4 ms·

IMO the problem wasn't the employees. The CEOs one job is to set the direction of the company. To create a vision of what a successful Yahoo looks like. In th

IMO the problem wasn't the employees. The CEOs one job is to set the direction of the company. To create a vision of what a successful Yahoo looks like. In this article, it talks about Mayer being responsive to email, turnstiles, food, etc. These are things a mid-level manager takes care of, not the CEO. And these things definitely are not a strategy. All the way up until recently Yahoo wasn't even sure what type of company it is--media or tech. This is not possible if the CEO is clearly communicating what Yahoo is and should be. If you want a company full of team players.. forget about this idea of dividing them into 1x vs 1000x. Make the vision of the company clear, so that people know what they're doing and what success looks like. When you get buy in of your strategy from the employees, it doesn't matter if they're 1x or 1000x developer. Everyone is working toward the same goal.

skylan_q 10y ago
I strongly agree with this. It seemed more like "playing CEO" rather than actually being CEO. I read many interviews over the years with her, and there was never any kind of thesis or anything I would ever take away from the conversation that was had. I don't remember a single thing she has said or done aside from what's in the main headlines about Yahoo.
exelius 10y ago
To be fair, the confusion between media and tech has existed for as long as Yahoo has. Marisa didn't bring that with her. IMO her job was just to stop the bleeding to allow Yahoo to divest Alibaba and sell off the rest of the company. Without Marissa, Yahoo is a flaming dumpster fire a la Sun -- where the value of the company was in patents alone. She allowed the company to retain some effective talent and keep the lights on until they could find a viable exit -- definitely a win for the Yahoo shareholders. And realistically, what options did Yahoo have? They didn't have the cash flows to aggressively invest in content to become a media company and they didn't have the cash reserves or engineering talent to aggressively invest in R&D to become a tech company. What vision should Yahoo have invested in? I'm not really sure they had any good options; so she rolled the dice with her best ones and lost. Can't fault her for that IMO.

skylan_q 10y ago

I strongly agree with this. It seemed more like "playing CEO" rather than actually being CEO. I read many interviews over the years with her, and there was never any kind of thesis or anything I would ever take away from the conversation that was had. I don't remember a single thing she has said or done aside from what's in the main headlines about Yahoo.

exelius 10y ago

To be fair, the confusion between media and tech has existed for as long as Yahoo has. Marisa didn't bring that with her. IMO her job was just to stop the bleeding to allow Yahoo to divest Alibaba and sell off the rest of the company. Without Marissa, Yahoo is a flaming dumpster fire a la Sun -- where the value of the company was in patents alone. She allowed the company to retain some effective talent and keep the lights on until they could find a viable exit -- definitely a win for the Yahoo shareholders. And realistically, what options did Yahoo have? They didn't have the cash flows to aggressively invest in content to become a media company and they didn't have the cash reserves or engineering talent to aggressively invest in R&D to become a tech company. What vision should Yahoo have invested in? I'm not really sure they had any good options; so she rolled the dice with her best ones and lost. Can't fault her for that IMO.