If Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, The West Wing) was writing the story of Yahoo and he got to Marissa Mayer’s surprise entrance yesterday as Yahoo’s latest CEO, here’s how he would probably play it: the brilliant, tough, beautiful, charismatic engineer defies her Google glass ceiling and, through sheer vision and clever example, saves the pioneering Internet company. That’s how Sorkin would play it because he likes an underdog, loves smart, well-spoken people, and revels in beautiful if slightly flawed characters and happy endings. But in this case Aaron Sorkin would be playing it wrong.
To be clear, were I in the position of Yahoo’s board I would probably have hired Marissa Mayer, too. On paper she’s nearly perfect (only CEO experience is missing) and the drama of her going from not even on the list of candidates being discussed to getting the big job is wonderful theater that will play well on Wall Street for weeks, maybe months. For once the Yahoo board seems to have been on the ball.
Still it probably won’t work.
Understand I have nothing against Ms. Mayer. I’ve met her only once and I’m sure she doesn’t remember me. I don’t know her. But I know about her and, more importantly, I do know Yahoo.
I can see why she’d want the job. It’s an epic challenge for someone who didn’t really have anywhere else to go at Google yet feels she’s destined for greater things. And I’m not here to say Marissa Mayer won’t achieve greater things in her career.
Just not at Yahoo.
Here we have a company in crisis. No, it’s worse than that: If companies had asses, Yahoo’s ass would be on fire. I knew that yesterday when I saw they had pulled founder David Filo into the position of spokesman. Filo, who is a nice guy and as nerdy as they come, is typically comatose in interviews, so whatever is happening in the executive offices at Yahoo has shot him full of fear-induced adrenaline for what would appear to be the first time in years, maybe ever.
This is it, I’m sure they’ve decided — Yahoo’s last chance to fix itself before the for sale sign goes up.
Yet Yahoo is still Yahoo and I’d put money on this old dog not learning enough new tricks to make a difference. It’s not that Yahoo has changed, by the way, but that it hasn’t changed. It’s the world that changed around Yahoo. What worked so well in the Clinton years today barely works at all.
In our rock star CEO-obsessed business culture we believe that all it takes is the right guy or gal at the top with the right mojo to save the day. And on the short list of available charismatic leaders, Marissa Mayer looks pretty darned good.
That’s from the outside looking in. Inside Google Ms. Mayer had a reputation for being mean and not all that effective. She wasn’t in charge of that much and as time went on she was marginalized. She was employee #20 and the first woman female engineer but that didn’t make her a great leader or a visionary, just an early hire.
Now maybe Ms. Mayer was held back and never given a chance to shine. Or maybe people above her saw her deficiencies and kept her at a level where she could do no harm or could remain effective. Only time will tell.
This is one instance where I’d be happy to be wrong. I have no desire to see Ms. Mayer fail. I like underdogs and happy endings, too.
If Aaron Sorkin were to get a happy ending for his Yahoo story he’d need a few more elements that probably aren’t there. He’d need a subordinate character willing to risk all and act as a moral center for the company, demanding the new CEO do the right things. He’d need his Marissa Mayer character to listen and learn. But most importantly for a Sorkin story he’d need a caricature antagonist, a powerful bully of a competitor unable to get out of its own way.
Yahoo might yet find the first two of these required components, but I know it doesn’t have the third.
First?
Yahoo is doomed.
I wonder how she will balance being newly pregnant with her first year on the job? I wish her well, that’s an awful lot to take on at once.
Best,
Stephen
She could, like my wife, carry on as normal, work from home for three or four weeks, return to the office and leave her husband to deal with the childcare and domestic arrangements (which I’m happy to do by the way). Or, if she’s rich enough (ha ha), she could simply hire in all the help she needs and have the nipper cared for by an army of staff behind a green baize door with daily reports tweeted/texted/facebooked from the nursery.
When are going to wake-up and realize you’ve been taken for a ride?! You have lost big time!
It’s way too much to take on…I fear for this woman’s sanity…even with all the nannies in the world, she is subjecting herself to excruciatingly stressful pressures and conflicts as she tries to have it all. I hope Marissa doesn’t end up having a breakown like poor Denice Denton did at UCSC.
And it’s the 19th of July. Coincidence? 🙂
There needs to be a Danny. There’s always a Danny.
“But most importantly for a Sorkin story he’d need a caricature antagonist, a powerful bully of a competitor unable to get out of its own way.”
And this isn’t Ballmer because?
As Yahoo’s ad sales partner Microsoft isn’t the enemy here. Google and Facebook are sucking all the revenue out of the market, not Microsoft.
Dude if you are remotely close to what Aaron Dorkin imagines I feel sorry for your psychotic arse. They guy is visibly unbalance and unhinged.
Poor libtards have trouble with logic. In his case doubly so.
What kind of ideology corresponds with an inability to spell?
“Geek” is the party of “those who cannot spell to save their lives”. I think it exists in all countries, even those that claim to be one (or “no”) party systems.
Wah? I think you meant to post this reply over on Businessinsider.
poor guy can’t even find Rush’s website, so he posted here.
Whatever happens, I hope Flickr survives. Best photo-sharing site on the net.
Am I missing something – what is Yahoo for ? I don’t understand what their product is, and how they distinguish themselves.
If they disappeared totally overnight, how would I notice ? Are they the invisible back end infrastructure for a whole set of other businesses, like Amazon AWS ?
Step 1. Identify what Yahoo does. What problem does Yahoo solve for or what service/product does Yahoo provide for their customers?
(1) Yahoo! exists to pay Yahooligans! to do so, they crawl websites and run mail servers as a vehicle to bring ads to your computer.
didn’t used to be that way, but that’s how it grew up.
My vote is on Mayer-the-Google-mole, who sets the stage for a Google buyout of Yahoo in 18 months.
This won’t happen for anti-trust reasons. Google can buy technologies but they can’t buy market share.
All she has to do is not mess with Flickr and fix yahoo groups. Lots of hams use yahoo groups for mailing lists and posting pictures, files, etc. and it is terrible. The messages are not organized in any way that makes sense, searches find random posts in the middle of threads. I don’t know why they are still around, except because of habit.
Glass ceiling? Yawwwwnnnn…
I think you meant female engineer. A woman engineer I think would be someone who constructs Barbie dolls.
So a female engineer constructs females? Perhaps we should call them Barbie Doll engineers? 🙂
Thanks! I keep seeing the “woman ” usage in the media when I never see “man .” The first time’s the hardest….
Another huge issue for Mayer that you did not touch on Bob is that all the smart people have left Yahoo. The decline of the company started so long ago that there was enough time for all the people who cared about their careers and their future to go somewhere else. The people staffing the company now are literally people who could not get jobs anywhere else, not people who want to really be there.
But this is a problem only if Yahoo wants to actually try and build or achieve anything. Likely all the leadership wants to do is restructure it and sell it. Bringing on a celebrity CEO is probably a smokescreen. It sends the message that the company is building itself up. This is a good message to send if you want to raise your selling price. There is, of course, nothing to build. Expect the company to be sold off sooner than later. If the Mayer hiring increased the valuation, then it was a win for the company and a win for her.
I wonder who she is bringing with her from Google to Yahoo!…
I don’t know why they can’t leverage their good products better. I’m in the Financial industry and everybody I know at all levels absolutely loves Finance Yahoo. We all use it over our Bloomberg’s at times for different tasks, and the Bloomberg terminals cost 1800/month. Make another service to compete with BB and Thompson or just do something. While they have revenues, it seems that their still stuck in that start up mentality of we will worry about revenues later. Well, you have to make money eventually or your company isn’t worth anything no matte how cool the product.
I agree. Yahoo Financials is a good product. And I’m clearly in the minority here, but I like Yahoo as a portal destination.
Yahoo Finance is a gem, but not enough on its own. There are many good parts of Yahoo. And though we talk about it as though the company is dying what it actually is is in decline. But on the Internet decline and death are nearly the same and Yahoo definitely has no momentum.
I guess what I am getting afte here is in thinking that they should add to their winners. Throw money at a proven product and expand it. There is plenty of room for growth for something like Yahoo finance on a professional level. They just need to build it out.
Yes, but Yahoo is a very bureaucratic company so progress in ANY direction is often difficult. There’s plenty of pruning and strategic investment that can be done, but isn’t that what the last four CEOs have all said?
Bob, didn’t you just describe IBM and HP too?
You are right. The last 4 ceo’s did say this and I believe that I am underestimating the bureaucracy that Yahoo has become. I just feel that they could do a pivot, for lack of better term, with one of their existing services. Take finance, they could over a professional subscription service to traders, brokers, etcs… They then be competing in a different space with the Thompson’s and Bloomberg’s of the world. They would need to go after the regional’s and smaller shop’s to establish market share. But it’s still a huge biz, BB terminals are 1800 per terminal and Thompson’s monthly fees are b/t 200-500. They have some cash, now just go after it.
This is a failure from day one. I give it 9 months tops. Sorry. Memorial Day 2013 (if not sooner) see if I’m wrong.
Wait, doesn’t she have an insider understanding of of the workings and strategies of one of Yahoo’s biggest competitors, Google? Kind of like a football player knowing his old team’s playbook when he plays them? That has to be worth something…
Maybe we will get Yahoo+ out of the deal.
Yahoo Wave!
I’m rooting for Yahoo. There has to be an alternative to Google, which is a creepy organization that I simply don’t trust. Although if Yahoo’s new CEO brings Eric Schmidt’s attitudes toward privacy to Yahoo, then we’re totally screwed.
I haven’t visited a Yahoo url for 2 years. Nothing compelling. No killer app that woo me. I am comfortable with the eco-system from Google, from GMail to Youtube to its integration on my Android smartphone. Google office’s productivity tools are okay, can be better, but can’t argue with free. For Yahoo to win me over, they need to convince me of the questions and provide me with answers.
I was a fan at one time, but they failed to keep things working for me. Their late-stage drive to integrate their services with a single login seemed to break them all–after failing to get into my Flickr account for 2 weeks, I simply abandoned it. I had a different issue with Yahoo mail, which was constantly rejected as spam. And when they acquired Konflabulator, they simply ruined it. They’ve had a number of chances.
An important point no one has mentioned is that a lot of the key, remaining smart leaders at Yahoo *really liked* Ross Levinsohn. He knew the company and understood where the hidden value was, at a deep level. He was making good, profitable media deals that is Yahoo’s strength. I heard multiple comments of how much better things were with Ross, and there was a new sense of optimism with him. Now? Ross is thrown in the trash, bring in the Celebrity Apprentice.
I dunno. She’s really attractive. How can this hurt?
BTW, the word is “heroine.”
I think yahoo’s only hope is to re-invent itself as a compelling new social network. They have to make yahoo the place to be on the net I just don’t think they can get there from where they are.
Sadly, Ms Mayer will probably be Yahoo’s last CEO.
As the operator of a mid range website I’d say there’s still a huge market for an ad affiliate network interested in that end of the business and not screwing the operators bringing the eyeballs.
Google’s downright predatory and if Yahoo’s big name could get the advertisers on board without trying to murder the affiliate websites it could get some traction.
RIM buys Yahoo and Google buys RIM. It could happen.
More like Yahoo buys RIM…RIM doesn’t have any cash.
RIM keeps talking about how they have over a bill and a half in cash, as well as excellent infrastructure and patents.
curiously, Kodak did, also.
(I believe) it was Australian goal keeper Mark Schwarzer who described saving a very important penalty kick in a game many years ago. When asked about the pressure, he said in fact as a goal keeper, that’s the best position in which to be.
You’re not really expected to save the goal, so it’s OK to fail, but if you stop it, you’re a hero!
People have commented about how horrible a position it now is to be CEO of Yahoo, but maybe it’s a great, no downside, great upside situation. If she does turn the company around, she will be forever revered, not too dissimilarly to Steve Jobs.
When is the Yahoo phone and tablet coming out?
In this case, is the enemy of my enemy my friend? I basically forgot about Yahoo! — even though I use it all the time. Whenever I go to check stocks, I use my Yahoo! Finance app on the iPhone.
“Oh, yeah — that is Yahoo, isn’t it?”
If she’s a “product wonk”, then you may just see newer/better products out of Yahoo! yet. They can do it … they have the technology.
Mayer does have a chance to make Yahoo at least relevant again. They don’t have to be number 1 to be a successful company. She brings with her all her experiences from Google from when it was just a start-up to the worlds biggest search engine. Who knows how it will go. The tech industry does tend to be full of surprise.
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Glass ceiling, my foot — she dated her boss to get ahead. Most female engineers who know do not view her as a role model in any way, shape, or form. This is not to say she isn’t smart and capable, but she DID take the shortcut up the corporate ladder by dating the boss.
From Cringely’s description, this woman doesn’t have the people skills to lead a department, let alone a major organization. That in itself highlights how piss poor this board’s decision making has become. If you need evidence of that, just look at the site. Yes, it looks like it’s from the Clinton era. How damning is it that this company cannot keep itself current?
The only way to fix yahoo is to build a parallel site and one day flip the switch. Basically another business startup. They’ve had over a decade to do this and have not. That tells you they are finished. When the brain is dead, the body can only limp along.
I think Cringely said he would have hired her also. He just thinks Yahoo is too much out of control to be saved merely by switching CEOs.
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