Can Marissa Mayer save Yahoo?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-01/can-marissa-mayer-save-yahoo

by jmduke • 13 years ago

39 38 13 years ago

antitrust• 13 years ago

It 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• 13 years ago

Can we stop posting articles from businessweek? Please?

hga• 13 years ago

I 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• 13 years ago

That depends if they're set to task or given enough to room to build something cool.

chollida1• 13 years ago

Why?

I thought this particular article was pretty darn good.

icedchai• 13 years ago

yes, let's get more medium.com articles.

rorrr2• 13 years ago

No.

znowi• 13 years ago

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

kmfrk• 13 years ago

    if title.endswith("?"): block(submission)

kevinconroy2• 13 years ago

Does this mean we'll finally block these kinds of submissions?!

Zigurd• 13 years ago

What about polls?

^ They're crap

^ I like them

tsax• 13 years ago

Awesome. 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• 13 years ago

Note to self: start submitting HN posts titled, "Is [znowi] a useful HN contributor?"

steveklabnik2• 13 years ago

I know you're making a joke, but https://news.ycombinator.com/classic

;)

devonbarrett• 13 years ago

No - the opposite; but in the meantime lets place bets on how many companies she will buy. My bet is 40.

pavs• 13 years ago

There 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• 13 years ago

I 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• 13 years ago

Agree 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

twerquie• 13 years ago

She was just being direct and honest. She knows Yahoo's reputation precedes her.

fmsf• 13 years ago

I 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• 13 years ago

That's a ridiculous amount of time, nobody would wait that long unless they are changing jobs and are not in a hurry.

Macsenour• 13 years ago

The 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!

kevinconroy2• 13 years ago

A: I don't know and neither does Business Week

sdoowpilihp• 13 years ago

I suppose we all love the game of conjecture though. It is certainly a favorite past time of many.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

Before reading the article I'm pretty sure that you're right.

foobarqux3• 13 years ago

The 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• 13 years ago

where could one get this kind of info for the traded companies?

foobarqux3• 13 years ago

This 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/1011006/0000899140130...

dr_• 13 years ago

Who 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.

foobarqux3• 13 years 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.

mathattack3• 13 years 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_failure2• 13 years ago

Talent follows money. If yahoo pays more than Google, talent will come.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

Some 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_failure2• 13 years ago

What an article. It goes on for page and pages that with lite information. I want my 10 mins back!

Can Marissa Mayer save Yahoo?

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