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> People who are criticizing Mayer's deal are failing to realize that Mayer had better options than taking over as head of yahoo. Could you provide sources for

by iaw 10y ago

> People who are criticizing Mayer's deal are failing to realize that Mayer had better options than taking over as head of yahoo. Could you provide sources for this? What opportunities were available to Mayer better than being an executive of a multi-billion dollar giant like Yahoo? Edit: I'm seeing a lot of speculative replies but none that demonstrate an 8 to 9 figure payday from 5 years of sitting in place. Does anyone have an example of an alternative that would've yielded her this much wealth?

kornish 10y ago
Well, for one, being an executive at a multi-billion dollar giant which was growing or doing well. edit: by "executive", I was including the whole C-suite – should have clarified.
- pmlnr 10y ago
  But those tend to hire/promote CEOs who can actually push things forward.
  - kornish 10y ago
    Not all executives are chief executives. Meyer surely could have gotten another VP or SVP job at a non-Google company with momentum. To require compensation for risk/opportunity cost in foregoing those opportunities seems very reasonable.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  What company fitting that description could Mayer have gone to?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  But which multi-billion dollar giant would go for an in-experienced CEO? Running a department of a large company is not the same as being CEO of even a much smaller one. I figure the only reason she was given a shot was that the Yahoo! board hoped the Google magic had somehow rubbed off on Mayer and that that alone would make the difference. Other than that I don't see what would have gotten her a CEO spot, especially not in a growing company at the multi-billion $ level. Yahoo! did not have that much to lose at that point in time.
  - wwalser 10y ago
    The person above you didn't say CEO. They said exec. If she had stayed at Google and had some equity comp she would have netted more money. Absolutely.
leatherdaddy 10y ago
here's your source: eat shit
viggity 10y ago
One option would be to continue to work as an executive at Google, where she was already working. I would have to imagine that Vice President of Search Products at GOOGLE would be able to find a cushy gig just about anywhere in tech.
mikeyouse 10y ago
I imagine any unicorn in existence would have jumped at the opportunity to have her come in as COO or CEO if it wasn't Founder-led.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  COO yes, CEO no. She simply did not have the relevant experience. Ironically, now she does but now any such companies would likely not hire her.
  - cat199 10y ago
    but she has enough money to buy several and build her own empire, if she is so inclined.. so there's that..
grandalf 10y ago
> Could you provide sources for this? Do you think that Yahoo's board decided to grant Mayer the golden parachute out of kindness, or out of sympathy to a fellow member of the nobility? Mayer and Yahoo's board negotiated the terms of her contract. The parachute is meant to lure an executive who would normally not want to risk taking the helm of such a high risk company.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  I, for one, would have been perfectly able and happy to have done the job of "fail to turn around Yahoo" for a mere 1/100'th of what she got. For some reason, the board chose not to call me for that interview. Could have saved those shareholders some big money!
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  Such a risk! With respect to the complexity of running a multi-billion, it still seems a little absurd to phrase out that way. To me, real personal risk is losing your house or dying.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Well, Mayer faced tremendous reputation risk if she failed. Now that she has failed, she is not held in remotely the same high regard that she was prior to taking the helm of Yahoo. She's also been implicated in some of Yahoo's more embarrassing missteps during her tenure. So it's important to weight the parachute against her annual salary in a "safe" job for 3-5 years. It may still seem overvalued (or undervalued) but the price was reached through negotiation.
    - cobalt 10y ago
      so? If I fuck up, I burn my reputation as well (It may be easier to hide, but it still stands) and I don't get a giant payout
      - grandalf 10y ago
compiler-guy 10y ago
It's not just the opportunities that were on the table at the time, but also declining all future opportunities if this venture failed. You get one shot at a job like this. The company making the offer had to make it worth her while to A. Leave Google, and while she wasn't the top dog at Google any more, she was still extremely well respected, and incredibly well compensated, and--perhaps most importantly--very, very safe. What would it take for you to leave a job like that? B. Spend her one shot at the ultra-big time at a company near death, where it was likely that she couldn't save it, regardless of what she did. Yahoo had to offer her the big bucks for to take a risk like that, and one part of reducing the risk to her is to give her a golden parachute, where regardless of whether the venture succeeds or fails, she is still better off than at her old position. And you have to make all the numbers risk-adjusted. All of this negotiated _before_ you know if she is going to succeed or fail. Yahoo wanted her that badly and spent what it took to get her.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > she was still extremely well respected, and incredibly well compensated, and--perhaps most importantly--very, very safe. Re: well respected and very safe, not really. Worked during that time in Maps. Cracks were starting to show. She wasn't that well respected in engineering circles. Maybe in product management she was, I don't have much visibility into that. Also, her safety was in question. She already got shunted to a position with less authority and a further degree of separation from Larry Page. She wouldn't have gotten fired, but a slow stripping of responsibilities and transfer into a ceremonial role probably wouldn't have been out of the question.
  - compiler-guy 10y ago
    There is no doubt she had lost in her last round of executive intrigue at Google, but still, she was employee number 20. Even shunted aside, she was making millions of dollars. There was certainly a group of engineers who didn't respect her, but there was also a very large contingent who did. On the product level, many credit her work on the look and feel of early Google products with a broad portion of Google's early success. (And indeed, one reason she was shunted aside because Google had decided to abandon her vision of Google's look and feel.) Your last paragraph is pretty much pure speculation. It's pretty clear she was unhappy at Google, but what would have happened if she hadn't taken the Yahoo job? She could have bided her time until a better situation came along. Google wasn't going to fire her.

by iaw 10y ago

kornish 10y ago

Well, for one, being an executive at a multi-billion dollar giant which was growing or doing well. edit: by "executive", I was including the whole C-suite – should have clarified.

pmlnr 10y ago
But those tend to hire/promote CEOs who can actually push things forward.
- kornish 10y ago
  Not all executives are chief executives. Meyer surely could have gotten another VP or SVP job at a non-Google company with momentum. To require compensation for risk/opportunity cost in foregoing those opportunities seems very reasonable.
oh_sigh 10y ago
What company fitting that description could Mayer have gone to?
jacquesm 10y ago
But which multi-billion dollar giant would go for an in-experienced CEO? Running a department of a large company is not the same as being CEO of even a much smaller one. I figure the only reason she was given a shot was that the Yahoo! board hoped the Google magic had somehow rubbed off on Mayer and that that alone would make the difference. Other than that I don't see what would have gotten her a CEO spot, especially not in a growing company at the multi-billion $ level. Yahoo! did not have that much to lose at that point in time.
- wwalser 10y ago
  The person above you didn't say CEO. They said exec. If she had stayed at Google and had some equity comp she would have netted more money. Absolutely.

leatherdaddy 10y ago

here's your source: eat shit

viggity 10y ago

One option would be to continue to work as an executive at Google, where she was already working. I would have to imagine that Vice President of Search Products at GOOGLE would be able to find a cushy gig just about anywhere in tech.

mikeyouse 10y ago

I imagine any unicorn in existence would have jumped at the opportunity to have her come in as COO or CEO if it wasn't Founder-led.

jacquesm 10y ago
COO yes, CEO no. She simply did not have the relevant experience. Ironically, now she does but now any such companies would likely not hire her.
- cat199 10y ago
  but she has enough money to buy several and build her own empire, if she is so inclined.. so there's that..

grandalf 10y ago

> Could you provide sources for this? Do you think that Yahoo's board decided to grant Mayer the golden parachute out of kindness, or out of sympathy to a fellow member of the nobility? Mayer and Yahoo's board negotiated the terms of her contract. The parachute is meant to lure an executive who would normally not want to risk taking the helm of such a high risk company.

ryandrake 10y ago
I, for one, would have been perfectly able and happy to have done the job of "fail to turn around Yahoo" for a mere 1/100'th of what she got. For some reason, the board chose not to call me for that interview. Could have saved those shareholders some big money!
acjohnson55 10y ago
Such a risk! With respect to the complexity of running a multi-billion, it still seems a little absurd to phrase out that way. To me, real personal risk is losing your house or dying.
- grandalf 10y ago
  Well, Mayer faced tremendous reputation risk if she failed. Now that she has failed, she is not held in remotely the same high regard that she was prior to taking the helm of Yahoo. She's also been implicated in some of Yahoo's more embarrassing missteps during her tenure. So it's important to weight the parachute against her annual salary in a "safe" job for 3-5 years. It may still seem overvalued (or undervalued) but the price was reached through negotiation.
  - cobalt 10y ago
    so? If I fuck up, I burn my reputation as well (It may be easier to hide, but it still stands) and I don't get a giant payout
    - grandalf 10y ago

compiler-guy 10y ago

It's not just the opportunities that were on the table at the time, but also declining all future opportunities if this venture failed. You get one shot at a job like this. The company making the offer had to make it worth her while to A. Leave Google, and while she wasn't the top dog at Google any more, she was still extremely well respected, and incredibly well compensated, and--perhaps most importantly--very, very safe. What would it take for you to leave a job like that? B. Spend her one shot at the ultra-big time at a company near death, where it was likely that she couldn't save it, regardless of what she did. Yahoo had to offer her the big bucks for to take a risk like that, and one part of reducing the risk to her is to give her a golden parachute, where regardless of whether the venture succeeds or fails, she is still better off than at her old position. And you have to make all the numbers risk-adjusted. All of this negotiated _before_ you know if she is going to succeed or fail. Yahoo wanted her that badly and spent what it took to get her.

jimmywanger 10y ago
> she was still extremely well respected, and incredibly well compensated, and--perhaps most importantly--very, very safe. Re: well respected and very safe, not really. Worked during that time in Maps. Cracks were starting to show. She wasn't that well respected in engineering circles. Maybe in product management she was, I don't have much visibility into that. Also, her safety was in question. She already got shunted to a position with less authority and a further degree of separation from Larry Page. She wouldn't have gotten fired, but a slow stripping of responsibilities and transfer into a ceremonial role probably wouldn't have been out of the question.
- compiler-guy 10y ago
  There is no doubt she had lost in her last round of executive intrigue at Google, but still, she was employee number 20. Even shunted aside, she was making millions of dollars. There was certainly a group of engineers who didn't respect her, but there was also a very large contingent who did. On the product level, many credit her work on the look and feel of early Google products with a broad portion of Google's early success. (And indeed, one reason she was shunted aside because Google had decided to abandon her vision of Google's look and feel.) Your last paragraph is pretty much pure speculation. It's pretty clear she was unhappy at Google, but what would have happened if she hadn't taken the Yahoo job? She could have bided her time until a better situation came along. Google wasn't going to fire her.