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I think there is absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in flames, could

I think there is absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in flames, could have saved Yahoo. So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad.

djsumdog 10y ago
I think back to Gillard and Australia. I liked her as a PM and felt that the reason she didn't make it is she simply wasn't heartless and evil enough to fight in that chaotic, insane and corrupt political environment. Abbott was and Rudd..ugh..something something party implosion; whatever. It has nothing to do with her being a women. There just aren't many people who can put up with that endless rubbish. With Yahoo, you have to give her credit. She has been there for a while and has attempted quite a bit. Saving Yahoo was going to be a totally chance attempt, as its competitors are crushing it in ... everything. From the surface it looked like she was in a better environment overall as well (compared to my Aussie politics stretching example anyway). I think a company like Yahoo could have, and may still turn itself around. AOL did, mostly by investing itself in news and editorial sites. Maybe Verizon will be able to do something with their data, customers and brand -- and maybe like AOL we won't even realize they're the company owning the articles we're reading or the services we're using.
- lotophage 10y ago
  > she simply wasn't heartless and evil enough to fight in that chaotic, insane and corrupt political environment What are you talking about? She managed to make enough backroom deals to oust a standing Prime Minister. That's pretty strong evidence that she is Machiavellian enough to play the game of politics.
- flukus 10y ago
  > I liked her as a PM and felt that the reason she didn't make it is she simply wasn't heartless and evil enough to fight in that chaotic, insane and corrupt political environment. She became PM by playing that game. Her public persona was ruined because she played it too publicly and she should be held responsible for starting a decade long period of political instability.
  - hamandcheese 10y ago
    Can you elaborate or provide a reference of how she caused political instability? I can't seem to find anything about it from Google.
    - flukus 10y ago
      She ousted a sitting first term PM through backroom deals to make herself PM. This kicked off a decade where the Prime Ministers office had to get a revolving door installed.
      - hamandcheese 10y ago
        facepalm this whole time I thought we were talking about Marissa Mayer, and that PM was referring to project manager or something.
        chris_wot 10y ago
        I don't blame you. In Australia we have had a marathon run of the most monumental moments of bastardry, incompetence, bigotry and squandering of opportunities. I mean, this inevitably happens at the best of times but we got Rudd (who was, for his flaws, quite visionary), then Gillard who ousted him because of the negativity of Tony Abbott. Then we got Tony Abbott because of the way Gillard and co. shafted Rudd. Abbott, it turns out, was more arrogant, had less ability to govern, showed what those who watched him over the years already knew: he has terrible judgement, and thus led the least successful government of any era in Australia and lasted less time in the job than either Gillard or Rudd before Turnbull (who Abbott had actually ousted when in opposition) ousted him. The Turnbull government has no chance of doing anything other than warm the seats for the next bunch. So I sort of wish this was only Yahoo we were speaking about, but it's not: it's Australia's Federal Government and every Australian is currently looking into the abyss as the likes of Brandis, Dutton, Morrison, Barnaby Joyce, George Christianson and Eric Abetz destroy our society and economy for their own personal agendas.
- willbw 10y ago
  As a backstabber she beget more backstabbing. I think you need to assign a little more blame for the political instability in Australia to her.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago
  > I think back to Gillard and Australia. I liked her as a PM You need to watch this three-part documentary to better understand how she came to power: http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/killing-season/ http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/killing-season/
CalChris 10y ago
Why'd she do it then? Got paid a lot, that's for damn sure. $219M over 4 years. http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/25/technology/marissa-mayer-pay/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/25/technology/marissa-mayer-pay...
- jonny_eh 10y ago
  I don't think that's enough to bash someone. She gave it a good shot, I don't think anyone could've done better.
  - sremani 10y ago
    This is not a convincing argument. The odds are certainly against Yahoo, and the promise of MM was it will turn Yahoo into a Engineering powerhouse, which never happened. On top of that the Yahoo hack handling was not leadership. She tried, well but her Participation Trophy was worth $300 million including Golden Parachute. That is a grave sign!
    - saalweachter 10y ago
      You're looking at this backwards. Yahoo was dying. They were dying no matter who was at the head. And whoever was holding the reins when Yahoo went down would get to be known as the person who killed Yahoo with the appropriate reputation hit. They might never work again, almost certainly never be the CEO of any significant company. Meanwhile the board needs a big name at the helm. Someone to goose the stock price at the end, someone to guide the company on a smooth glide back down. Someone to take the blame. If the board doesn't get someone big and credible, they lose money, they take the blame. Marissa Mayer didn't get paid $300 million despite presiding over a sinking ship. She got $300 million to preside over a sinking ship. That was the price of her reputation as a CEO.
      - zimpenfish 10y ago
        > Yahoo was dying. Yahoo was dying when I was there in 2005-6 - the internal political structure, in-fighting, and general disdain from the US for anything not made there was terrifying. But with billions of dollars propping it up, it takes a long time for a corpse to actually fall over.
brandnewlow 10y ago
Bashing her may also be naive. She may not have been hired to "save Yahoo!". She may have been hired to make a lot of money for Dan Loeb's hedge fund, and succeeded at that, if you believe the telling in this piece: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-20... Summary: - Loeb decides he can make a bunch of money if he can invest in Yahoo!, clean out the board, and get a more compelling CEO in charge. - Loeb buys 5% of Yahoo! (presumably at a price in the mid-teens) and starts a campaign. - Loeb ousts then-CEO Thompson and recruits Marissa Meyer from Google to take the CEO job. She is announced in July 2012 to massive fanfare and media attention. - Yahoo!'s stock rises to $28 or so over the next year. Seeing as how they shipped no new products of note during that time, it's fair to assume this was largely due to Meyer joining the company. In July 2013, Loeb sells off most of his holdings and is removed from the board. Given this, it seems unfair to bash Meyer for not saving Yahoo!. She was never hired to do that. She was hired to make money for Dan Loeb and did a great job. All the handwringing about "saving Yahoo!" is a fake narrative foisted on the public by the tech press and Yahoo!'s PR people. Once a company becomes a zombie, there's generally no saving it. If you can get enough people to believe it might happen though, you can make some money. Also: This reading helps make sense of some of the other weirdness around Meyer's tenure. Why did Henrique De Castro get such a rich contract? Why did Meyer? Perhaps in part because some of the people negotiating those deals (Loeb and Wolf, ex president of MTV hired by Loeb to help with the Yahoo! affair) knew they'd be gone in a year and didn't care about the fallout.
- CalChris 10y ago
  I like your narrative and Dan Loeb should certainly send Mayer a Christmas card. Still, if indeed she was hired to make money for Dan Loeb then that does not speak any better to her managerial competence.
- nikcub 10y ago
  Loeb's thesis was simple - that Yahoo is worth a lot more as the sum of its parts as it was a combined entity. He was right - there were long periods of time where Yahoo on its own had a negative value. The stock price was largely driven by Alibaba - hence why attributing stock growth to Mayer's appointment was misplaced. The idea was that you sell off the BABA holding, distribute that to investors and then you end up with Yahoo on it's own which is then pivoted to being a tech company (higher PE's) rather than a boring media company. Mayer ended up becoming far from the ideal hedge fund CEO. She kept more of the BABA sales for acquisitions than the activists wanted, she spent hundreds of millions on silly recruiting like Henrique De Castro and then spent $2.5B+ on 50+ acquisitions - all of which didn't move the needle and ended up being written down to near-zero. That's a lot to spend for a company that had a negative value - and Mayer hastened / worsened the situation (hence why Loeb got the hell out of there when offered $29 by Mayer)
cmurf 10y ago
I don't think that's JC but rather Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider you're thinking of.
nikcub 10y ago
I don't think that is true. In 2012 Yahoo had $5B a year in revenue and was the second most visited property on the web. When Thompson stepped down the board were given two proposals. The first, revive Yahoo as a premium tech firm lead by someone like Mayer, or 2. admit that Yahoo is now a media co and double down on the verticals where Yahoo is winning - especially those where you can sell premium ads (Finance, Sport) The board had delusions of grandeur and saw Yahoo's as still being on the same level as Google rather than taking the safer bet and building out the media company. Being a media company isn't as interesting - but there are a lot of public, medium sized tech media co's out there who get along just fine (and some even have an innovative breakthrough every now and then - like IAC) - and Yahoo, with the later plan, would have been the best of this bunch.
- nashashmi 10y ago
  I agree with you, and would like to add that Yahoo was in denial of who it was and what strengths it had. Still however, comparing it to a company like IAC is quite insulting. Yahoo was something more, it was a chance for a media company to rule the internet once again. It was how tech did media.
- sperglord 10y ago
  I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own the Huffington Post and Engadget now.
  - dingo_bat 10y ago
    I'd rather have a failed high tech enterprise than owning huffpo and Engadget.
    - gloverkcn 10y ago
      I know you are being glib, but I'd rather survive and live to fight another day. A company with resources can invest, grow, and contribute.
  - 10y ago
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in flames, could have saved Yahoo. I mean, Yahoo has essentially failed so there is no way to validate your or my claims, but I disagree very much with this. If Yahoo had focused on its core strengths versus its flipping and flopping between becoming a media company or not, I think it could have become great. They also lost quite a bit of their best talent due to policy changes, work changes, etc. Honestly I still think there are ways to turn the ship around. It may never become as big as it was before but I see no reason it can't become profitable and stick around for a long time.
- dpark 10y ago
  > focused on its core strengths What are Yahoo's core strengths? Near as I can tell, its core strength is possession of heaps of Alibaba stock. What core pieces of Yahoo, aside from its Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stock, could be focused on in a way that would make it meaningful as a multi-billion dollar company?
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    - It's still #5 in the Alexa website ranks. That's HUGE. Huge huge huge. - Trumblr is still huge (arguably mismanaged but still huge) - Their fantasy football is the largest in the world as far as I can tell. Huge user base. - Yahoo mail is also huge. Their core strength is their hugely popular front page and their web applications. Sorta similar to Google in a way. Or even Microsoft and some of its properties. Arguably they could focus on these web products and continue making cash though they'd likely need to downsize a bit.
- siddharthdeswal 10y ago
  What were Yahoo's core strengths that MM should have focused on?
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    Webapps, in my opinion. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13403404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13403404
deleted 10y ago
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WalterBright 10y ago
> bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad. She took on the job, promised results, and demanded (and got) enormous compensation. Part and parcel of that is accepting responsibility for failure. Keep in mind that if she had turned Yahoo around, she would have gotten the credit.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Walter exactly right. Not even Marissa feels sorry for Marissa given the payout she has received. A couple of hundred million dollars heals a lot of hurt feeelings.
deleted 10y ago
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Shivetya 10y ago
She was paid to succeed and paid excessively on any level. Why should we not hold stars in the tech industry to higher standards. Why should we not vilify them like any other CEO presiding over a failing or failed company which sheds thousands if not tens of thousands of employees? She is the quintessential example of the CEO type many dislike. Overpaid, doesn't deliver, and walks off with money in the bank.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad If this was actually evident, what's the point of hiring her for the position with huge compensation? What's the point of taking the job, and why should that decision deserve praise? It sounds to me like she accepted an impossible task for tons of money. That isn't impressive.
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
Marissa herself is really, really pointless and sad. you're all idiots.

djsumdog 10y ago

I think back to Gillard and Australia. I liked her as a PM and felt that the reason she didn't make it is she simply wasn't heartless and evil enough to fight in that chaotic, insane and corrupt political environment. Abbott was and Rudd..ugh..something something party implosion; whatever. It has nothing to do with her being a women. There just aren't many people who can put up with that endless rubbish. With Yahoo, you have to give her credit. She has been there for a while and has attempted quite a bit. Saving Yahoo was going to be a totally chance attempt, as its competitors are crushing it in ... everything. From the surface it looked like she was in a better environment overall as well (compared to my Aussie politics stretching example anyway). I think a company like Yahoo could have, and may still turn itself around. AOL did, mostly by investing itself in news and editorial sites. Maybe Verizon will be able to do something with their data, customers and brand -- and maybe like AOL we won't even realize they're the company owning the articles we're reading or the services we're using.

lotophage 10y ago
> she simply wasn't heartless and evil enough to fight in that chaotic, insane and corrupt political environment What are you talking about? She managed to make enough backroom deals to oust a standing Prime Minister. That's pretty strong evidence that she is Machiavellian enough to play the game of politics.
flukus 10y ago
> I liked her as a PM and felt that the reason she didn't make it is she simply wasn't heartless and evil enough to fight in that chaotic, insane and corrupt political environment. She became PM by playing that game. Her public persona was ruined because she played it too publicly and she should be held responsible for starting a decade long period of political instability.
- hamandcheese 10y ago
  Can you elaborate or provide a reference of how she caused political instability? I can't seem to find anything about it from Google.
  - flukus 10y ago
    She ousted a sitting first term PM through backroom deals to make herself PM. This kicked off a decade where the Prime Ministers office had to get a revolving door installed.
    - hamandcheese 10y ago
      facepalm this whole time I thought we were talking about Marissa Mayer, and that PM was referring to project manager or something.
      - chris_wot 10y ago
        I don't blame you. In Australia we have had a marathon run of the most monumental moments of bastardry, incompetence, bigotry and squandering of opportunities. I mean, this inevitably happens at the best of times but we got Rudd (who was, for his flaws, quite visionary), then Gillard who ousted him because of the negativity of Tony Abbott. Then we got Tony Abbott because of the way Gillard and co. shafted Rudd. Abbott, it turns out, was more arrogant, had less ability to govern, showed what those who watched him over the years already knew: he has terrible judgement, and thus led the least successful government of any era in Australia and lasted less time in the job than either Gillard or Rudd before Turnbull (who Abbott had actually ousted when in opposition) ousted him. The Turnbull government has no chance of doing anything other than warm the seats for the next bunch. So I sort of wish this was only Yahoo we were speaking about, but it's not: it's Australia's Federal Government and every Australian is currently looking into the abyss as the likes of Brandis, Dutton, Morrison, Barnaby Joyce, George Christianson and Eric Abetz destroy our society and economy for their own personal agendas.
willbw 10y ago
As a backstabber she beget more backstabbing. I think you need to assign a little more blame for the political instability in Australia to her.
stefantalpalaru 10y ago
> I think back to Gillard and Australia. I liked her as a PM You need to watch this three-part documentary to better understand how she came to power: http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/killing-season/ http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/killing-season/

CalChris 10y ago

Why'd she do it then? Got paid a lot, that's for damn sure. $219M over 4 years. http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/25/technology/marissa-mayer-pay/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/25/technology/marissa-mayer-pay...

jonny_eh 10y ago
I don't think that's enough to bash someone. She gave it a good shot, I don't think anyone could've done better.
- sremani 10y ago
  This is not a convincing argument. The odds are certainly against Yahoo, and the promise of MM was it will turn Yahoo into a Engineering powerhouse, which never happened. On top of that the Yahoo hack handling was not leadership. She tried, well but her Participation Trophy was worth $300 million including Golden Parachute. That is a grave sign!
  - saalweachter 10y ago
    You're looking at this backwards. Yahoo was dying. They were dying no matter who was at the head. And whoever was holding the reins when Yahoo went down would get to be known as the person who killed Yahoo with the appropriate reputation hit. They might never work again, almost certainly never be the CEO of any significant company. Meanwhile the board needs a big name at the helm. Someone to goose the stock price at the end, someone to guide the company on a smooth glide back down. Someone to take the blame. If the board doesn't get someone big and credible, they lose money, they take the blame. Marissa Mayer didn't get paid $300 million despite presiding over a sinking ship. She got $300 million to preside over a sinking ship. That was the price of her reputation as a CEO.
    - zimpenfish 10y ago
      > Yahoo was dying. Yahoo was dying when I was there in 2005-6 - the internal political structure, in-fighting, and general disdain from the US for anything not made there was terrifying. But with billions of dollars propping it up, it takes a long time for a corpse to actually fall over.

brandnewlow 10y ago

Bashing her may also be naive. She may not have been hired to "save Yahoo!". She may have been hired to make a lot of money for Dan Loeb's hedge fund, and succeeded at that, if you believe the telling in this piece: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-20... Summary: - Loeb decides he can make a bunch of money if he can invest in Yahoo!, clean out the board, and get a more compelling CEO in charge. - Loeb buys 5% of Yahoo! (presumably at a price in the mid-teens) and starts a campaign. - Loeb ousts then-CEO Thompson and recruits Marissa Meyer from Google to take the CEO job. She is announced in July 2012 to massive fanfare and media attention. - Yahoo!'s stock rises to $28 or so over the next year. Seeing as how they shipped no new products of note during that time, it's fair to assume this was largely due to Meyer joining the company. In July 2013, Loeb sells off most of his holdings and is removed from the board. Given this, it seems unfair to bash Meyer for not saving Yahoo!. She was never hired to do that. She was hired to make money for Dan Loeb and did a great job. All the handwringing about "saving Yahoo!" is a fake narrative foisted on the public by the tech press and Yahoo!'s PR people. Once a company becomes a zombie, there's generally no saving it. If you can get enough people to believe it might happen though, you can make some money. Also: This reading helps make sense of some of the other weirdness around Meyer's tenure. Why did Henrique De Castro get such a rich contract? Why did Meyer? Perhaps in part because some of the people negotiating those deals (Loeb and Wolf, ex president of MTV hired by Loeb to help with the Yahoo! affair) knew they'd be gone in a year and didn't care about the fallout.

CalChris 10y ago
I like your narrative and Dan Loeb should certainly send Mayer a Christmas card. Still, if indeed she was hired to make money for Dan Loeb then that does not speak any better to her managerial competence.
nikcub 10y ago
Loeb's thesis was simple - that Yahoo is worth a lot more as the sum of its parts as it was a combined entity. He was right - there were long periods of time where Yahoo on its own had a negative value. The stock price was largely driven by Alibaba - hence why attributing stock growth to Mayer's appointment was misplaced. The idea was that you sell off the BABA holding, distribute that to investors and then you end up with Yahoo on it's own which is then pivoted to being a tech company (higher PE's) rather than a boring media company. Mayer ended up becoming far from the ideal hedge fund CEO. She kept more of the BABA sales for acquisitions than the activists wanted, she spent hundreds of millions on silly recruiting like Henrique De Castro and then spent $2.5B+ on 50+ acquisitions - all of which didn't move the needle and ended up being written down to near-zero. That's a lot to spend for a company that had a negative value - and Mayer hastened / worsened the situation (hence why Loeb got the hell out of there when offered $29 by Mayer)

cmurf 10y ago

I don't think that's JC but rather Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider you're thinking of.

nikcub 10y ago

I don't think that is true. In 2012 Yahoo had $5B a year in revenue and was the second most visited property on the web. When Thompson stepped down the board were given two proposals. The first, revive Yahoo as a premium tech firm lead by someone like Mayer, or 2. admit that Yahoo is now a media co and double down on the verticals where Yahoo is winning - especially those where you can sell premium ads (Finance, Sport) The board had delusions of grandeur and saw Yahoo's as still being on the same level as Google rather than taking the safer bet and building out the media company. Being a media company isn't as interesting - but there are a lot of public, medium sized tech media co's out there who get along just fine (and some even have an innovative breakthrough every now and then - like IAC) - and Yahoo, with the later plan, would have been the best of this bunch.

nashashmi 10y ago
I agree with you, and would like to add that Yahoo was in denial of who it was and what strengths it had. Still however, comparing it to a company like IAC is quite insulting. Yahoo was something more, it was a chance for a media company to rule the internet once again. It was how tech did media.
sperglord 10y ago
I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own the Huffington Post and Engadget now.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  I'd rather have a failed high tech enterprise than owning huffpo and Engadget.
  - gloverkcn 10y ago
    I know you are being glib, but I'd rather survive and live to fight another day. A company with resources can invest, grow, and contribute.
- 10y ago

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

> absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in flames, could have saved Yahoo. I mean, Yahoo has essentially failed so there is no way to validate your or my claims, but I disagree very much with this. If Yahoo had focused on its core strengths versus its flipping and flopping between becoming a media company or not, I think it could have become great. They also lost quite a bit of their best talent due to policy changes, work changes, etc. Honestly I still think there are ways to turn the ship around. It may never become as big as it was before but I see no reason it can't become profitable and stick around for a long time.

dpark 10y ago
> focused on its core strengths What are Yahoo's core strengths? Near as I can tell, its core strength is possession of heaps of Alibaba stock. What core pieces of Yahoo, aside from its Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stock, could be focused on in a way that would make it meaningful as a multi-billion dollar company?
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  - It's still #5 in the Alexa website ranks. That's HUGE. Huge huge huge. - Trumblr is still huge (arguably mismanaged but still huge) - Their fantasy football is the largest in the world as far as I can tell. Huge user base. - Yahoo mail is also huge. Their core strength is their hugely popular front page and their web applications. Sorta similar to Google in a way. Or even Microsoft and some of its properties. Arguably they could focus on these web products and continue making cash though they'd likely need to downsize a bit.
siddharthdeswal 10y ago
What were Yahoo's core strengths that MM should have focused on?
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  Webapps, in my opinion. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13403404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13403404

deleted 10y ago

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WalterBright 10y ago

> bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad. She took on the job, promised results, and demanded (and got) enormous compensation. Part and parcel of that is accepting responsibility for failure. Keep in mind that if she had turned Yahoo around, she would have gotten the credit.

danieltillett 10y ago
Walter exactly right. Not even Marissa feels sorry for Marissa given the payout she has received. A couple of hundred million dollars heals a lot of hurt feeelings.

deleted 10y ago

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Shivetya 10y ago

She was paid to succeed and paid excessively on any level. Why should we not hold stars in the tech industry to higher standards. Why should we not vilify them like any other CEO presiding over a failing or failed company which sheds thousands if not tens of thousands of employees? She is the quintessential example of the CEO type many dislike. Overpaid, doesn't deliver, and walks off with money in the bank.

forgetsusername 10y ago

>So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad If this was actually evident, what's the point of hiring her for the position with huge compensation? What's the point of taking the job, and why should that decision deserve praise? It sounds to me like she accepted an impossible task for tons of money. That isn't impressive.

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago

Marissa herself is really, really pointless and sad. you're all idiots.