4 ms·

Wow, the negativity. > Yahoo looks like a big company, don't they have some CEO-ing to do? When you decide you want to make a career out of pushing papers and

by jyap 13y ago

Wow, the negativity. > Yahoo looks like a big company, don't they have some CEO-ing to do? When you decide you want to make a career out of pushing papers and borderline lying to investors, stick to it. Do you purposely have you head in the sand or haven't you heard of all the policy changes and various acquisitions? Besides, branding is "CEO" type work. > Initial success is obviously to be applauded, but don't be overly enthusiastic. Hmm, let's see. In the past year, Yahoo!'s stock price is up 91.6%. That's pretty good "initial success". Remember what happened before that? From 2007 onwards, Yahoo went through 5 CEO's.

weland 13y ago
> Besides, branding is "CEO" type work. Branding is CEO type work. Logo design isn't. Encouraging people to put all their resources into their work is awesome. "Jumping into the trenches" (oh, over the weekend!) isn't what the CEO of a multi-billion company does, it's what an arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate does to compensate for his apparent lack of sufficient involvement. Leading an agenda of technological innovation is also "CEO" type work, but would you like to do pair programming with the CEO (who hasn't worked on anything longer than a thousand lines in half a decade) on a Sunday evening? > Hmm, let's see. In the past year, Yahoo!'s stock price is up 91.6%. That's pretty good "initial success". That's one year. It's something well worth the "initial" mention. That's less than a fifth of the time Carly Fiorina spent at HP, and she also did a lot of important strategic moves.
- coffeemug 13y ago
  "Jumping into the trenches" (oh, over the weekend!) isn't what the CEO of a multi-billion company does, it's what an arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate does to compensate for his apparent lack of sufficient involvement. That's absolutely ridiculous. Plenty of CEOs carve out a little time to jump into the trenches and work on things they really care about, or work on fun things to relax and get away from the big stuff for a little bit. Nothing about that says "arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate and requires compensating for lack of involvement." May be Marissa Mayer thinks the logo is important enough to warrant her attention. Or may be she just wanted to work on something fun to get a break from the boardroom for a day or two. Or may be it's both. Jumping to conclusions about someone you don't know based on a breezy blog post about a logo project seems far more arrogant to me than her taking a few days to work closely on this project.
  - weland 13y ago
    > That's absolutely ridiculous. Plenty of CEOs carve out a little time to jump into the trenches and work on things they really care about, or work on fun things to relax and get away from the big stuff for a little bit. Come on, read through the lines :-). My post isn't to be read in terms of "Marissa Mayer is an arrogant, career-oriented boss"; it's my own experience there, and should be read in terms of "I've seen people do what she did, and they were arrogant, career-oriented bosses". Correlation doesn't imply causation; for all we know, it could be that she's a talented graphic designer with exceptional leadership skills, but I have my doubts on it. That being said, Yahoo's logo change was a big move. It's the visual spearhead of their rebranding. That's hardly a fun thing you do to relax and get away from the big stuff, so that leaves important. Leaving management principles aside, the polite thing to do when something is really important is generally to leave it to people who are good at it and not put unneeded pressure on them. The whole stream of action reeked of manipulation -- which, as it always happens, may not have been intentional, but that doesn't make it stink any less. I am not being intentionally thick or judgmental based on nothing but a blog post. I am relating it to my previous experience, and definitely hope I am wrong (for the sake of Yahoo's employees, if anything).

by jyap 13y ago

weland 13y ago

> Besides, branding is "CEO" type work. Branding is CEO type work. Logo design isn't. Encouraging people to put all their resources into their work is awesome. "Jumping into the trenches" (oh, over the weekend!) isn't what the CEO of a multi-billion company does, it's what an arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate does to compensate for his apparent lack of sufficient involvement. Leading an agenda of technological innovation is also "CEO" type work, but would you like to do pair programming with the CEO (who hasn't worked on anything longer than a thousand lines in half a decade) on a Sunday evening? > Hmm, let's see. In the past year, Yahoo!'s stock price is up 91.6%. That's pretty good "initial success". That's one year. It's something well worth the "initial" mention. That's less than a fifth of the time Carly Fiorina spent at HP, and she also did a lot of important strategic moves.

coffeemug 13y ago
"Jumping into the trenches" (oh, over the weekend!) isn't what the CEO of a multi-billion company does, it's what an arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate does to compensate for his apparent lack of sufficient involvement. That's absolutely ridiculous. Plenty of CEOs carve out a little time to jump into the trenches and work on things they really care about, or work on fun things to relax and get away from the big stuff for a little bit. Nothing about that says "arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate and requires compensating for lack of involvement." May be Marissa Mayer thinks the logo is important enough to warrant her attention. Or may be she just wanted to work on something fun to get a break from the boardroom for a day or two. Or may be it's both. Jumping to conclusions about someone you don't know based on a breezy blog post about a logo project seems far more arrogant to me than her taking a few days to work closely on this project.
- weland 13y ago
  > That's absolutely ridiculous. Plenty of CEOs carve out a little time to jump into the trenches and work on things they really care about, or work on fun things to relax and get away from the big stuff for a little bit. Come on, read through the lines :-). My post isn't to be read in terms of "Marissa Mayer is an arrogant, career-oriented boss"; it's my own experience there, and should be read in terms of "I've seen people do what she did, and they were arrogant, career-oriented bosses". Correlation doesn't imply causation; for all we know, it could be that she's a talented graphic designer with exceptional leadership skills, but I have my doubts on it. That being said, Yahoo's logo change was a big move. It's the visual spearhead of their rebranding. That's hardly a fun thing you do to relax and get away from the big stuff, so that leaves important. Leaving management principles aside, the polite thing to do when something is really important is generally to leave it to people who are good at it and not put unneeded pressure on them. The whole stream of action reeked of manipulation -- which, as it always happens, may not have been intentional, but that doesn't make it stink any less. I am not being intentionally thick or judgmental based on nothing but a blog post. I am relating it to my previous experience, and definitely hope I am wrong (for the sake of Yahoo's employees, if anything).