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Is Marissa Mayer on the way out of Yahoo? This article which lists all her faults, summary of mistakes suggest a sort of open warning. Mainstream media like New
by q2 12y ago
Is Marissa Mayer on the way out of Yahoo? This article which lists all her faults, summary of mistakes suggest a sort of open warning. Mainstream media like New York Times won't list mistakes of acting CEO because of the fear of backlash unless something is happening in the background like merger/replacement or some influential person(s) are actively leaking out his/her disappointment/frustrations.
Some how, I am getting impressions of HP's former CEO Carly Florina, while reading this article. Hope it won't end like that.
It appears Marissa Mayer is in hurry to prove something but without proper strategy. She is sort of mixing Apple's Steve Jobs way, netflix way, Google's data obsessive ways to somehow create some recipe for success.
I feel she has to cool down and make some original recipe rather than mixing from various other companies.Wall street, Yahoo Board and investors need to be told that turnaround may take at least five years and there should be no hurry in between just like HP's current CEO Meg Whitman did, irrespective of consequences. This can give her peace of mind and helps in creating a better strategy. It appears, she wants to rush but do not know where to and meanwhile falling. She has to slow down and rethink.
Also, this article can be condensed. It lists about yahoo from its start to previous CEO's, her hiring ...etc. Yahoo's past before Mayer may be irrelevant in the context of this article.If needed, URL to past article may be sufficient.
- venomsnake 12y agoMy first thought: "Is this a PR leak to prepare us for new CEO"
- canvia 12y agoor a hostile takeover
- mathattack 12y agoYou're right on several points. - It could very well be a strategic leak. - It's brazen tone suggests that she's very weak. - It's much too long an article. The one thing I'd differ is she did appear to have a strategy, it just didn't work. (Upscale media, original content, mobile emphasis, more sales, etc...) I don't think she gets 5 years to execute on it.
- thinkling 12y agoI'm going out on a limb here, but: Mayer poached Pogue from the NYTimes. There may be hard feelings against Mayer for recruiting him or against Pogue for jumping ship?
- jimbokun 12y agoIf the article got the overall picture of the financials right, then, yes, she's on her way out. The run up to the Alibaba IPO was her window of opportunity to create new growth businesses within Yahoo. Since apparently those initiatives have failed to yield significant revenue or profit growth, she's done. I think if those initiatives had paid off, we wouldn't be reading about her personal flaws and missteps, but about her managerial brilliance. I was also disappointed in her comparing herself to Jobs taking 5 years to launch iPod. Yes, that was a home run for Apple, but the first thing Jobs did was shore up the existing Mac business and get it growing again, providing the needed stability to launch new initiatives. Again, assuming the article has the gist of the story correct, she largely ignored the parts of Yahoo producing much of the current revenue to focus on new initiatives. In general, comparing yourself to Steve Jobs is probably a mistake for any executive. It's like a rookie NBA player comparing himself to Michael Jordan. You're almost guaranteed to come off badly in the comparison.
- fleaflicker 12y agoI didn't interpret the article as just listing Mayer's faults. It also says decline is inevitable for all big companies, and the process is accelerated in tech companies (like everything else in their lifecycle). Turnarounds are rare, and no choice of CEO would have made a difference for Yahoo.