
Marissa Mayer Has a Secret Weapon - mikeleeorg
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/marissas-secret-weapon-for-recruiting-new-yahoo-talent/
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swombat
_Halfway through the two-year program, Mayer herself would lead the group on a
summer trip to visit international Google outposts. (I accompanied the trip in
2007; we went to Tokyo, Beijing, Bangalore, and Tel Aviv. This year, one of
the cities included Jakarta.) It would be a bonding experience for each year’s
group of APMs — bonding with each other and to Mayer._

Why do I get the feeling that the author is referring to newly hatched
Velociraptors rather than human beings?

It's not like this "bonding" will mean they recognise Mayer as their den
mother for life or something.

~~~
jlees
What happens on the APM trip stays on the APM trip.

~~~
gordonguthrie
You an APM now then Jenny? Is that what you are upto over in Googlererland?

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jlees
Yeah--I just finished my 2 years as an APM and I'm now a product manager (same
job but without the 'A'). Hope all is going well with you! Love the name
change!

~~~
gordonguthrie
Come back and tell us about it sometime. Turing Festival is going great guns.

<http://www.turingfestival.com/>

~~~
jlees
Looks fantastic! I will _have_ to make it next year :)

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geuis
There are _so_ many people leaving comments that entirely miss the point here.

We will have to wait at least 6 months to really start seeing if Mayer is able
to grapple with the listless behemoth that is Yahoo. Most of that time will be
her getting up to speed and laying her own foundation on where the company
should go. So don't expect to see much in the surface for at least that long.

Digging further into the content of the story, in many ways this can be
considered a valuable resource she has been building for many years.

People _will_ follow a good mentor if there are special opportunities on
offer. There are many people at Google and other places that are not satisfied
with their options. To these people, money is not as satisfying as control and
advancement. If Mayer is able to offer key people better options, many will be
inclined to at least explore the idea.

Don't hang on to this idea that Yahoo is the place to suicide your career
and/or company via acquisition. That's the old and current Yahoo. If Mayer is
able to overcome that old inertia, then Yahoo could easily become a very hot
place to be again. A good analogy is to think of an old, massive forest. It's
all old trees that are half dead and centuries of undergrowth. A fire finally
comes along and sweeps through. All of the undergrowth and dead trees are
burned away. Now many young and vibrant plants can grow again, animals come
back in abundance, and the whole forest ecosystem is better than ever. And
please, hold off on the fucking criticisms of my version of forest ecology.
It's an analogy.

So the point here is that if Mayer can start changing things finally, then
there will be all kinds of interesting new things that people close to her
could benefit from over the next few years.

~~~
yo-mf
I doubt that even 6 months is enough time given the issues at Yahoo. May Yahoo
shareholders show some restraint and patience to see this out as the long-term
challenge that it is before jettisoning yet another CEO.

~~~
sabat
I doubt it. They've shown questionable judgement merely by hiring Mayer, whose
accomplishments at Google are not especially respected among those with inside
knowledge, and whose priorities will shift wildly after she gives birth in
October. The board will terminate her in 2013 after 7-8 lackluster months.
Then they'll start shopping Yahoo to be broken up and sold as parts.

~~~
jaems33
"and whose priorities will shift wildly after she gives birth in October."

Are you insinuating that she'll focus more on her family than her job?

~~~
sabat
As a parent myself, I know that the first few months of parenthood are
difficult and life-changing, regardless of how many nannies one might afford.

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EwanG
And yet I have never seen anyone post their concerns when a Male CEO becomes a
father. I wonder why that is...

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CamperBob2
They should. There are indications that becoming a parent lowers testosterone
levels in men.

If you want to pretend, for political correctness' sake, that we're not
largely slaves to our hormones, have fun with that.

~~~
nl
I wrote some of the best, most creative code of my life in the first 6 months
after my son was born. I was focused, and yet could work on multiple project
simultaneously very effectively.

I got hardly any sleep, so if that is "being a slave to my hormones" I'm all
for it!

Either way, I think it is fair to say that the effects or parenthood are very
unpredictable.

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sbisker
The APM program is a time limited (2 year) program that is fairly "up or out",
in the model of McKinsey-esque programs.

If you're someone that Google has decided is an "up", I highly doubt Google is
going to let these people go so easily. These people are already being
aggressively retained with bonuses and the like.

If you're an "out", well, by definition Yahoo won't be that interested.

And the "ups" that "became outs", so to speak, are people who are of such
strong personal conviction that they turned down gobs of money in 2007 from
Google to, say, take a riskier position at Facebook or do their own thing. In
those cases, it's unlike more gobs of money from Yahoo in 2012 will convince
them to jump ship, unless Marissa can offer things to recruits that she
couldn't offer to recruits at Google. (This seems unlikely - there was little
Google _couldn't_ offer the APMs it lost.)

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earl
You can go far in life by following a very successful boss. And there may well
be more promotion opportunities / more responsibility available at yahoo under
Marissa than staying at Google. Or perhaps they've already made a million or
so and own a home; why not take a flyer and see where it goes? I think you
massively underestimate personal loyalty to someone who it sounds like went
way out of her way to look out for these folks' careers. Because if someone
did that for me I'd be loyal.

~~~
mfringel
The lower levels of a company are like undergrad... you go there for the
reputation of the company/school.

The upper levels are like grad school... you go for the reputation of the
boss/professor.

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dsiroker
As a former APM who went with the author and Marissa on the trip mentioned and
now running a YC-backed startup (Optimizely) I can't speak highly enough of
the APM program. Marissa did a tremendous job building a program that gave me
the skills to be successful as an entrepreneur on my own.

APM Program : Big Companies :: YCombinator : Startups

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m0th87
I was an APM intern last summer. It really was an amazing experience, and it
taught me a lot - most especially that I have no idea what I'm doing.

APMers have a great deal of respect for Marissa, and she invests heavily in
the program. There's no doubt Marissa knows how to recruit talent really well.
That said, it's not as if current APMs will be clamoring for jobs at Yahoo.
For better or worse, most seemed to be motivated by status and learning
opportunities. If Marissa can offer both at Yahoo, then it could be enticing.

~~~
richcollins
_most especially that I have no idea what I'm doing_

So why not apply to YC instead of learning how to not innovate?

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richcollins
Can't reply to him so I'll reply to myself. Where is the evidence of
innovation? If Google is doing such a great job of innovating, why do they buy
companies instead of spending their hoard of cash to innovate from within?

~~~
m0th87
(It takes a few minutes for a reply to be allowed.)

The article lists some of the bigger successes from the APM program. There's
also a lot of smaller ones you'll never hear about.

Strategies for innovation don't have to be mutually exclusive. Google has
decided talent acquisitions are one way to continue innovation. They've also
decided the APM program is another, which is why it continues to this day.

Google's blessing is that it has a naturally large audience for showing new
features/products. Its curse is that innovation has to be planned more
carefully, both from a technical and a product point of view. That's where
APMs do really well.

~~~
richcollins
I re-read the article but missed the innovations that occured within Google.
What were they?

~~~
aboodman
The ones included in the article are Gmail, Toolbar, and Chrome.

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maayank
"The ideal applicants must have technical talent, but not be total programming
geeks — APMs had to have social finesse and business sense."

I would just like to note I met some of said APMs in a gathering in Tel Aviv
and they were all cordial, knowledgeable in their topics of work and helpful.
After speaking in passing with one of them I was contacted in less than a week
by the VP responsible for the topic in EMEA - I don't know if it's typical for
a Google employee, but my casual impression was all that article said and
more.

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codeonfire
This article really lends credence to the idea that Mayer was hated inside
Google. She set up her very own Waffen-SS of unskilled, inexperienced credit
takers who were undoubtedly at odds with the rest of the company or at least
the technical talent.

This article also has a good example of the blatant anti-intellectualism used
in tech management:

"The ideal applicants must have technical talent, but not be total programming
geeks — APMs had to have social finesse and business sense."

Obviously anybody 'too geeky' couldn't possibly have social finesse or
business sense, but these APMs, with less than 18 months experience, were
supposedly the uber-elite commandos at everything. The article goes further
with the common theme of trying to confuse the source of technical talent. It
claims that "Yahoo will be hiring great managers and product people" which
will (of course) solve the problem that "the best techies have gone
elsewhere."

Business schools espouse the same kind of inner-circle-ism: anoint the
inexperienced, give them access, and tell them they are special and they will
be under your control. B-Schools do it to get people to pay $100k+ for a
degree program while Mayer seems to have done this for power. It's not a bad
strategy political-wise, but it only works in the short term.

~~~
plinkplonk
Why is this downvoted? While the tone (especially of the first para) could be
improved, the author has a point. It is hard to escape the implication that
these youngsters who "must have technical talent, but not be total programming
geeks" end up with far more power in the organization than hard core engineers
with similar experience ever could. I am not saying that's the way it works at
Google, but that is the impression the article gives.

(If the article is true) It looks like the best way to get promoted at Google
is to be "not too geeky" and join the APM program than join as an engineer
with the same level of experience, where the chances are you'll get assigned
to some creaking legacy code bug fixing with not much chance of creating an
impact on the organization. Middle Management vs Engineering as the fast track
career path in large companies. Not much of a contest.

~~~
aboodman
I've worked with a couple of these APMs and they were awesome. I've never
experienced or heard of this credit-jealousy around APMs that you're
describing (I have seen it with other employees though).

Obviously, I'm just one data point.

~~~
plinkplonk
since I didn't say anything about anyone's feelings (including jealousy, for
credit or otherwise), I suspect you maybe reacting to another post(possibly
the OP)?

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dctoedt
I wonder how Googlers who weren't selected as APMs feel about having to
compete with these pre-designated golden boy and -girl elites?

I also wonder whether many APMs display any sense of clubby entitlement?
Probably not many of them do, but in any group like that there are usually a
few here and there.

~~~
debacle
Cliques and entitlement? At Google? Unspeakable.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok, that one made me laugh.

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diego
tldr: Marissa Mayer is strongly connected to lots of extremely smart people.
Wired needs clicks, so they call this a "Secret Weapon." Hardly.

~~~
cwp
It seems to me that Wired missed a more important aspect of all this. Yes,
having started the APM program at Google means she has lots of useful
relationships. But more importantly, it means she's _solved this problem
before_.

~~~
tomkarlo
It's a lot easier to attract top college tech talent to a company that's
already ranked #1 by some as the most desired employer for college grads. It's
something else to get them to go to Yahoo, in a market where Google, Apple,
Amazon, Facebook and others are all hiring.

This is a different problem altogether.

~~~
cwp
Nope. In both cases the problem is, "this company can't attract the kind of
talent it needs." The underlying issues might be different, and the solution
might also be different, but the problem is the same.

The Yahoo case looks like a more difficult problem precisely because the APM
was so successful. In hindsight it looks obvious. But it wasn't obvious in
2002.

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warech
Implementing a rotational leadership program in the mold of GE, Nielsen, Abbot
Labs, et al was definitely a great accomplishment for Mayer. I would hesitate,
however, to call this a "secret weapon." She would be wise to implement a
similar program at Yahoo, but implying that significant APMs would follow her
from Google out of 'den mother' loyalty is ridiculous.

~~~
btilly
Every time I've seen a good exec move from a company, over the next 6 months
you see people follow them. Every. Single. Time.

To say that it is ridiculous for this to happen to Marissa is in my books the
same as saying that she is not a good executive. People will follow her. The
only question is who, and what their impact will be.

~~~
MaysonL
Especially given the currently depressed state of Yahoo stock, and the
potentially enormous upside of the stock options that will undoubtedly be
available.

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Steko
Mayer's secret weapon is knowledge of Google internal product roadmap, esp
gmail. Well I guess that's not much of a secret either.

Any turnaround at Yahoo is going to have to build on the backs of user sign up
which mean yahoo mail will need to start killing it against gmail. I would be
surprised if we didn't see a revamped and rebranded ( _cough_ ymail) email
launched at a big press event in the next 5-6 months.

I wonder if the Sparrow acquisition was accelerated when she left because
Google decided they needed to accelerate their gmail roadmap too.

~~~
helmut_hed
Sure hope they fix Yahoo Mail. I read my Yahoo inbox through GMail via POP
now, which seems silly.

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nostromo
People work at Google because it's Google, not because they want to work for
Marissa Mayer.

The idea that Google's best and brightest will now jump ship to work at Yahoo
seems unlikely.

~~~
tedivm
Peons work at Google because it's Google, but the people this article is
talking about (and the people Marissa Mayer needs at the moment) will go where
the opportunity is.

~~~
nostrademons
Is Yahoo where the opportunity is?

I know a lot of APMs. Most of them are actually still at Google, but the ones
that leave usually do so to found or be the first PM at a startup.

~~~
drumdance
Strictly on market cap alone, there is a lot more headway in YHOO. It's much
easier to image their stock (and thus stock options) tripling in the next few
years than GOOG. Microsoft ran into this problem when Google was still small.

~~~
nostrademons
Right, but people who are still at Google are usually there for reasons other
than the money. They like their coworkers, or they believe in the company's
mission, or they feel that they are not in a position to take a big risk in
their life right now. If they jump from Google to Yahoo now, they are taking a
risk, moving from a company with strong product/market fit in their core
businesses to one that's an also-ran in their core businesses, and for -
tripling of their stock options? If they're willing to take on that sort of
market risk, why not jump to a startup where the stock could potentially go up
3000x in the next few years? Or a fast-grower like Twitter or Facebook where
the stock might triple, but the company already has product/market fit and
doesn't need to stumble around searching for it?

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plinkplonk
So what does this APM program actually consist of? How are people selected for
it? What actually happens in those two years? How do people leave it? How is
it different from similair programs at other BigCo s?Would any present/former
members of this program like to comment?

~~~
zeroonetwothree
I interviewed for an APM role in 2010, but didn't get the offer. So at least
in terms of selecting people, I think the process is pretty standard.

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mikemoka
A friend of my cousin saw the title of the link, then he said "What do they
mean? Do they also talk about gossip in here?"

...

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maked00
APM was just her way of creating a power base in a large organization, in
Yahoo, APM is the opposite of what she needs since she is the big cheese now.

Regardless, all the fru-fru management speak is useless unless Yahoo can
figure out what their product is, which it seems to have never been clear ever
since it gave up on search and being the defacto easy to use web subject
directory. They lost on search. Text based subject directories as simply not
sexy to management types, who chose to ignore that is what most of their
traffic was for when they were more popular. At this point its just a huge
product-less enterprise running on fumes and coasting to a stop.

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Keyframe
Best luck to her and yahoo, but all their and hers assets are meaningless
until she, with her team, finds first needed thing for yahoo - vision.
Hopefully they succeed.

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zeruch
While that is a very interesting point, she'll have to leverage it soon and
with some impressive finesse to make it have any practical effect. It's still
going to be one hell of an uphill climb.

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taude
With her product focus, I really hope Yahoo! starts investing in Flickr
again...that was a great aquisition/product at the time and could be great
again.

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rokhayakebe
Yahoo should simply have an incubator. Pay 100 engineers full salaries for a
50% stack.

~~~
nostrademons
They tried that (with Brickhouse) and then shut it down as soon as the going
got tough.

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bazookaBen
you take your best people wherever you go. Especially when they're your
friends.

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BlackNapoleon
What does Yahoo do now?

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williamle8300
If the secret weapon is a baby, I don't wanna hear about it!

