3 ms·

Yahoo is for sale; bidders line up; Marissa Mayer is toast

11 points by goldenv 11y ago

victorhugo31337 11y ago
I hate these BS articles say Marissa Mayer is "toast". If I had 1/4th of her golden parachute my family and I wouldn't have to work another day of our lives.
victorhugo31337 11y ago
"If Mayer is fired as a result of a sale, she could get a golden parachute exit package worth about $37 million. If Yahoo isn't sold, and she's given the boot, she would take home about $12.5 million." This is bullshit--wtf has Marissa Mayer done?!?
dharmon 11y ago
Fact is, regardless of her performance, she is now in the executive club, and once you're a member, it's hard to get kicked out. The biggest thing, in my opinion, to hurt her future career is fighting the large stakeholders on the sale. Showing a willingness to play ball with stakeholders is a positive sign for a future CEO position. But give it a few years and all investors will remember is that Starboard made a quick 50% (or whatever) on Yahoo and she'll be remembered as "shareholder friendly" for "leading" the sale (a great badge to have if you're in the market for a CEO job).
- fizixer 11y ago
  fight the large stakeholders ... as in resist the selling? she would wanna do that because she might think she can still make Yahoo recover, and if Yahoo is sold, it'll give the impression that she failed as a CEO? Just trying to understand the whole thing.
  - dharmon 11y ago
    Yes, resist in selling. And yes, she doesn't want her legacy to be Yahoo's value nosediving under her watch (whether or not it was her fault). I'm not saying she's wrong in resisting, only that resisting is a "neg" when it comes to getting future CEO jobs. The tanking value can be explained away ("the momentum was insurmountable", etc.), but resisting stakeholders too strongly cannot.
martin1b 11y ago
Can't stand the cheap shots from reports about others, mostly what they would consider easy targets. Really, what has this reporter contributed to society? Digging up trash on someone or making some up. Great job. Mayer, tasked with the difficult job of trying to resurrect a company well into it's decline. Probably had to make a lot of very difficult decisions along the way. And this reporter decides to take a public cheap shot when he has never in his life had the weight on his shoulders Mayer has. Not to mention constant press attacks against her person. Getting tired of press slander. Classy.
a_small_island 11y ago
Can anyone around in the late 90s give perspective on how big and influential Yahoo was? Article says they were worth $255B in 2000.
- RobGR 11y ago
  Between the time AOL was "the Internet" and the time Google was "The Internet", it was Yahoo. They introduced webmail to the masses, they pushed user-generated content into the masses via their purchase of geocities. Yahoo Groups was the replacement of usenet as more control was needed for community management. As a free lancer at the time, every other idiot idea I was approached with was "can you build me a site like Yahoo, but for _____" . Usually the blank was porn or real estate. I think another thing they are underappreciated for is the industrialization and scaling of placing web ads via ad networks. As with many big leaders, they weren't the inventor of many of these things -- they often purchased a smaller company or copied a first mover, but brought the idea to "prime time".
xrstf 11y ago
So is it now high times to move my @yahoo.com mail addresses away? I was always thinking that at least Yahoo Mail would live for the foreseeable future, but this makes me nervous.
brador 11y ago
It was always an asset sale play.

11 points by goldenv 11y ago

I hate these BS articles say Marissa Mayer is "toast". If I had 1/4th of her golden parachute my family and I wouldn't have to work another day of our lives.

victorhugo31337 11y ago

"If Mayer is fired as a result of a sale, she could get a golden parachute exit package worth about $37 million. If Yahoo isn't sold, and she's given the boot, she would take home about $12.5 million." This is bullshit--wtf has Marissa Mayer done?!?

dharmon 11y ago

Fact is, regardless of her performance, she is now in the executive club, and once you're a member, it's hard to get kicked out. The biggest thing, in my opinion, to hurt her future career is fighting the large stakeholders on the sale. Showing a willingness to play ball with stakeholders is a positive sign for a future CEO position. But give it a few years and all investors will remember is that Starboard made a quick 50% (or whatever) on Yahoo and she'll be remembered as "shareholder friendly" for "leading" the sale (a great badge to have if you're in the market for a CEO job).

fizixer 11y ago
fight the large stakeholders ... as in resist the selling? she would wanna do that because she might think she can still make Yahoo recover, and if Yahoo is sold, it'll give the impression that she failed as a CEO? Just trying to understand the whole thing.
- dharmon 11y ago
  Yes, resist in selling. And yes, she doesn't want her legacy to be Yahoo's value nosediving under her watch (whether or not it was her fault). I'm not saying she's wrong in resisting, only that resisting is a "neg" when it comes to getting future CEO jobs. The tanking value can be explained away ("the momentum was insurmountable", etc.), but resisting stakeholders too strongly cannot.

martin1b 11y ago

Can't stand the cheap shots from reports about others, mostly what they would consider easy targets. Really, what has this reporter contributed to society? Digging up trash on someone or making some up. Great job. Mayer, tasked with the difficult job of trying to resurrect a company well into it's decline. Probably had to make a lot of very difficult decisions along the way. And this reporter decides to take a public cheap shot when he has never in his life had the weight on his shoulders Mayer has. Not to mention constant press attacks against her person. Getting tired of press slander. Classy.

a_small_island 11y ago

Can anyone around in the late 90s give perspective on how big and influential Yahoo was? Article says they were worth $255B in 2000.

RobGR 11y ago
Between the time AOL was "the Internet" and the time Google was "The Internet", it was Yahoo. They introduced webmail to the masses, they pushed user-generated content into the masses via their purchase of geocities. Yahoo Groups was the replacement of usenet as more control was needed for community management. As a free lancer at the time, every other idiot idea I was approached with was "can you build me a site like Yahoo, but for _____" . Usually the blank was porn or real estate. I think another thing they are underappreciated for is the industrialization and scaling of placing web ads via ad networks. As with many big leaders, they weren't the inventor of many of these things -- they often purchased a smaller company or copied a first mover, but brought the idea to "prime time".

xrstf 11y ago

So is it now high times to move my @yahoo.com mail addresses away? I was always thinking that at least Yahoo Mail would live for the foreseeable future, but this makes me nervous.

brador 11y ago

It was always an asset sale play.