4 ms·

Why Marissa Mayer's 130-Hour Work Week Idea Is Completely, Totally Wrong

17 points by jrs235 10y ago

WheelsAtLarge 10y ago
130, Marissa is missing the point of life. Yes, work is important but If she's working that many hours then she needs to know that we work to live a nice life but if all of life is taken over by work then what's the point. Also, her job as head of the company is to determine strategy and get the right people in place to execute the vision and guide the ship as needed. Micro managing can never work at a company with 1000's of people. If she worked that many hours, I suspect that was her problem. She lost the forest for the trees. Shame because it would have been great, if she could have made Yahoo the power house it once was.
- xufi 10y ago
  Agreed. I haven't read too much of the work policies and changes she enacted but the only thing i remember really making her tenure significant was shutting down work from home jobs.
- gozur88 10y ago
  >130, Marissa is missing the point of life. Yes, work is important but If she's working that many hours then she needs to know that we work to live a nice life but if all of life is taken over by work then what's the point. "What's the point" of life is a question for which nobody has a definitive answer. Hell, if you can answer that for just your own life you're miles ahead of most people. Some people aren't happy unless they have a project that consumes every waking moment, and she may be one. You never want a person like that in management at any level unless they understand how different they are from normal people.
b34r 10y ago
Marissa utterly failed at Yahoo. Her advice is not to be listened to, IMO.
- brador 10y ago
  Her job was to increase shareholder value. She did exactly that, and very well.
  - badmadrad 10y ago
    Meh. Not impressed by her work at Yahoo either. Most of the valuable contributions that Yahoo made from an innovation standpoint pre-dated her arrival. Also, she was largely billed as a catalyst for sparking Google-esque innovation but her tenure was marred by copy cat initiatives and ideas that were not fresh and ultimately lead to Yahoo just cashing out.
    - brador 10y ago
      None of that matters, her job was to extract shareholder value from Yahoo, not save puppies or innovate or grow the business. She organised splitting off parts for sale for big money paychecks. I'm far from her biggest fan, but she did what she was hired to do as CEO.
fasteo 10y ago
18.5 hours per day, including Sundays. I guess this is only possible if you use some nootropic. Considering that she has invested in nootrobox [1], I guess she took that path. Not that I am against nootropics (I have tried many of them; good short-term; disaster for long-term usage), but it would be great to have the full history. [2] https://nootrobox.com/team https://nootrobox.com/team
achievingApathy 10y ago
Ms. Mayer has apparently forgotten one of the fundamental laws of economics. (Not surprising, really, but I digress). The only way that you can sustain long term growth is through improvements in productivity. Working smarter, not harder. I'm surprised that no one has pointed that out.

17 points by jrs235 10y ago

130, Marissa is missing the point of life. Yes, work is important but If she's working that many hours then she needs to know that we work to live a nice life but if all of life is taken over by work then what's the point. Also, her job as head of the company is to determine strategy and get the right people in place to execute the vision and guide the ship as needed. Micro managing can never work at a company with 1000's of people. If she worked that many hours, I suspect that was her problem. She lost the forest for the trees. Shame because it would have been great, if she could have made Yahoo the power house it once was.

xufi 10y ago
Agreed. I haven't read too much of the work policies and changes she enacted but the only thing i remember really making her tenure significant was shutting down work from home jobs.
gozur88 10y ago
>130, Marissa is missing the point of life. Yes, work is important but If she's working that many hours then she needs to know that we work to live a nice life but if all of life is taken over by work then what's the point. "What's the point" of life is a question for which nobody has a definitive answer. Hell, if you can answer that for just your own life you're miles ahead of most people. Some people aren't happy unless they have a project that consumes every waking moment, and she may be one. You never want a person like that in management at any level unless they understand how different they are from normal people.

b34r 10y ago

Marissa utterly failed at Yahoo. Her advice is not to be listened to, IMO.

brador 10y ago
Her job was to increase shareholder value. She did exactly that, and very well.
- badmadrad 10y ago
  Meh. Not impressed by her work at Yahoo either. Most of the valuable contributions that Yahoo made from an innovation standpoint pre-dated her arrival. Also, she was largely billed as a catalyst for sparking Google-esque innovation but her tenure was marred by copy cat initiatives and ideas that were not fresh and ultimately lead to Yahoo just cashing out.
  - brador 10y ago
    None of that matters, her job was to extract shareholder value from Yahoo, not save puppies or innovate or grow the business. She organised splitting off parts for sale for big money paychecks. I'm far from her biggest fan, but she did what she was hired to do as CEO.

fasteo 10y ago

18.5 hours per day, including Sundays. I guess this is only possible if you use some nootropic. Considering that she has invested in nootrobox [1], I guess she took that path. Not that I am against nootropics (I have tried many of them; good short-term; disaster for long-term usage), but it would be great to have the full history. [2] https://nootrobox.com/team https://nootrobox.com/team

achievingApathy 10y ago

Ms. Mayer has apparently forgotten one of the fundamental laws of economics. (Not surprising, really, but I digress). The only way that you can sustain long term growth is through improvements in productivity. Working smarter, not harder. I'm surprised that no one has pointed that out.