7 ms·

Heh, I remember Jelena from discussion on devel-random. I would like to correct (mildly) a couple of anecdotes in her article, because I was there and closer.

Heh, I remember Jelena from discussion on devel-random. I would like to correct (mildly) a couple of anecdotes in her article, because I was there and closer. > A friend relayed this story: The Sunnyvale campus had a building with redundant turnstiles, which required a badge scan seconds after employees had scanned their badges to open the main doors. People complained about it when the building was remodeled years before, and kept complaining through several CEOs. After Marissa read an email griping about the turnstiles, they were gone the next day. I remember it a little differently. This was Building D, where the executives sit. Before Marissa got there, there were plans to put an additional set of card-activated turnstiles inside the door. (This building is also where the Yahoo store is, and the main reception desk). Yahoo was plagued with leaks, and some people thought that adding an additional turnstile will keep people from tailgating in. When Marissa got there, she took one look at the turnstiles and said, "this is stupid", and ordered them removed. Not only that: there were card-activated gates in the parking lots, and those were gone too immediately. She didn't want barriers to coming in to work. And about devel-random, or "d-r": I was pretty active on that. No one told Marissa about d-r, but just a couple of days after she got there, on a Saturday IIRC, she responded to someone on d-r. This sent shockwaves throughout the upper echelons, and soon senior management were clamoring to get on d-r. Most of them dropped out, exhausted by the volume; but she stuck around. Also: she used to use pine(1) to read her emails. That increased her stature in my eyes, and those of quite a few other engineers. It's the small things that mattered a lot to the battered egos at Yahoo; and Marissa did a lot of good. She was the best CEO of all the ones Yahoo had seen, bar none (OK, I wasn't around during Koogle's tenure).

robertcorey 10y ago
Were you able to post to d-r anonymously?
- 1024core 10y ago
  No. It's an internal list. But you were free to express yourself without almost any restrictions, modulo the usual workplace norms.
0xmohit 10y ago
> Also: she used to use pine(1) to read her emails. And ed as the editor? Or was it pico?
- 1024core 10y ago
  Only hardcore masochists use ed(1) ! I think she used pico, but not sure.
  - 0xmohit 10y ago
    pico being the default editor for pine would make a natural choice. I wonder how can someone who prefers console-based email clients ignore mutt.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      If I went back to the console for email, I'd probably use pine, just because that's what we used in college.
      - stinkytaco 10y ago
        I used pine until 2004. Then I moved on from where I was and was forced into the world of webmail since there wasn't much else for me then. Inertia is strong in my world, I wonder if I could go back?
        ars 10y ago
        Of course you can go back. I still use pine, it's called alpine now, but works basically the same, and is just as fast as it always was.
        stinkytaco 10y ago
        It was more a rhetorical question for myself. My (and I think many's) usage of email has changed dramatically in the intervening decade. I get less of it, and what I do get I appreciate having on the go. I don't think I use that much HTML email, so that's not a huge deal, but it would require a major readjustment to how I communicate to make it worth it.
outworlder 10y ago
> Also: she used to use pine(1) to read her emails. That increased her stature in my eyes, and those of quite a few other engineers. Ok, now that is amazing. That speaks more about her culture and background than a hundred random actions.
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  Oh wow! She used pine! Freakin' pine! She sent the company down the tubes, but... holy shit did she ever read her emails in a terminal! Also: Way to dogfood Yahoo Mail. Shows how much faith you have in your own products - as CEO no less.
  - arenaninja 10y ago
    I mean, I get your point on pine, but I think the jury is still out on whether she was the cause for Yahoo's demise. I think the media definitely overhyped her, but Yahoo was in pretty dire straits when she took over in 2012
    - nsxwolf 10y ago
      True, but, it seems that much like US presidents, CEOs want all the credit for good results and excuses for the bad ones.
      - nostrademons 10y ago
        It'd probably be a more accurate version of reality to accept that CEOs and Presidents have relatively little to do with either kind of results. That'd require that we give up the very human tendency to believe in Great People and force us to believe in Ordinary People involved with Great Things.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      The buck stops in the C-suite. Verizon bought Yahoo for a tenth of what Microsoft offered eight short years ago. It's impossible to say this or that person was responsible for Yahoo's demise, but her job was to turn it around and in that she failed.
freyir 10y ago
I'm not sure what you're "correcting" in the original post. The only difference I see is that the author said Marissa removed the turnstiles after reading an email complaint, and you say she removed the turnstiles after looking at them.
- smhost 10y ago
  The framing is different. In one frame she appears to care about the QoL of her employees, in the other she doesn't necessary care about that so much as she cares about efficiency and her personal comfort. http://i.imgur.com/LRGZRTO.jpg http://i.imgur.com/LRGZRTO.jpg
  - freyir 10y ago
    It's an interpretation based on speculation, not a correction. She might have looked at the turnstile and thought, "This is probably annoying to the other employees, so it has to go." We don't know, and 1024core doesn't know. Or maybe the OP was correct, and an email complaint really did contribute to the decision. Without further evidence, or unless 1024core is actually Marissa Meyer, we simply don't know.
    - smhost 10y ago
      Speculation is how we judge other people, and our social space doesn't have objective truths. Narratives are all there is, so narratives are what matter most. It's legitimate to correct offending narratives that conflict with your version of reality.
      - freyir 10y ago
        > It's legitimate to correct offending narratives that conflict with your version of reality. You're not "correcting" someone's interpretation simply by stating a different interpretation, unless there's some grounding in evidence and objective truth. Core1024 may have evidence that supports his interpretation, but he didn't present it. As such, it doesn't qualify as a correction.
jimwalsh 10y ago
She didn't want barriers to coming into work because she was about to eliminate the work from home program.
finid 10y ago
>She was the best CEO of all the ones Yahoo had seen So the best CEO Yahoo! has ever seen couldn't turn the ship around. does that say more about the state of Yahoo! or the competence of the CEO?
- phamilton 10y ago
  > Marissa was able to vanquish the chronically poor self-esteem in the organization for a little while, but eventually Yahoo’s organizational depression took hold again. That summarizes my experience at Yahoo pretty well. The company was broken when she took over. Deep in its structure, in its hiring, in its middle management, it was broken. Marissa did not break it, but she was also unable to fix it.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  Probably more about the state of Yahoo. Mayer really was quite talented, by all accounts. But Yahoo's problems really were quite fundamental - down to the fundamental questions of what its line if business could have, or should have been - beyond simply issues of morale and revenue. So another spin on the whole sage might well be, "If Marissa Mayer couldn't turn Yahoo around -- maybe no one could."
jelenaw 10y ago
Hayyyyyyyyyyy. Just found this & created a realname account to say hello... I don't know who you are from the 1024core username but if you were a d-r'er I certainly trust your corrections! I'll place a note in the article.
- 1024core 10y ago
  I picked a random username to stay anonymous. :-) Like you, I also enjoyed the burst in energy when MM landed. I just wish she had not trusted the middle management so much; but these people had entrenched themselves over many, many years like barnacles, and it's not easy to get rid of them. Good luck, wherever you are!

robertcorey 10y ago

Were you able to post to d-r anonymously?

1024core 10y ago
No. It's an internal list. But you were free to express yourself without almost any restrictions, modulo the usual workplace norms.

0xmohit 10y ago

> Also: she used to use pine(1) to read her emails. And ed as the editor? Or was it pico?

1024core 10y ago
Only hardcore masochists use ed(1) ! I think she used pico, but not sure.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  pico being the default editor for pine would make a natural choice. I wonder how can someone who prefers console-based email clients ignore mutt.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    If I went back to the console for email, I'd probably use pine, just because that's what we used in college.
    - stinkytaco 10y ago
      I used pine until 2004. Then I moved on from where I was and was forced into the world of webmail since there wasn't much else for me then. Inertia is strong in my world, I wonder if I could go back?
      - ars 10y ago
        Of course you can go back. I still use pine, it's called alpine now, but works basically the same, and is just as fast as it always was.
        stinkytaco 10y ago
        It was more a rhetorical question for myself. My (and I think many's) usage of email has changed dramatically in the intervening decade. I get less of it, and what I do get I appreciate having on the go. I don't think I use that much HTML email, so that's not a huge deal, but it would require a major readjustment to how I communicate to make it worth it.

outworlder 10y ago

> Also: she used to use pine(1) to read her emails. That increased her stature in my eyes, and those of quite a few other engineers. Ok, now that is amazing. That speaks more about her culture and background than a hundred random actions.

nsxwolf 10y ago
Oh wow! She used pine! Freakin' pine! She sent the company down the tubes, but... holy shit did she ever read her emails in a terminal! Also: Way to dogfood Yahoo Mail. Shows how much faith you have in your own products - as CEO no less.
- arenaninja 10y ago
  I mean, I get your point on pine, but I think the jury is still out on whether she was the cause for Yahoo's demise. I think the media definitely overhyped her, but Yahoo was in pretty dire straits when she took over in 2012
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    True, but, it seems that much like US presidents, CEOs want all the credit for good results and excuses for the bad ones.
    - nostrademons 10y ago
      It'd probably be a more accurate version of reality to accept that CEOs and Presidents have relatively little to do with either kind of results. That'd require that we give up the very human tendency to believe in Great People and force us to believe in Ordinary People involved with Great Things.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    The buck stops in the C-suite. Verizon bought Yahoo for a tenth of what Microsoft offered eight short years ago. It's impossible to say this or that person was responsible for Yahoo's demise, but her job was to turn it around and in that she failed.

freyir 10y ago

I'm not sure what you're "correcting" in the original post. The only difference I see is that the author said Marissa removed the turnstiles after reading an email complaint, and you say she removed the turnstiles after looking at them.

smhost 10y ago
The framing is different. In one frame she appears to care about the QoL of her employees, in the other she doesn't necessary care about that so much as she cares about efficiency and her personal comfort. http://i.imgur.com/LRGZRTO.jpg http://i.imgur.com/LRGZRTO.jpg
- freyir 10y ago
  It's an interpretation based on speculation, not a correction. She might have looked at the turnstile and thought, "This is probably annoying to the other employees, so it has to go." We don't know, and 1024core doesn't know. Or maybe the OP was correct, and an email complaint really did contribute to the decision. Without further evidence, or unless 1024core is actually Marissa Meyer, we simply don't know.
  - smhost 10y ago
    Speculation is how we judge other people, and our social space doesn't have objective truths. Narratives are all there is, so narratives are what matter most. It's legitimate to correct offending narratives that conflict with your version of reality.
    - freyir 10y ago
      > It's legitimate to correct offending narratives that conflict with your version of reality. You're not "correcting" someone's interpretation simply by stating a different interpretation, unless there's some grounding in evidence and objective truth. Core1024 may have evidence that supports his interpretation, but he didn't present it. As such, it doesn't qualify as a correction.

jimwalsh 10y ago

She didn't want barriers to coming into work because she was about to eliminate the work from home program.

finid 10y ago

>She was the best CEO of all the ones Yahoo had seen So the best CEO Yahoo! has ever seen couldn't turn the ship around. does that say more about the state of Yahoo! or the competence of the CEO?

phamilton 10y ago
> Marissa was able to vanquish the chronically poor self-esteem in the organization for a little while, but eventually Yahoo’s organizational depression took hold again. That summarizes my experience at Yahoo pretty well. The company was broken when she took over. Deep in its structure, in its hiring, in its middle management, it was broken. Marissa did not break it, but she was also unable to fix it.
kafkaesq 10y ago
Probably more about the state of Yahoo. Mayer really was quite talented, by all accounts. But Yahoo's problems really were quite fundamental - down to the fundamental questions of what its line if business could have, or should have been - beyond simply issues of morale and revenue. So another spin on the whole sage might well be, "If Marissa Mayer couldn't turn Yahoo around -- maybe no one could."

jelenaw 10y ago

Hayyyyyyyyyyy. Just found this & created a realname account to say hello... I don't know who you are from the 1024core username but if you were a d-r'er I certainly trust your corrections! I'll place a note in the article.

1024core 10y ago
I picked a random username to stay anonymous. :-) Like you, I also enjoyed the burst in energy when MM landed. I just wish she had not trusted the middle management so much; but these people had entrenched themselves over many, many years like barnacles, and it's not easy to get rid of them. Good luck, wherever you are!