't think of any cases where an outsider has par…

There're lots of good people at Yahoo. I've heard from other Google engineers who do a lot of interviewing that their recent impression of a lot of ex-Yahooers has been "Hire this person NOW. How could the company let someone like this go?"

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if one of Marissa's first moves is to fire all the middle management and then promote a bunch of longtime individual contributors into their place.

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

#255

Post by tjmc »

steve8918 wrote: post #229
tjmc wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a good comparison. Meyer famously tested 41 shades of blue on Gmail. Optimising local maxima is hardly innovation. Jobs was more of the Henry Ford mindset that if he asked people what they wanted they'd ask for a faster horse.

I guess you didn't read very carefully because I didn't compare Meyer and Jobs except in the similarities of how their temperament were described. One was from an official biography, and one from from an anonymous forum comment, so I take the forum comment with a grain of salt. To be clear, I don't think they are at all comparable in terms of success or as a visionary. But since you brought up the testing of 41 shade…

I didn't say Jobs didn't obsess over details. Clearly he did. The difference is that he knew what he wanted up front rather than testing market reaction to make decisions. The latter is commonly perceived as the "Google Way" and it's more about meeting expectations than setting higher ones.

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

#256

Post by MartinCron »

tomkarlo wrote: post #183
solnyshok wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it so childish, when company escorts an executive out. If CEO have been looking for a job, then all needed files have been copied long time ago. CEO knows it. Company knows it. yet they cannot resist the stupid ritual. giggling.

It's not childish, it's just being responsible. This is generally done for any employee with access to highly sensitive data. They're not going to do any more work for you; why take any risk that they'll do anything damaging after the moment when they tell you they're leaving? Also, once they've resigned, they're no longer an employee, so for a lot of companies (Google included) they may not be allowed in the sensiti…

It's "responsible" to treat people like potential criminals in lots of contexts. Doesn't mean it isn't a shitty thing to do.

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

#257

Post by stcredzero »

dredmorbius wrote: post #144
mmakunas wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but Yahoo! has made so many mistakes that she would have to really to screw up (like lie on your resume) for it to hurt her reputation. So that time and opportunity cost is unlikely to ever be a waste. If she fails, well Yahoo! was already a failure, if she succeeds, she's a perceived as savior. Either way, she's a contenter for ceo of any other major internet company going forward.

I see it as the wrestling with a pig problem. If you wrestle with a pig, both of you get dirty, and the pig enjoys it. Meyer's a superstar right now. Yahoo's had an anti-Midas touch on several people who've attempted to steer it right.

Actually, your metaphor and the pattern of ruining hopefuls fits a pattern from Greek Mythology. (Other tough guys try to capture/defeat/kill a fearsome monster, but Hercules shows he's an uber-stud by finally doing it)

So Yahoo's now the Erymanthian boar?

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

#258

Post by MartinCron »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #222
wcdolphin wrote: post #204

$100 says Yahoo is acquired by Google in the next three years. Any takers? I am imagining/hoping for a more successful version of the Stephen Elop leaves Microsoft, runs Nokia, forms a strong partnership with Microsoft. But this time, Yahoo is even more in the pits.

I'll take the other side of that bet. Yahoo has nothing Google needs, and won't within 3 years, even with Mayer reforming it. There's also a cost to acquisition beyond just the monetary - organizational and cultural namely. Not worth it for Google.

Yahoo has nothing Google needs

Flickr+Picasa=I might actually use Google products in a social way.

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

#259

Post by SwellJoe »

larrys wrote: post #206
uptown wrote: 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.

"someone with a fresh viewpoint on how to transform the company" Prior to joining google in 1999 as employee number 20 "Mayer worked at the UBS research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich, Switzerland, and at SRI International in Menlo Park, California" (wikipedia) for what appears to be only a few years. (She graduated high school in 1993, received a B.S. and and M.S. which must have taken at least 4 or 5 years afaik). My guess…

You may be right, but the "experienced" CEOs that preceded her have been a disaster. It is non-trivial to find someone with executive experience at this level; there just aren't that many companies that are this big in this industry (and hiring from outside the industry seems to have been a massive mistake in most of the instances where it has happened; somehow business people always think the business skills are the most important, and so they think a PepsiCo chief can run a tech company, but that never seems to pan out very well).

At the very least, Mayer has been part of a real leading tech organization that grew from nothing to everything in record time. That's experience that is also very difficult to replicate. And, the skills she's known for within Google are all product oriented, and that's where Yahoo has failed so miserably and Google has succeeded so fantastically.

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

#260

Post by nostrademons »

tomkarlo wrote: post #183
solnyshok wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it so childish, when company escorts an executive out. If CEO have been looking for a job, then all needed files have been copied long time ago. CEO knows it. Company knows it. yet they cannot resist the stupid ritual. giggling.

It's not childish, it's just being responsible. This is generally done for any employee with access to highly sensitive data. They're not going to do any more work for you; why take any risk that they'll do anything damaging after the moment when they tell you they're leaving? Also, once they've resigned, they're no longer an employee, so for a lot of companies (Google included) they may not be allowed in the sensiti…

It seems a lot like closing the barn door after the horses have left. If they were going to do anything damaging, why wouldn't they do it after they've decided they're leaving but before they tell you they're leaving? After all, they control when they tell you.

I think that particular practice is security theater - it's so the employer can say "We take all possible precautions", regardless of whether the possible precautions are effective.

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