3 ms·

>Yahoo's shareholders decided to hire Marissa It was the Board of Directors who hired her, the shareholders are asked to approve (essentially a rubberstamp) S

by jazzyk 10y ago

>Yahoo's shareholders decided to hire Marissa It was the Board of Directors who hired her, the shareholders are asked to approve (essentially a rubberstamp) She was far, far from a zero-risk hire. She had only worked for one company, had zero executive experience at the level required at Yahoo. Enough with the celebrity cult we shower on CEOs - leave it to reality TV starlets.

grandalf 10y ago
She'd been responsible for one of Google's most successful products, and had been praised by the founders as a key early hire. She'd also helped create and shape Google's culture and arguably brought with her to Yahoo several billion dollars worth of Google's trade secrets and operational strategies, not to mention her knowledge of key players inside google who Yahoo might be able to poach to accomplish specific initiatives. Yahoo had already tried a media exec and its own founder, neither of whom could figure out a recipe for success.
- Grazester 10y ago
  So she arguably had all this going on and still couldn't save Yahoo. This must speak of the dire nature Yahoo was in or her incompetence(both maybe?). Though it doesn't seem like her performance was stellar. Could it have been the entire team(very good) she worked with at Google that made her seem like such a superstar?
  - grandalf 10y ago
    I think it says a lot about the early environment at Google. Mayer herself began to plateau at Google after a while, which is why she ended up going to Yahoo instead of running Google. Major successes take a great team and a fair bit of luck and good timing. This is (I think) why very few highly successful people manage to do it again when starting from scratch (even with the advantages of lessons learned the first time). I think one problem with human society is that we want so badly to respect success and put individual people on a pedestal, which creates an unfair expectation of genius, when in fact it was likely partly luck and partly timing. In leadership roles, where the development of a cult of personality is helpful (Mayer, Trump, Clinton, etc.) the name brand of the leader is part of the value proposition, but it reinforces the idea of genius which is usually not remotely true. But it can work because of the desire of humans to align behind chieftain and themselves avoid risk of failure. I personally think the "leader as servant" model would have been most useful for Mayer, but instead she immediately ended some perks and reined in remote workers. This suggests that she fell into the trap of feeling like she was entitled to authority she (as a leader) hadn't yet earned.
- jazzyk 10y ago
  1. Being a good Product Manager does not a CEO make. 2. Her poaching Google stars? She hired and, 15 months later fired, Henrique De Castro, whose "severance package, estimated to be more than $60 million, was one of the largest golden parachutes ever given to a terminated executive" [1] 3. >neither of whom could figure out a recipe for success Steve Jobs turned around Apple after a couple of disastrous CEO before him (Sculley, Amelio, etc) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrique_De_Castro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrique_De_Castro
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Perhaps Jobs could have turned around Yahoo, perhaps not.

by jazzyk 10y ago

grandalf 10y ago

She'd been responsible for one of Google's most successful products, and had been praised by the founders as a key early hire. She'd also helped create and shape Google's culture and arguably brought with her to Yahoo several billion dollars worth of Google's trade secrets and operational strategies, not to mention her knowledge of key players inside google who Yahoo might be able to poach to accomplish specific initiatives. Yahoo had already tried a media exec and its own founder, neither of whom could figure out a recipe for success.

Grazester 10y ago
So she arguably had all this going on and still couldn't save Yahoo. This must speak of the dire nature Yahoo was in or her incompetence(both maybe?). Though it doesn't seem like her performance was stellar. Could it have been the entire team(very good) she worked with at Google that made her seem like such a superstar?
- grandalf 10y ago
  I think it says a lot about the early environment at Google. Mayer herself began to plateau at Google after a while, which is why she ended up going to Yahoo instead of running Google. Major successes take a great team and a fair bit of luck and good timing. This is (I think) why very few highly successful people manage to do it again when starting from scratch (even with the advantages of lessons learned the first time). I think one problem with human society is that we want so badly to respect success and put individual people on a pedestal, which creates an unfair expectation of genius, when in fact it was likely partly luck and partly timing. In leadership roles, where the development of a cult of personality is helpful (Mayer, Trump, Clinton, etc.) the name brand of the leader is part of the value proposition, but it reinforces the idea of genius which is usually not remotely true. But it can work because of the desire of humans to align behind chieftain and themselves avoid risk of failure. I personally think the "leader as servant" model would have been most useful for Mayer, but instead she immediately ended some perks and reined in remote workers. This suggests that she fell into the trap of feeling like she was entitled to authority she (as a leader) hadn't yet earned.
jazzyk 10y ago
1. Being a good Product Manager does not a CEO make. 2. Her poaching Google stars? She hired and, 15 months later fired, Henrique De Castro, whose "severance package, estimated to be more than $60 million, was one of the largest golden parachutes ever given to a terminated executive" [1] 3. >neither of whom could figure out a recipe for success Steve Jobs turned around Apple after a couple of disastrous CEO before him (Sculley, Amelio, etc) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrique_De_Castro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrique_De_Castro
- grandalf 10y ago
  Perhaps Jobs could have turned around Yahoo, perhaps not.