A new book by Business Insider’s Nicholas Carlson sets out why Mayer is struggling to keep it together as chief executive. We discover some disturbing hallmarks of dysfunctional leadership: self-importance, schoolmarmishness, a lack of intellectual humility and what can only be described as breathtaking insensitivity and arrogance when it comes to the feelings, not to mention the schedules, of people around her.My opinions on Marissa Mayer are limited to the observation that she is pretty cute for a CEO. I have an acquaintance who worked closely with her at Google and he struck me as mildly skeptical about the chances for her success there, although he obviously liked her as an individual and thought she was smart enough for the job.
These perceived personal failings are compounded by disinterest in the business side of things, which makes you wonder why Yahoo!’s board ever thought she’d be a good CEO at all. At Google, Carlson wrote in a column last year, Mayer was “all about the product.” She was focused on users but totally unmoved by business. At Yahoo!, that pattern has continued—and, some say, got worse.
The reason her apparent failure is important is that it will puncture, again, the myth of sexual equality in business, and permits us to anticipate the deleterious effect on those corporations who fill their boards with female executives, whether by choice or legislative fiat.
For me, the main problem is the characteristic female lack of curiosity. Insensitivity and arrogance are hardly unheard of in the ranks of male executives, but being disinterested in the fundamentals of business and business relationships strikes me as being a fatal weakness in a CEO.
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Yahoo strikes me as being in a very bad spot, with the Goliaths Google and MS fighting for search supremacy. But it doesn't sound like Mayer is doing herself any favors either. Did you see the piece a while back about her scheduling a business meeting to read a children's book to her employees? http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-childrens-book-bobbie-had-a-nickel-2015-1
From the outside, it seemed like Mayer did a lot of good things, but I guess her weaknesses are worse. I just don't see a man as necessarily more capable of rescuing Yahoo from its deterioration. It needs a buyout.
Wonder if she is a ballbuster at home, or if she is properly submissive. Her husband is plenty successful in his own right (~20-40 million) vs. Meyer (~300 million). I can't imagine he would have a problem slumming it if she were particularly hellish.
I didn't ever really notice the "lack of curiosity" until I read about it hear a while back. But that was a removing the veil experience for me because I can't stop noticing it now.
We were at a mixed gathering a while, back and I mentioned that I missed a lot of sleep the night before because I got trapped in the "wiki vortex" which probably has a more hip name. But which got knowing nods from nearly every male but blank stares from nearly every woman. When one woman asked another man said "Its when you go look up something about best TV resolution and 3 hours later you look up and are reading about French impressionism"
The contrast between Mayer's and Jobs' behavior managing meetings was instructive, based on separate articles about her and him.
Are there any female CEOs of major companies who could be considered successful by the same metric as men? Whitman's record at eBay seems mixed, while Fiorina at HP positively bombed.
Mayer's initial moves to consolidate and cut expenses (prior to her going on the capricious, unintegrated acquisition spree) were trumpeted, which always puzzled me. Cash flow declined, earnings reflected accounting adjustments; there was no product-based, organic growth. I was surprised that enough investors saw something promising in that to move the stock.
--Buena Vista
CEO's have very little influence and impact on a business' success. It's a bit like that dart throwing monkey who did stock picking and surpassed roughly half of the professional traders. Mayer is but a tech postergirl.
Actually reminds me of a couple of our recent POTUS.
Looking at our internet history between myself and my wife, if either of us stays up past midnight:
My wife has been bouncing back and forth between social media and shopping online (not buying, just looking).
I've been going down one rabbit hole or another (Wiki vortex), or doing research and reading on my latest interest.
I understand what she is doing, since I have a decent understanding of female behavior. My patterns boggle her mind, she even jokes about it to friends "yes, if you have any questions about vaccinations and their schedules, talk to my husband, you wouldn't believe how much time he's spent on the topic!"
And this explains why so few women go into the hard sciences. Curiosity on why things work and how, etc just for the sake of knowledge is less of a dominant trait for them.
Lack of curiosity equals lack of interest in truth. Lack of interest in truth easily leads to self delusion.
Yahoo was doomed before Meyer's name went up on the corner office door. She may not be a great CEO, but even a great CEO couldn't turn that property around. Not without going the Nintendo Playing Card Company's "Hey, let's throw all our resources into a new business segment and pray" route.
Because appointing female CEOs has worked out so well for, say, Xerox.
For 39 she does look hot, I'll grant that.
One of Mayer’s biggest concerns that first day was to have her computer set up properly. Specifically, she wanted to be able to use it to log in to the Yahoo code base and make changes, whether she was at home or in the office.
The IT guy was unable to help her with that. The reason: He wasn’t an IT guy. He was Yahoo’s interim general counsel, Ron Bell, and he had only meant to come by to say hello to the new boss.
I was curious how she got so far ahead at 39.
Shot: She joined Google in 1999 as employee number 20 and was the company's first female engineer.
Chaser: She personally oversaw the layout of Google's well-known, unadorned search homepage
Vox
For me, the main problem is the characteristic female lack of curiosity. Insensitivity and arrogance are hardly unheard of in the ranks of male executives
that depends. being disrespectful of your employee's time is one thing. ( and how much do you want to bet that she justifies a lot of that as being due to her pregnancy and infant? )
fucking with the schedule of your clients, financiars and vendors? now you're begging for a beat down.
I was curious how she got so far ahead at 39.
Now that you've seen a picture of her, you know.
I don't doubt that she had some technical skills to make her qualified enough to promote along the way. But it's funny how the women who make it to the top are always attractive too (except in politics on the left). And in the context of your average room of code monkeys, she's blazing hot.
Make her ugly, and she's probably still a successful coder or an upper-level project manager ordering real coders around, but not a CEO and on a bunch of boards.
Her appointment as top dog has nothing to do with quarterly reports or company value. That's getting lost in useless minutiae. She was shoehorned-in from above mere corporate levels, as part of national policy.
The purpose is psychological: to slap the face of the Evil Male Hegemony, and to subjugate male underlings, and condition them (and future generations of males) to taking orders from pathetic third-rate women. These aims are far more valuable to New Amerika than mere stock prices or earnings. The U.S. wouldn't mind in the least if Yahoo failed . . . as long as the psycho-political damage is done.
Men should NEVER be supervised by women. EVER. But especially not in such a public environment, where the psychological beatdown occurs in front of many others, and can be made to recur as often as is necessary.
Men who work for female bosses have written their own castration chit. Which of course they will deny to the death, as they are willing to subjugate themselves to a female for financial/material rewards. Uh, um well I'm just trying to support my family! lol
She appears to have all the boxes checked for Heartiste's: Amazonian Alpha Female.
In September 2012, Mayer told four SVPs and two VPs that she wanted them to get a new version of search out by December. When they protested, she said, “Tell me if you can do it. Otherwise, I’ll find people who can.”
That sounds like a good line in a movie but in real life, it creates corporate tribalism and ass covering.
She appears to be good at getting short term results but long term strategy issues seem to be unreal to her.
She tend's to be over focused on certain projects. She doesn't have interests she has obsessions. She can get a lot done but isn't that creative.
Somewhat narcissistic.*
She wanted to be a pediatric neurosurgeon and taught beginning programming for free while she was rocketing up the ladder at google. So the nurturing instinct is present. But she only had one kid at 37 when the alarm clock went off. She keeps her family in a penthouse at the 4 seasons, so she doesn't want to be bothered with nest building or repair.
My prediction is that she will have a few more short term wins but will eventually be forced out because of long term performance issues.
*She takes really good care of her Wikipedia page.
How would Steve Jobs have handled that situation?
Close, and I'm sympathetic to the overall gist, but in this case ... no.
Mayer took over Yahoo! when it was valued at ~$15.00 a share. Now it's worth ~$48.00 per share. There's no way to characterize that as anything but a success. True, it maybe could have been better. And, true, Yahoo! could have been better positioned today given better leadership.
And of course, a lot of that stock valuation could be attributed to QE and the basic condition of unreality with regard to asset prices today (and especially tech assets).
But, a win is a win. And this is a win. If you bet on her when she came aboard, you're a happy camper. She's done her duty to increase shareholder value. No way around that.
I note she did piss off a lot of feminists, though, and for that I salute her. Mayer actually declared that gender doesn't matter, which is of course a typical feminist trope, but Mayer committed the crime of actually seeming to mean it. She rejects the notion that she needs to advance a female because females need to be advanced. She actually demands a demonstration of merit. Salute!
She also ran afoul of other females for declaring that the burden of childbirth didn't set her back as much as she was led to expect. For her it wound up being a lot easier than she'd planned. This was a damnable admission according to feminists, but again, Salute!
I wonder about the sources for this guy's book. I bet the majority of them are Yahoo! females. Just a hunch.
But, graded on CEO performance metrics aside from all the drama, Mayer has a case that doesn't suck. She's certainly not a CEO that I'd feel comfortable piling on based on her performance in that role.
Cowboy, how can you mention the share increase and ignore the huge stake of Alibaba they owned. That probably accounts for most, if not all, of the increase. She rode that wave and benefited. But the company's condition was not improved one bit otherwise.
I note she did piss off a lot of feminists, though, and for that I salute her. Mayer actually declared that gender doesn't matter, which is of course a typical feminist trope, but Mayer committed the crime of actually seeming to mean it. She rejects the notion that she needs to advance a female because females need to be advanced. She actually demands a demonstration of merit.
This is typical of the Alpha Female.
The Amazonian Alpha is usually very intelligent and generally beautiful...Alpha Amazons tend to have more male than female friends, and to be more at ease in the company of men, partly because unlike so many women they don’t mind arguing or fighting for their point of view, behaviour that makes many women uneasy.
Amazon Alpha females can deal with confrontation. Where as feminists, for all their grrrl power blather, still desperately need non-confrontational consensus to make any decision.
She seems more cute than attractive. Like a high school cheerleader, not a pro sports one.
CEO's have very little influence and impact on a business' success.
Exactly. Beyond hiring senior executives and making stragegic business decisions, they hardly have any impact at all.
From the outside, it seemed like Mayer did a lot of good things, but I guess her weaknesses are worse. I just don't see a man as necessarily more capable of rescuing Yahoo from its deterioration. It needs a buyout.
I think this is her biggest problem. She's from a tech background, which ordinarily I would applaud. But Yahoo isn't struggling because their tech is broken, they're struggling becaus they've been out-marketed and out-financed. If there's a salvation to be had for the company, it's either a buyout or - as Eric said - a Nintendo-esque hail mary into a completely new product line. She doesn't have the right background to orchestrate a buyout, and she hasn't made any serious efforts to radically redirect the business (lack of curiosity would seem to be a big impediment there...).
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"I didn't ever really notice the "lack of curiosity" until I read about it hear a while back. But that was a removing the veil experience for me because I can't stop noticing it now. "
This is why no Nobel Prize in the hard sciences has EVER been awarded to a woman for anything other than data collection (Marie Curie being the first). It takes real, genuine curiousity to look into something unknown, and to find out about it so thoroughly that the result is a new theory.
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