7 ms·
Can Marissa Mayer save Yahoo?
- antitrust 13y agoIt seems clear that most of what needs to be done (to "save Yahoo") involves ceasing to do certain things so that core competencies can rise. That she's gearing it toward the mobile age is astute, but not necessarily out of step with what competitors have been doing for some time.
- willbill 13y agoCan we stop posting articles from businessweek? Please?
- hga 13y agoI don't know, if you read between the lines it's got useful info, e.g. Yahoo has been historically very hostile to mobile, and they can't recruit mobile talent without "[buying] talent, spending close to $200 million to acquire at least 18 startups, in addition to blogging network Tumblr for $1.1 billion. In each instance, Yahoo has locked up engineers with two- to four-year contracts...." Yeah, that sounds like a recipe for success....
- ollysb 13y agoThat depends if they're set to task or given enough to room to build something cool.
- chollida1 13y agoWhy? I thought this particular article was pretty darn good.
- icedchai 13y agoyes, let's get more medium.com articles.
- rorrr2 13y agoNo.
- znowi 13y agoNo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
- kmfrk 13y agoif title.endswith("?"): block(submission)
- kevinconroy 13y agoDoes this mean we'll finally block these kinds of submissions?!
- d23 13y ago"Are the days of question headlines on HN over?"
- Zigurd 13y agoWhat about polls? ^ They're crap ^ I like them
- tsax 13y agoAwesome. I was just about to post this. I almost wish to kill a few hours scraping tens of thousands of headlines with question marks to find out whether these could be answered with a negative. I suspect > 85% could be answered so.
- saraid216 13y agoNote to self: start submitting HN posts titled, "Is [znowi] a useful HN contributor?"
- steveklabnik 13y agoI know you're making a joke, but https://news.ycombinator.com/classic https://news.ycombinator.com/classic ;)
- devonbarrett 13y agoNo - the opposite; but in the meantime lets place bets on how many companies she will buy. My bet is 40.
- pavs 13y agoThere is a method in this madness, if you are implying that she is buying companies for shits and giggles, I think you are wrong.
- IvyMike 13y agoI thought Yahoo was a goner for sure. On the day Mayer took over, if you sat me down and said "Michael, discuss the most optimistic yet still possible scenario for Yahoo's future", I would have dismissed the current course as implausible. That doesn't mean they're saved, but Mayer as a CEO has exceeded my (very low) expectations.
- leothekim 13y agoAgree that part of their success is that they're setting low expectations. When Meyer said "We promise not to screw it up"[1] after dropping >$1 billion on Tumblr, I thought to myself "Way to set the bar low, Marissa." [1] http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/50902111638/tumblr-yahoo http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/50902111638/tumblr-yahoo
- twerquie 13y agoShe was just being direct and honest. She knows Yahoo's reputation precedes her.
- fmsf 13y agoI recently declined a job at yahoo UK becouse their hiring process was a mega mess. It took nearly 4 months from first interview till I got a proposal, and the engineers there seemed to be demoralised a lot.
- troebr 13y agoThat's a ridiculous amount of time, nobody would wait that long unless they are changing jobs and are not in a hurry.
- Macsenour 13y agoThe exact path to survival is hers, but to save any company you MUST change things. Did Jobs change Apple when he came back? Of course!
- kevinconroy 13y agoA: I don't know and neither does Business Week
- sdoowpilihp 13y agoI suppose we all love the game of conjecture though. It is certainly a favorite past time of many.
- mathattack 13y agoBefore reading the article I'm pretty sure that you're right.
- foobarqux 13y agoThe smart (inside) money says no. Loeb's hedge fund who appointed Mayer has sold their stake and has removed its directors from the board.
- boomzilla 13y agowhere could one get this kind of info for the traded companies?
- foobarqux 13y agoThis particular piece of info was widely reported in business news. SC 13D is the SEC disclosure form. There are probably sites that aggregate that type of information. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1011006/000089914013000399/0000899140-13-000399-index.htm http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1011006/0000899140130...
- dr_ 13y agoWho knows, but I can say this. I've started using Yahoo mail regularly again, and I've started giving it out as my preferred email contact again. And, at least until ios 7 comes out, I've been using Yahoos weather app pretty regularly. I wouldn't have been doing either of these one year ago.
- foobarqux 13y ago> Mayer prefers to focus on the company’s increase in Web traffic. She won’t give numbers but says it’s enough to erase the entire decline from the previous year. Probably the most costly acquisition of Web traffic ever.
- hayward2 13y agoshe's been very successful due to her good looks in a 90% nerdy male profession
- mathattack 13y ago“Name another Internet giant that went through three years of decline and then started to grow again,” This captures the difficulty of their situation. If she turns it around, she'll be one of the Valley's great CEOs. "most recently, it languished under Carol Bartz and Scott Thompson as a dot-com relic known mostly for losing its top talent to competitors." When top talent choose to join Yahoo instead of Google, Facebook and Twitter, that will be a sign that things have changed. This doesn't count acquihires.
- general_failure 13y agoTalent follows money. If yahoo pays more than Google, talent will come.
- mathattack 13y agoSome of the comp is in equity, so the talent has to believe in equity. People also join firms for brand image, and future career opportunities. The talent has to believe in that too.
- general_failure 13y agoWhat an article. It goes on for page and pages that with lite information. I want my 10 mins back!