4 ms·

When Meyer left google, I was of the opinion that it's a good move for her. She had strong signals that her rise at Google was limited. This is when Larry Page

When Meyer left google, I was of the opinion that it's a good move for her. She had strong signals that her rise at Google was limited. This is when Larry Page had taken over as CEO and created a new "inner circle" of 7 senior VP's and Marissa was not one of them. I thought it was a good move for her because she gets to be a big fish in a smaller pond and gets her name out there as a CEO. Pretty much nobody would blame her if Yahoo ended up bankrupt anyway since nobody had high hopes. But at this point it feels like her brand is damaged along with Yahoo's because of the leaks of boardroom struggles more than just the failure to revive Yahoo's business.

this_user 10y ago
If she had managed to turn the company around, she would have become a legendary tech CEO. Either way she has made a lot of money and stands to make even more no matter what happens. So, in the end, this was still a good move for her.
- jonknee 10y ago
  Indeed, she has greatly enriched herself while flailing: > If Yahoo is sold and Ms. Mayer is terminated as a result, she stands to receive about $55 million. Since joining Yahoo, she has received $118.2 million in cash and equity compensation.
  - overcast 10y ago
    Amazing that someone who failed, gets such compensation. Top execs should be paid proportional to profit. Of course this would never happen, but one can dream.
    - rifung 10y ago
      I think in some ways it makes sense that she gets paid so much though.. A failing company probably needs to give a greater incentive for someone to want to be their CEO. It'd probably be difficult for Mayer to get another CEO position in the future despite the fact that a turnaround at Yahoo would have been difficult for anyone. In a way she's being paid proportional to the risk associated with the job.
      - overcast 10y ago
        Looking at it from another way, CEO's can make a ton of money, regardless of what happens, including complete collapse of the company. While everyone else involved, loses tons of money, and their jobs. Maybe if there was more of an incentive, beyond guaranteed money. Like if after x amount of years, y goals have been met, then you get paid.
      - spriggan3 10y ago
        what risk ? she'll never have to work again. she'll probably sit on the board of some companies and vote their CEOs the same huge percs.
        wpietri 10y ago
        Past a certain point, money is not a big motivator for most people. There are a lot of people still working even though they have more money than they will ever use. And many who retire keep just as busy doing something different. In her case, presumably she's ambitious and likes the work she does; the risk is that she loses opportunities to do the work.
      - Salgat 10y ago
        You start to wonder though, how much better these CEOs are compared to less famous ones.
    - sickbeard 10y ago
      This is a common occurrence long before Mayer became CEO. Thorsten Heinz of blackberry took away a chunk of money too after he failed. Many many examples of this in the industry.
  - guelo 10y ago
    Any idea how much she made at Google?
  - e15ctr0n 10y ago
    Previous HN discussion here: Yahoo's Marissa Mayer could get $55M in severance pay http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-0429-tn-marissa-mayer-severance-20160429-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-0429-tn-mar... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600137
venomsnake 10y ago
And I think the whole Yahoo story vindicated Google's decision to limit her rise. Of course back then everyone was too busy shouting sexist (not completely without reason) at anyone that doubted her management chops or her ability to save Yahoo. The flamewars of the future after Theranos and Yahoo will be endlessly entertaining.
maxerickson 10y ago
She got 100 million+ dollars. She doesn't need a brand anymore.
mathattack 10y ago
It may be damaged, but she leaves with a CEO title and a lot of money and connections. It would be easy for her to become a VC, Angel or other time of advisor. (Especially since she can pony up her own money, and does have legitimate advice to give.)
heimatau 10y ago
I felt this way too but...this WSJ article is indirectly [1] confirming the success of Mayer's turnaround. Mobile is where the AD revenue is since there are very few iOS/Android AD blockers like uBlock Origin (and other desktop/laptop browser based blockers). Mavens IS MOBILE. This segment is growing crazy fast. If she were too grow 50-100% more, the turnaround would be official for Yahoo and at the current rate, it looks like 1-2 years more. I think Starboard is doing a great PR campaign against Mayer. I had their narrative believed but...now I'm extremely doubtful about the nay-sayers. Since she's generating 1.5 billion through Mavens/mobile. Yahoo was non-exist in the mobile space. She's doing a great job. Activist shareholders are a plague in many (if not most) situations. It's why Dell took Dell private, to do a proper turnaround in the tech world. [1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BX746_YAHOO__9U_20160616122144.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BX746_YAHOO__9...
- revelation 10y ago
  It seems to have already stopped growing. With the explosion in smartphones and the web properties Yahoo had all along, it seems almost impossible to not make money off that. But no thanks to Yahoo, they didn't invent smartphones nor mobile ads after all. (Also, of course, companies have large freedom what revenue they attribute where, shifting revenue from areas the market perceives as "stagnant" to those of "rapid growth" even if they have no actual presence. That's how IBM is the biggest cloud company in the world.)
  - heimatau 10y ago
    > It seems to have already stopped growing. Did you even look at the graph I cited? Creating 1.5 billion in revenue in the past 3 years...how has that stopped exactly? If you're talking about the past 4 quarters in the chart, I'd encourage you to do what most analysts do and that is compare YoY growth (Q1 with Q1, etc). That growth is very solid which is why her Maven's growth is solid, not stopping as you state.
vl 10y ago
>created a new "inner circle" of 7 senior VP's Interesting, who was on the inner circle?
- spriggan3 10y ago
  It's well documented that she struggled with the current CEO of Google, he was part of that circle.
- e15ctr0n 10y ago
  As per John Paczkowski's AllThingsD blog post dated April 8, 2011 [0], six of them were: * Sundar Pichai, SVP of Chrome * Vic Gundotra, SVP of social * Andy Rubin, SVP of mobile * Salar Kamangar, SVP of YouTube and video * Alan Eustace, SVP of search * Susan Wojcicki, SVP of ads. Nicholas Carlson's article Sex and Politics at Google: It's a Game of Thrones in Mountain View [1] goes into details about the rivalry and jockeying within Google's top ranks. [0] http://allthingsd.com/20110408/pageyank-as-a-new-svps-are-born-at-google-whither-the-others-already-there/ http://allthingsd.com/20110408/pageyank-as-a-new-svps-are-bo... [1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/09/20/sex_and_politics_at_google_it_s_a_game_of_thrones_in_mountain_view.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/09/20/sex_a...
  - vl 10y ago
    And 3 of them are already out! Ouch!
    - jonnathanson 10y ago
      That often happens with inner circles. The higher you climb, the fewer positions are available on the next rung up the ladder. And once you reach a certain rung, you are pretty much always fighting political battles just to stay where you are, let alone climb any higher.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
I feel the same. I thought it was a good idea for her to take the job even if I had doubts about Yahoo's future. Assuming she wants to stay in the game, I think it likely she will have a long and successful technical management career.

this_user 10y ago

If she had managed to turn the company around, she would have become a legendary tech CEO. Either way she has made a lot of money and stands to make even more no matter what happens. So, in the end, this was still a good move for her.

jonknee 10y ago
Indeed, she has greatly enriched herself while flailing: > If Yahoo is sold and Ms. Mayer is terminated as a result, she stands to receive about $55 million. Since joining Yahoo, she has received $118.2 million in cash and equity compensation.
- overcast 10y ago
  Amazing that someone who failed, gets such compensation. Top execs should be paid proportional to profit. Of course this would never happen, but one can dream.
  - rifung 10y ago
    I think in some ways it makes sense that she gets paid so much though.. A failing company probably needs to give a greater incentive for someone to want to be their CEO. It'd probably be difficult for Mayer to get another CEO position in the future despite the fact that a turnaround at Yahoo would have been difficult for anyone. In a way she's being paid proportional to the risk associated with the job.
    - overcast 10y ago
      Looking at it from another way, CEO's can make a ton of money, regardless of what happens, including complete collapse of the company. While everyone else involved, loses tons of money, and their jobs. Maybe if there was more of an incentive, beyond guaranteed money. Like if after x amount of years, y goals have been met, then you get paid.
    - spriggan3 10y ago
      what risk ? she'll never have to work again. she'll probably sit on the board of some companies and vote their CEOs the same huge percs.
      - wpietri 10y ago
        Past a certain point, money is not a big motivator for most people. There are a lot of people still working even though they have more money than they will ever use. And many who retire keep just as busy doing something different. In her case, presumably she's ambitious and likes the work she does; the risk is that she loses opportunities to do the work.
    - Salgat 10y ago
      You start to wonder though, how much better these CEOs are compared to less famous ones.
  - sickbeard 10y ago
    This is a common occurrence long before Mayer became CEO. Thorsten Heinz of blackberry took away a chunk of money too after he failed. Many many examples of this in the industry.
- guelo 10y ago
  Any idea how much she made at Google?
- e15ctr0n 10y ago
  Previous HN discussion here: Yahoo's Marissa Mayer could get $55M in severance pay http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-0429-tn-marissa-mayer-severance-20160429-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-0429-tn-mar... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600137

venomsnake 10y ago

And I think the whole Yahoo story vindicated Google's decision to limit her rise. Of course back then everyone was too busy shouting sexist (not completely without reason) at anyone that doubted her management chops or her ability to save Yahoo. The flamewars of the future after Theranos and Yahoo will be endlessly entertaining.

maxerickson 10y ago

She got 100 million+ dollars. She doesn't need a brand anymore.

mathattack 10y ago

It may be damaged, but she leaves with a CEO title and a lot of money and connections. It would be easy for her to become a VC, Angel or other time of advisor. (Especially since she can pony up her own money, and does have legitimate advice to give.)

heimatau 10y ago

I felt this way too but...this WSJ article is indirectly [1] confirming the success of Mayer's turnaround. Mobile is where the AD revenue is since there are very few iOS/Android AD blockers like uBlock Origin (and other desktop/laptop browser based blockers). Mavens IS MOBILE. This segment is growing crazy fast. If she were too grow 50-100% more, the turnaround would be official for Yahoo and at the current rate, it looks like 1-2 years more. I think Starboard is doing a great PR campaign against Mayer. I had their narrative believed but...now I'm extremely doubtful about the nay-sayers. Since she's generating 1.5 billion through Mavens/mobile. Yahoo was non-exist in the mobile space. She's doing a great job. Activist shareholders are a plague in many (if not most) situations. It's why Dell took Dell private, to do a proper turnaround in the tech world. [1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BX746_YAHOO__9U_20160616122144.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BX746_YAHOO__9...

revelation 10y ago
It seems to have already stopped growing. With the explosion in smartphones and the web properties Yahoo had all along, it seems almost impossible to not make money off that. But no thanks to Yahoo, they didn't invent smartphones nor mobile ads after all. (Also, of course, companies have large freedom what revenue they attribute where, shifting revenue from areas the market perceives as "stagnant" to those of "rapid growth" even if they have no actual presence. That's how IBM is the biggest cloud company in the world.)
- heimatau 10y ago
  > It seems to have already stopped growing. Did you even look at the graph I cited? Creating 1.5 billion in revenue in the past 3 years...how has that stopped exactly? If you're talking about the past 4 quarters in the chart, I'd encourage you to do what most analysts do and that is compare YoY growth (Q1 with Q1, etc). That growth is very solid which is why her Maven's growth is solid, not stopping as you state.

vl 10y ago

>created a new "inner circle" of 7 senior VP's Interesting, who was on the inner circle?

spriggan3 10y ago
It's well documented that she struggled with the current CEO of Google, he was part of that circle.
e15ctr0n 10y ago
As per John Paczkowski's AllThingsD blog post dated April 8, 2011 [0], six of them were: * Sundar Pichai, SVP of Chrome * Vic Gundotra, SVP of social * Andy Rubin, SVP of mobile * Salar Kamangar, SVP of YouTube and video * Alan Eustace, SVP of search * Susan Wojcicki, SVP of ads. Nicholas Carlson's article Sex and Politics at Google: It's a Game of Thrones in Mountain View [1] goes into details about the rivalry and jockeying within Google's top ranks. [0] http://allthingsd.com/20110408/pageyank-as-a-new-svps-are-born-at-google-whither-the-others-already-there/ http://allthingsd.com/20110408/pageyank-as-a-new-svps-are-bo... [1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/09/20/sex_and_politics_at_google_it_s_a_game_of_thrones_in_mountain_view.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/09/20/sex_a...
- vl 10y ago
  And 3 of them are already out! Ouch!
  - jonnathanson 10y ago
    That often happens with inner circles. The higher you climb, the fewer positions are available on the next rung up the ladder. And once you reach a certain rung, you are pretty much always fighting political battles just to stay where you are, let alone climb any higher.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

I feel the same. I thought it was a good idea for her to take the job even if I had doubts about Yahoo's future. Assuming she wants to stay in the game, I think it likely she will have a long and successful technical management career.