4 ms·

And? Was Meyer not the CEO when this happened? I'm pretty sure she was. Just because she resorted to something other than organically growing the business to i

And? Was Meyer not the CEO when this happened? I'm pretty sure she was. Just because she resorted to something other than organically growing the business to increase the value to her shareholders doesn't mean she's a failure. We're all assuming that her job was to "save" Yahoo. I don't think that was ever really on the table.

derefr 9y ago
Your comment: > she resorted to something other than organically growing the business to increase the value to her shareholders Parent comment: > and such stock was acquired before she became CEO She didn't do "resort to" anything. Yahoo made that money from an action a previous CEO was ultimately responsible for. If you want to be really generous, you could praise her for not selling the stock—but if we're praising CEOs for every way they choose not to change the companies they come into, then my pet rock would make an awesome CEO indeed.
- 1024core 9y ago
  > She didn't do "resort to" anything. You have to give her credit where it's due: she saved the Alibaba partnership from that total fuckup, Carol Bartz. CB was such a fuckup, that she's the sun to Marissa's candle. She insulted Jack Ma in front of his underlings when he came calling to Sunnyvale. She refused/forgot to put someone on BABA's board and totally ignored Ma. As a result, Ma said 'fuck you' and took Alipay out of the group without even telling Bartz. I wish more people looked at the period preceding Marissa (Bartz, Thompson) and they'd realize that Mayer was a Godsend compared to the cabal of clowns running Yahoo before her.
  - derefr 9y ago
    Even if it's true that her management was better than previous management, I think everyone here is applying a standard where someone shouldn't get compensated for management that was provably worse than no management, because having no management is free. If the board of directors had just told everybody to go on without a CEO, the company would have done better financially than if they had installed Marissa.
    - 1024core 9y ago
      Hindsight is 20/20.
ethbro 9y ago
I believe berberous' point is that if Yahoo's primary achievement (in terms of share value) had nothing to do with her, they could have appointed a stump as CEO and saved $186M+.
- jhall1468 9y ago
  Actually a stump would have saved them money on tumblr and their terrible video service.
AJ007 9y ago
She was not present when Yahoo invested in Alibaba. Her job, presumably, as the CEO was to convince all of the enterprise's employees and customers that Yahoo would be sticking around for the long run. At the same time, she had to prepare to wind down the business while returning capital to the shareholders. I would call that a difficult job. My lesson from this is most companies with excess capital should make investments, not acquisitions. Most certainly a company with a long string of failed acquisitions should. Yahoo has been repeatedly given as an example, but others like Google don't have a particularly great record either. Berkshire Hathaway is a great example of a massive business centrally owned by a very barebones team (in Omaha.)

derefr 9y ago

Your comment: > she resorted to something other than organically growing the business to increase the value to her shareholders Parent comment: > and such stock was acquired before she became CEO She didn't do "resort to" anything. Yahoo made that money from an action a previous CEO was ultimately responsible for. If you want to be really generous, you could praise her for not selling the stock—but if we're praising CEOs for every way they choose not to change the companies they come into, then my pet rock would make an awesome CEO indeed.

1024core 9y ago
> She didn't do "resort to" anything. You have to give her credit where it's due: she saved the Alibaba partnership from that total fuckup, Carol Bartz. CB was such a fuckup, that she's the sun to Marissa's candle. She insulted Jack Ma in front of his underlings when he came calling to Sunnyvale. She refused/forgot to put someone on BABA's board and totally ignored Ma. As a result, Ma said 'fuck you' and took Alipay out of the group without even telling Bartz. I wish more people looked at the period preceding Marissa (Bartz, Thompson) and they'd realize that Mayer was a Godsend compared to the cabal of clowns running Yahoo before her.
- derefr 9y ago
  Even if it's true that her management was better than previous management, I think everyone here is applying a standard where someone shouldn't get compensated for management that was provably worse than no management, because having no management is free. If the board of directors had just told everybody to go on without a CEO, the company would have done better financially than if they had installed Marissa.
  - 1024core 9y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20.

ethbro 9y ago

I believe berberous' point is that if Yahoo's primary achievement (in terms of share value) had nothing to do with her, they could have appointed a stump as CEO and saved $186M+.

jhall1468 9y ago
Actually a stump would have saved them money on tumblr and their terrible video service.

AJ007 9y ago

She was not present when Yahoo invested in Alibaba. Her job, presumably, as the CEO was to convince all of the enterprise's employees and customers that Yahoo would be sticking around for the long run. At the same time, she had to prepare to wind down the business while returning capital to the shareholders. I would call that a difficult job. My lesson from this is most companies with excess capital should make investments, not acquisitions. Most certainly a company with a long string of failed acquisitions should. Yahoo has been repeatedly given as an example, but others like Google don't have a particularly great record either. Berkshire Hathaway is a great example of a massive business centrally owned by a very barebones team (in Omaha.)