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> Marissa Mayer got $260M for basically running Yahoo into the ground. (To be fair, it was already heading there before she joined). Uh, so which is it? Did Ma

> Marissa Mayer got $260M for basically running Yahoo into the ground. (To be fair, it was already heading there before she joined). Uh, so which is it? Did Mayer: A) Change yahoo’s trajectory from positive to negative, thus “running it into the ground” B) Yahoo was running into the ground when she took over For the crime of failing to turn around the cluster fuck that was 2012 yahoo, I guess Mayer is forever destined to be HN’s punching bag.

bitL 8y ago
She arguably had a small chance of success; it was probably the posing as a picture-perfect CEO and bringing her clueless friends to highest levels of the company while scaling down employee-friendly policies that made her more enemies that she deserved.
munk-a 8y ago
Why not, even if Marissa Mayer managed to moderately slow the decline of a major company, the fact that it still collapsed certainly isn't the sort of deliverable that justifies 260M$. I believe Yahoo was in real trouble when Marissa Mayer was hired and there are some decisions she made that were clearly wrong in hindsight. I don't feel qualified to judge her performance in detail but 260M$ is a glowing endorsement which seems entirely disconnected from the reality of what happened during her tenure.
- bel_marinaio 8y ago
  There is an article out there that talks about her repeatedly being hours late for meetings with major CEOs. There were lots of other negatives. It made her sound like a first class train wreck. If the article is factual she was compensated $260M for turning in a performance that could have gotten a minimum wage grocery bagger fired several times each month.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    This is just a demonstration of the different worlds we live in. There are countless examples of CEOs getting sacked for gross mismanagement and then rehired in a new executive role. Unlike other time periods it's easier (not easy) for people to enter that strata of society but once you're in it seems like you're set for life and the worst that can happen is you get setup with a cushy job with generous paycheck to basically not cause any more trouble.
mrep 8y ago
Your forgetting option C which is what everyone is pissed about: C) getting paid $260M to take over Yahoo as it was "running into the ground" despite her not turning it around from "running into the ground". Why should they pay her $260M for not changing the overall outcome of the company? They could have hired just about anyone for a miniscule fraction of the price and seen the same outcome.
throwaway2048 8y ago
Wish i could get paid $260 million for overseeing the collapse of a company, hell id do it for a mere 130 million think of the savings!
nostrademons 8y ago
I'm agnostic on whether or not Marissa had any fault in Yahoo's demise. I worked with her at Google and actually have a fair amount of respect for her as an executive. However, as Steve Jobs once said [1], somewhere between janitor and VP reasons cease to matter, and results are all that matter. And the fact is that she was hired to turn around Yahoo as an operating web property, but by the time Verizon bought it, Wall Street was valuing Yahoo's operations (less its Alibaba holdings, which Jerry Yang bought in 2005) as negative. I'm pointing out that there's a certain irony that even when executives get fired for not doing the job that they're supposed to do, they still get paid nearly as much as if they had actually done that job. A board that's actually trying to maximize shareholder value might pay a lot for an executive, but would structure their compensation deal so they only get that payout if they actually succeed at the job they're hired to do. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-on-the-difference-between-a-vice-president-and-a-janitor-2011-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-on-the-difference...

bitL 8y ago

She arguably had a small chance of success; it was probably the posing as a picture-perfect CEO and bringing her clueless friends to highest levels of the company while scaling down employee-friendly policies that made her more enemies that she deserved.

munk-a 8y ago

Why not, even if Marissa Mayer managed to moderately slow the decline of a major company, the fact that it still collapsed certainly isn't the sort of deliverable that justifies 260M$. I believe Yahoo was in real trouble when Marissa Mayer was hired and there are some decisions she made that were clearly wrong in hindsight. I don't feel qualified to judge her performance in detail but 260M$ is a glowing endorsement which seems entirely disconnected from the reality of what happened during her tenure.

bel_marinaio 8y ago
There is an article out there that talks about her repeatedly being hours late for meetings with major CEOs. There were lots of other negatives. It made her sound like a first class train wreck. If the article is factual she was compensated $260M for turning in a performance that could have gotten a minimum wage grocery bagger fired several times each month.
- munk-a 8y ago
  This is just a demonstration of the different worlds we live in. There are countless examples of CEOs getting sacked for gross mismanagement and then rehired in a new executive role. Unlike other time periods it's easier (not easy) for people to enter that strata of society but once you're in it seems like you're set for life and the worst that can happen is you get setup with a cushy job with generous paycheck to basically not cause any more trouble.

mrep 8y ago

Your forgetting option C which is what everyone is pissed about: C) getting paid $260M to take over Yahoo as it was "running into the ground" despite her not turning it around from "running into the ground". Why should they pay her $260M for not changing the overall outcome of the company? They could have hired just about anyone for a miniscule fraction of the price and seen the same outcome.

throwaway2048 8y ago

Wish i could get paid $260 million for overseeing the collapse of a company, hell id do it for a mere 130 million think of the savings!

nostrademons 8y ago

I'm agnostic on whether or not Marissa had any fault in Yahoo's demise. I worked with her at Google and actually have a fair amount of respect for her as an executive. However, as Steve Jobs once said [1], somewhere between janitor and VP reasons cease to matter, and results are all that matter. And the fact is that she was hired to turn around Yahoo as an operating web property, but by the time Verizon bought it, Wall Street was valuing Yahoo's operations (less its Alibaba holdings, which Jerry Yang bought in 2005) as negative. I'm pointing out that there's a certain irony that even when executives get fired for not doing the job that they're supposed to do, they still get paid nearly as much as if they had actually done that job. A board that's actually trying to maximize shareholder value might pay a lot for an executive, but would structure their compensation deal so they only get that payout if they actually succeed at the job they're hired to do. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-on-the-difference-between-a-vice-president-and-a-janitor-2011-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-on-the-difference...