5 ms·

You are wrong. Before joining Yahoo, Marissa was demoted from her position and no longer was in Larry's inner circle. She pretty much had her hand forced to qui

You are wrong. Before joining Yahoo, Marissa was demoted from her position and no longer was in Larry's inner circle. She pretty much had her hand forced to quit Google given the influence she had once no longer remained. Wrt joining other tech companies, it is debatable whether she could get a CEO role of $30B+ tech company given she never had such an accreditation before. Wrt your excuses on why she failed, those are exactly that - excuses. If it is such a common knowledge that middle managers are political centers, why didn't she do anything about it? There wasn't a single round of layoffs at Yahoo in her first 2.5 yrs when everyone was asking why Yahoo needs 12k+ employees to support $4B in annual revenues. She failed to figure out what was wrong with Yahoo and take adequate steps to fix it. In essence she completely failed in her duties as ceos. I think a lot of frustration here is not that CEOs earn that much. I, for one, am totally fine if Satya Nadella earns $100M+ for all the great work and transformation he has done over at Microsoft. So I don't agree with your proposal on fixing the salaries of CEOs based on a multiple. I think what is frustrating here is that here is a CEO who clearly failed across the board and did nothing noteworthy (and made huge costly mistakes such as hiring Henrique de Castro which cost Yahoo $100M) but still was seemingly unaffected in securing the CEO role and being paid handsome salary/bonuses.

wwalser 10y ago
Any ah… evidence for that first claim (or any of them really…)? It seems obvious that she would have netted more money if she had just stayed anywhere near the top tier of Google. Yahoo was a capsized ship before Marissa came aboard. The fact that she got it into harbor at all is impressive enough for me. I always assumed there was a near-zero chance that she would save it from complete collapse. Making bets that don't pay off is par for the course for a CEO (Bezos & Satya are both great at this), some just have the luxury of huge profit centers to point at when investors come knocking. Marissa made her bets — some worked, others didn't. She managed to get an asset that, for a time, was negatively valued in the market[1] sold for parts. How she is compensated for the feat is, I assume, based on her employer's evaluation of that result. 1. http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/070215/why-yahoos-core-business-negatively-valued-baba-yhoo-goog-amzn-fb.aspx http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/070215/why-yahoos...
- product50 10y ago
  Are you serious you don't know about her Google demotion? Here read this and get enlightened: http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/17/marissa-mayer-yahoo/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/17/marissa-mayer-yahoo/ Also you didn't know about Henrique de Castro catastrophe? Here read this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/01/16/fired-yahoo-execs-109m-golden-parachute-was-one-of-the-biggest-ever/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercov... If Yahoo was a capsized ship, why did they have to hire a very expensive exec for the death march? Obviously, the expectation was that Marissa can bring about some improvements. Apologies for being snarky in this comment as I had a difficult time appreciating your ignorance.
  - wwalser 10y ago
    I appreciate that you've cited some sources (however questionable). The tone is fine, it's sometimes hard to maintain composure. Especially when someone points out that you're wildly making things up. Any response to selling something for money which was, for a time, of negative value according to the market? Edit: I just realized the first source is an op-ed with as much conjecture as your original post. Nice.
    - jimmywanger 10y ago
      I don't know how much evidence this is, but I can confirm Mayer getting demoted as I was an engineer on maps during the time that reorg was going on. She no longer reported to Larry directly, she reported to Huber who took over all of Geo, which subsumed maps. Internally, I don't think many people liked working with her. She had a coterie which did her bidding, but most people were not impressed, and there was much rejoicing when she joined Yahoo.
      - wwalser 10y ago
        I have heard that people didn't care for working with her. I don't find that surprising given her espoused views on work ethic.
vonklaus 10y ago
Marissa Mayer executed the goal she was brought in for which was to create positive market sentiment so they activist investors who brought her in would make significant returns. That said, obviously it was possible to turn around Yahoo, and the investors, Mayer and the company would be better off if she succeeded. I believe she tried genuinely hard to fix it and I believe she failed harder. Obviously, Microsoft is in a much different position but Nadella has had such success there that you would expect Mayer could've at minimum kept the company from failing.
vonklaus 10y ago
Marissa Mayer executed the goal she was brought in for which was to create positive market sentiment so they activist investors who brought her in would make significant returns. That said, obviously it was possible to turn around Yahoo, and the investors, Mayer and the company would be better off if she succeeded. I believe she tried genuinely hard to fix it and I believe she failed harder. Obviously, Microsoft is in a much different position but Nadella has had such success there that you would expect Mayer could've at minimum kept the company from failing.

wwalser 10y ago

Any ah… evidence for that first claim (or any of them really…)? It seems obvious that she would have netted more money if she had just stayed anywhere near the top tier of Google. Yahoo was a capsized ship before Marissa came aboard. The fact that she got it into harbor at all is impressive enough for me. I always assumed there was a near-zero chance that she would save it from complete collapse. Making bets that don't pay off is par for the course for a CEO (Bezos & Satya are both great at this), some just have the luxury of huge profit centers to point at when investors come knocking. Marissa made her bets — some worked, others didn't. She managed to get an asset that, for a time, was negatively valued in the market[1] sold for parts. How she is compensated for the feat is, I assume, based on her employer's evaluation of that result. 1. http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/070215/why-yahoos-core-business-negatively-valued-baba-yhoo-goog-amzn-fb.aspx http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/070215/why-yahoos...

product50 10y ago
Are you serious you don't know about her Google demotion? Here read this and get enlightened: http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/17/marissa-mayer-yahoo/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/17/marissa-mayer-yahoo/ Also you didn't know about Henrique de Castro catastrophe? Here read this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/01/16/fired-yahoo-execs-109m-golden-parachute-was-one-of-the-biggest-ever/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercov... If Yahoo was a capsized ship, why did they have to hire a very expensive exec for the death march? Obviously, the expectation was that Marissa can bring about some improvements. Apologies for being snarky in this comment as I had a difficult time appreciating your ignorance.
- wwalser 10y ago
  I appreciate that you've cited some sources (however questionable). The tone is fine, it's sometimes hard to maintain composure. Especially when someone points out that you're wildly making things up. Any response to selling something for money which was, for a time, of negative value according to the market? Edit: I just realized the first source is an op-ed with as much conjecture as your original post. Nice.
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    I don't know how much evidence this is, but I can confirm Mayer getting demoted as I was an engineer on maps during the time that reorg was going on. She no longer reported to Larry directly, she reported to Huber who took over all of Geo, which subsumed maps. Internally, I don't think many people liked working with her. She had a coterie which did her bidding, but most people were not impressed, and there was much rejoicing when she joined Yahoo.
    - wwalser 10y ago
      I have heard that people didn't care for working with her. I don't find that surprising given her espoused views on work ethic.

vonklaus 10y ago

Marissa Mayer executed the goal she was brought in for which was to create positive market sentiment so they activist investors who brought her in would make significant returns. That said, obviously it was possible to turn around Yahoo, and the investors, Mayer and the company would be better off if she succeeded. I believe she tried genuinely hard to fix it and I believe she failed harder. Obviously, Microsoft is in a much different position but Nadella has had such success there that you would expect Mayer could've at minimum kept the company from failing.

vonklaus 10y ago