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You know who I like? Marissa Mayer. She's doing this right. It's the velvet glove on the iron fist. She starts with food and modern cell phones. She tosses out

You know who I like? Marissa Mayer. She's doing this right. It's the velvet glove on the iron fist. She starts with food and modern cell phones. She tosses out the bad execs. She eliminates the dumb trademark symbols on all the physical signage. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief – these changes are good news. The message is clear: your boss knows what you need and wants to take care of you. But she's not all cupcakes and kisses. With the tone set properly, she identifies the dead wood. From what I hear, shitloads of people are checked out at Yahoo. That's a cultural problem that's tough to lift. Imagine being checked out and outside of the day-to-day social nudges that keep you feeling a little bit like your job expectations have consequence. Mayer's an optimizer. Years at Google taught her all about getting the best ROI from the simplest operation. With one stroke, she can identify who really cares about Yahoo's mission and who is just along for the free gravy train. Yahoo isn't going to get out of trouble by casually, lazily sidling to the promised land. It's going to take work. And now the boss wants a sign of commitment to that work. The hysteria about this move is misplaced. She nailed it. Great call.

jpdoctor 14y ago
I mostly agree. She is in a turn-around situation. Want the same results? Keep doing the same things. So instead: Shake up everything. See who reacts well and can adjust, see who can't adjust to even minor changes. If you can't handle lifestyle changes while making way the hell above median income then the company can probably apply your salary to more effective purposes than feathering your nest.
- bitcartel 14y ago
  Except nothing has changed at the top. In fact, she's getting paid even more than the previous CEO with a package worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe its the Board of Directors who need some shaking up. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/adding-up-marissa-mayers-pay-at-yahoo/ http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/adding-up-marissa-may...
taligent 14y ago
Sorry but have you EVER worked at a large company before ? Because none of what you said makes any sense. There is no evidence that people at Yahoo are more or less "checked out" than any company. And it is ridiculous to think she can magically weed out those select few who are not committed to the company's mission. And this underlying assumption that there is a relationship between working remotely and productivity/innovation is simply unproven. Especially when you realise that much of the innovation in our industry comes from open source projects where everyone is disconnected.
- beering 14y ago
  Were you working for or do you work for Yahoo? The allegations of rampant abuse of the work-from-home system in TFA is some sort of evidence, at least. And frankly, relating open-source software to productivity in a big company is a worse argument that what people have been saying about productivity and working remotely.
  - taligent 14y ago
    Anecdote is not the plural of data. If you don't have some correlation coefficient between working from home and lack of productivity then your entire argument is moot. My point with open source software is that there are plenty of facts on the ground that working from home does not necessarily equate to a lack of innovation. I was proving the negative. If you disagree. Then provide some numbers.
    - stfu 14y ago
      If executive decisions were made solely by productivity stats we could be running the entire economy on some pocket calculator. Just look at research papers and how they "measure" innovation. In innovation centric research that is frequently done by easy accessible data such as the number of patents submitted by a certain company. Do you really want to make your decision based on hard "evidence" like that?
    - badgar 14y ago
      > If you don't have some correlation coefficient between working from home and lack of productivity then your entire argument is moot. You're arguing on an internet forum about a CEO's decision about a multi-billion dollar company. The article in question is from TechCrunch. You need a reality check. The coefficient you're asking for will never be available to the general public. You know this. In effect, you are saying that if numbers aren't made public supporting an argument, that argument can not be made. Unfortunately, most important debates don't have relevant data. Are most debates moot? I suspect most of your cherished beliefs are also "moot" by this ridiculous standard. > My point with open source software is that there are plenty of facts on the ground that working from home does not necessarily equate to a lack of innovation. Open source developers are motivated for entirely different reasons than full-time Yahoos. Red Hat is the only company that could start to make a good comparison. Data on this doesn't actually exist. This is a ridiculous point to make. > I was proving the negative. You have proved nothing. Nobody ever will here, because the amount of information we have is the tiniest sliver of what actually matters: data on Yahoo employees working from home. > If you disagree. Then provide some numbers. This is not a "lets compare numbers" discussion. You cannot "win" this one. Let's stop trying to be "right", okay taligent? You have an opinion, but your opinion actually has no more weight than any one else's opinion here.
bitcartel 14y ago
What happened to leading by example? "Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer built a nursery in her office so she could bring her baby to work, which has angered some stay-at-home employees following her demand that all remote workers report back to the office. 'I wonder what would happen if my wife brought our kids and nanny to work and set em up in the cube next door?' the husband of one remote-working Yahoo employee asked in an interview with AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. Many employees are upset because they don't have the money or clout to build their own nurseries at work. And many assume Mayer has a whole team of people, from nannies to cooks and cleaners, helping her raise her son - after all, she does have a $5 million penthouse atop the Four Seasons hotel in San Francisco in addition to her $5.2 million 5-bedroom home in Palo Alto." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284828/Yahoo-boss-Marissa-Mayer-angers-employees-building-nursery-baby-office.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284828/Yahoo-boss-M...
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  It's usually a safe assumption that rules that apply to employees don't apply to C level management.
- danilocampos 14y ago
  When you, alone, have the power to turn a company around, you get more or less anything necessary to ensure your success. Let's be real. This isn't CEO camp. Not everyone gets a turn. Mayer is special. She's got a kid on the way. I'm sure the shareholders would prefer she not have to choose between saving Yahoo and raising her kid. If employees were able to deliver similar levels of value, I'm sure they'd be first in line for their own special accommodations.
  - untog 14y ago
    How is it related to being a CEO, though? Fact is, Mayer had a child. She realised that in order to be effective in the office, she needed a nursery, so that she could be close to her child while also working. Why does the same not apply to Yahoo employees with young children? Mayer may be CEO, but the logic she used to install a nursery would apply to all employees.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
runT1ME 14y ago
Yeah...sure... Because all those unproductive work from home employees are going to be super productive once they get in the office. No way they'll slack off there, browsing the web or come up with meetins and excuses.
- danilocampos 14y ago
  woosh They're not going to go to the office. They're going to quit. That's the brilliance of the move.
  - runT1ME 14y ago
    No, a brilliant move would be to fire people who didn't do their jobs, and to fire the managers who let that happen. You really think the people who suck at their jobs are going to quit? Maybe some of them, others will move to the office and slack off. You know who will quit for sure? People who are getting a lot done at home, and realize they can work at another company that pays better and/or lets them work at home.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    And the risk of the move is that the "slackers" aren't the only ones who will quit. The productive work-from-home employees might quit, too. After all, they're the ones who are most likely to resent the change in policy. If you were slacking you could easily be unhappy about the change, but you're unlikely to feel it is "unfair". The productive employees might even be more likely to quit - especially if they're the ones most confident of their ability to find another job. It could go either way. Time will tell, I suppose.
  - joezydeco 14y ago
    My wife was just asking me tonight to summarize the whole issue for her and the first question that came to her mind was "well, are the remotes being offered relocation expenses?" Haven't seen one lick of a mention about this. I'm guessing the answer is a hearty NO?
  - MortenK 14y ago
    In my experience slackers rarely quit, they keep clinging to their jobs like their life depended on it, doing just the bare minimum to avoid getting fired. While your point might have been Yahoos intention, they might get the reverse result. The deadwood piling into HQ and much of the top talent leaving because they have better options.
nonamegiven 14y ago
If she knows who's not logging in to the VPN, then fire them. Why would you want those people coming in to the office? Fire them. Don't punish the responsible people. And if the managers don't know which ones those are, fire them and replace them with their underlings.
SatvikBeri 14y ago
MM's choices have made perfect sense to me. A lot of commenters don't seem to realize just how bad Yahoo's situation is, and how much of a task Mayer is trying to accomplish. It's true that a lot of her decisions wouldn't make sense at normal, functional companies-but Yahoo isn't a functional company, so policies like no working from home or approving every hire make sense.

jpdoctor 14y ago

I mostly agree. She is in a turn-around situation. Want the same results? Keep doing the same things. So instead: Shake up everything. See who reacts well and can adjust, see who can't adjust to even minor changes. If you can't handle lifestyle changes while making way the hell above median income then the company can probably apply your salary to more effective purposes than feathering your nest.

bitcartel 14y ago
Except nothing has changed at the top. In fact, she's getting paid even more than the previous CEO with a package worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe its the Board of Directors who need some shaking up. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/adding-up-marissa-mayers-pay-at-yahoo/ http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/adding-up-marissa-may...

taligent 14y ago

Sorry but have you EVER worked at a large company before ? Because none of what you said makes any sense. There is no evidence that people at Yahoo are more or less "checked out" than any company. And it is ridiculous to think she can magically weed out those select few who are not committed to the company's mission. And this underlying assumption that there is a relationship between working remotely and productivity/innovation is simply unproven. Especially when you realise that much of the innovation in our industry comes from open source projects where everyone is disconnected.

beering 14y ago
Were you working for or do you work for Yahoo? The allegations of rampant abuse of the work-from-home system in TFA is some sort of evidence, at least. And frankly, relating open-source software to productivity in a big company is a worse argument that what people have been saying about productivity and working remotely.
- taligent 14y ago
  Anecdote is not the plural of data. If you don't have some correlation coefficient between working from home and lack of productivity then your entire argument is moot. My point with open source software is that there are plenty of facts on the ground that working from home does not necessarily equate to a lack of innovation. I was proving the negative. If you disagree. Then provide some numbers.
  - stfu 14y ago
    If executive decisions were made solely by productivity stats we could be running the entire economy on some pocket calculator. Just look at research papers and how they "measure" innovation. In innovation centric research that is frequently done by easy accessible data such as the number of patents submitted by a certain company. Do you really want to make your decision based on hard "evidence" like that?
  - badgar 14y ago
    > If you don't have some correlation coefficient between working from home and lack of productivity then your entire argument is moot. You're arguing on an internet forum about a CEO's decision about a multi-billion dollar company. The article in question is from TechCrunch. You need a reality check. The coefficient you're asking for will never be available to the general public. You know this. In effect, you are saying that if numbers aren't made public supporting an argument, that argument can not be made. Unfortunately, most important debates don't have relevant data. Are most debates moot? I suspect most of your cherished beliefs are also "moot" by this ridiculous standard. > My point with open source software is that there are plenty of facts on the ground that working from home does not necessarily equate to a lack of innovation. Open source developers are motivated for entirely different reasons than full-time Yahoos. Red Hat is the only company that could start to make a good comparison. Data on this doesn't actually exist. This is a ridiculous point to make. > I was proving the negative. You have proved nothing. Nobody ever will here, because the amount of information we have is the tiniest sliver of what actually matters: data on Yahoo employees working from home. > If you disagree. Then provide some numbers. This is not a "lets compare numbers" discussion. You cannot "win" this one. Let's stop trying to be "right", okay taligent? You have an opinion, but your opinion actually has no more weight than any one else's opinion here.

bitcartel 14y ago

What happened to leading by example? "Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer built a nursery in her office so she could bring her baby to work, which has angered some stay-at-home employees following her demand that all remote workers report back to the office. 'I wonder what would happen if my wife brought our kids and nanny to work and set em up in the cube next door?' the husband of one remote-working Yahoo employee asked in an interview with AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. Many employees are upset because they don't have the money or clout to build their own nurseries at work. And many assume Mayer has a whole team of people, from nannies to cooks and cleaners, helping her raise her son - after all, she does have a $5 million penthouse atop the Four Seasons hotel in San Francisco in addition to her $5.2 million 5-bedroom home in Palo Alto." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284828/Yahoo-boss-Marissa-Mayer-angers-employees-building-nursery-baby-office.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284828/Yahoo-boss-M...

jiggy2011 14y ago
It's usually a safe assumption that rules that apply to employees don't apply to C level management.
danilocampos 14y ago
When you, alone, have the power to turn a company around, you get more or less anything necessary to ensure your success. Let's be real. This isn't CEO camp. Not everyone gets a turn. Mayer is special. She's got a kid on the way. I'm sure the shareholders would prefer she not have to choose between saving Yahoo and raising her kid. If employees were able to deliver similar levels of value, I'm sure they'd be first in line for their own special accommodations.
- untog 14y ago
  How is it related to being a CEO, though? Fact is, Mayer had a child. She realised that in order to be effective in the office, she needed a nursery, so that she could be close to her child while also working. Why does the same not apply to Yahoo employees with young children? Mayer may be CEO, but the logic she used to install a nursery would apply to all employees.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

runT1ME 14y ago

Yeah...sure... Because all those unproductive work from home employees are going to be super productive once they get in the office. No way they'll slack off there, browsing the web or come up with meetins and excuses.

danilocampos 14y ago
woosh They're not going to go to the office. They're going to quit. That's the brilliance of the move.
- runT1ME 14y ago
  No, a brilliant move would be to fire people who didn't do their jobs, and to fire the managers who let that happen. You really think the people who suck at their jobs are going to quit? Maybe some of them, others will move to the office and slack off. You know who will quit for sure? People who are getting a lot done at home, and realize they can work at another company that pays better and/or lets them work at home.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  And the risk of the move is that the "slackers" aren't the only ones who will quit. The productive work-from-home employees might quit, too. After all, they're the ones who are most likely to resent the change in policy. If you were slacking you could easily be unhappy about the change, but you're unlikely to feel it is "unfair". The productive employees might even be more likely to quit - especially if they're the ones most confident of their ability to find another job. It could go either way. Time will tell, I suppose.
- joezydeco 14y ago
  My wife was just asking me tonight to summarize the whole issue for her and the first question that came to her mind was "well, are the remotes being offered relocation expenses?" Haven't seen one lick of a mention about this. I'm guessing the answer is a hearty NO?
- MortenK 14y ago
  In my experience slackers rarely quit, they keep clinging to their jobs like their life depended on it, doing just the bare minimum to avoid getting fired. While your point might have been Yahoos intention, they might get the reverse result. The deadwood piling into HQ and much of the top talent leaving because they have better options.

nonamegiven 14y ago

If she knows who's not logging in to the VPN, then fire them. Why would you want those people coming in to the office? Fire them. Don't punish the responsible people. And if the managers don't know which ones those are, fire them and replace them with their underlings.

SatvikBeri 14y ago

MM's choices have made perfect sense to me. A lot of commenters don't seem to realize just how bad Yahoo's situation is, and how much of a task Mayer is trying to accomplish. It's true that a lot of her decisions wouldn't make sense at normal, functional companies-but Yahoo isn't a functional company, so policies like no working from home or approving every hire make sense.