

Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work' - jacquesgt
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Marissa-Mayer-Sent-A-Late-Night-Email-Promising-3817913.php

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bishnu
So far all of Marissa Meyer's moves (at least the one's getting publicity)
have made Yahoo! a bit more Google-like. While that's probably for the best, I
will be real interested to see when/where she breaks with Google culture for
the first time.

~~~
sneak
Interesting, sure, but most of that stuff worked amazingly well for Google
back when their engineer headcount was at what Y!'s is today.

~~~
greenyoda
Correlation is not causation. We don't really know what combination of the
many factors in Google's culture made them so successful. For all we know, it
may have been due entirely to the people they hired, and the same team might
have produced great results with or without all the perks that Google is
famous for.

~~~
lsc
sure. but it seems to me that this woman was hired with a mandate to 'make the
place more google-like' -

I'm with you; my belief is that 95% of leadership is picking the right people,
but, then, I'm a bad leader.

It seems like it's worth a shot. I mean, Yahoo has tried and failed many other
strategies.

------
jyap
Yahoo! is in crisis mode and I think Marissa is making the right moves. If
what she says inspires current employees and keeps talent then it is all worth
while.

Now the pessimist could see Yahoo! as a dying company/stock. Apple was in the
same position before Steve Jobs came back.

Yahoo! could possible die a slow death or this could mark the start of a
recovery. Marissa understands it begins with products and to have great
products, engineers need to be happy and inspired. Perhaps Yahoo! could be
seen as a down stock and is poised for growth? What if Yahoo! triples in value
over the next 3 years? The best time to buy into a stock is when it is down.

I will add that what Marissa is doing is also making Yahoo! more attractive to
prospective employees. If a prospective employee has the hypothetical choice
between working at Facebook and working at Yahoo! and hears about the changes
that Marissa has made then they may be inclined to work at Yahoo! Perhaps they
have heard about the poor stock performance since Facebook's IPO. If that
prospective talent chooses to work at Yahoo! instead of Facebook then it is a
win.

~~~
quesera
This is clearly the Hail Mary for Yahoo. I give the board a ton of credit for
having the gumption, though I realize they tried every other permutation of
crisis reaction first.

And they couldn't have chosen anyone more appropriate for the strategy than
Marissa Mayer. I have no use for Yahoo in my life, but I'm really rooting for
her and them, and I hope they change my mind.

You raise an interesting point about stock. It defies all logic to believe
that Marissa could achieve what Steve Jobs did. But that doesn't mean it isn't
worth a small bet.

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apaitch
I know almost nothing about her, but Marissa Mayer doesn't come off as a Steve
Jobs or Elon Musk-like "visionary" who will drive Yahoo to unexplored and
unexpected market openings. Her approach seems to be to make Yahoo a great
place to work, attract and empower talent, and let said talent churn out great
products. Some would say that she should focus on changing the market
direction of the company, and that's certainly one of her responsibilities. At
the same time, I think what she's doing is admirable and valuable. It's
certainly putting Yahoo on the map in the communities that matter. Let's hope
Yahoo can ride this momentum and make something of it!

~~~
greenyoda
Not every CEO has to be a visionary. If the CEO can hire good people who have
good ideas and get out of their way, she doesn't have to provide all the ideas
herself. But she'd need to create an environment where good ideas can be born
and come to fruition. Giving people free food won't do this. You'd need to set
up a culture in which good ideas actually get rewarded and people aren't
afraid to fail.

~~~
yuhong
I hope modern MBA courses teaches things like this.

~~~
hcal
They do! Modern MBA programs focus heavily on a concept called servant
leadership. It can get surprisingly in-depth, but on the surface its a simple
idea that can be summed up in two steps. First, hire good people. Second,
provide the support they need to do their job.

Modern management models have tended to move away from issuing rules and
directives. These days its more about designing jobs from which the employee
can derive some self-satisfaction and than providing business context so
employees can self-direct toward the company's goals.

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EdwardTattsyrup
I've worked at a few companies where a fresh CEO asked the rank and file for a
list of problems, suggestions, ideas, etc. But I've never seen it make much of
a difference. I fear Marissa Meyer is already toast -- just like Yahoo.

~~~
weka
She joined the sinking ship. She just there to soften the landing.

~~~
drgath
> to soften the landing.

I've always said that was Carol's job at Yahoo. If she didn't make tough
choices to cut costs and trim products, Y! may very well have face-planted,
hard. She did very little to create growth, but she did a good job to realign
& reorg the company to a position where someone like Marissa can come in and
create growth.

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wyclif
This is adorably cute, but Yahoo! won't be a great place to work until they
begin creating great products again.

~~~
jmspring
"Cute" it may be, but if new leadership inspires enough people to step up,
want to do something great, and their path for bringing those ideas to
fruition are cleared, then Yahoo can succeed.

That said, the biggest gripe I've read about Yahoo is the insane amount of
middle management. If anyone (regardless of position -- an intern, an
engineer, an architect) has an idea, I would hope there is a path for that
idea to be evaluated and, if show potential, is allowed to come to fruition.

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stevenj
Someone once told me: "Never tell anybody that you're good. If you're good,
they'll tell you."

~~~
skrebbel
"So, son, why do you think you're fit for this job?" "No idea sir, you tell
me."

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shin_lao
You can't remove jams by adding a new process to report problems...

If you want to remove jams, just make sure decisions are taken as low as
possible in the hierarchy.

~~~
drgath
Being able to report problems is the first step to figuring out what is
actually wrong.

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taskstrike
Some things they mention should be done at every tech company:

1\. Give employees free lunch 2\. Give every employee an iphone 3\. Github for
code review

~~~
greenyoda
Actually, I wouldn't be terribly happy if my company gave me a daily free
lunch. It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my
co-workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and
more productive. (I work in a big city, where diverse types of food are a
short walk away. If you work in an office park in Silicon Valley, I can see
why a free lunch might be more appealing.)

Also, having a cell phone paid for by my employer might give my employer the
idea that I'm always available to them, which I don't want to encourage. Since
I'm a developer of software that doesn't get deployed to the web in real time,
it isn't likely that an issue can't wait until the next work day. For dire
emergencies, they have my home number.

~~~
eta_carinae
> It would be a disincentive to get out of the office and away from my co-
> workers once a day, which is something that I think makes me happier and
> more productive.

If stepping away from your coworkers makes you happy and productive, your
company has bigger problems than charging for meals.

~~~
greenyoda
I actually like my co-workers very much, but being an introverted type (as I
suspect many developers are), I need a break from people once in a while. Even
being with my best friends for ten hours straight would be a bit tiring for
me.

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wamatt
The perks are certainly nice and likely a good move all things considered, but
at some point she is going to have to inspire and innovate.

A "Google-like office", without a seriously great product, will probably be
tough sell, longterm.

~~~
joshAg
Based on the things that came out of google labs, I think it's more than
possible that a seriously great product can be a byproduct of a google-type
office and not just a prerequisite for said office environment.

~~~
wamatt
It's possible I guess, but in the case of Google Labs, perhaps the more
significant factor is the raw amount of talent/ability, per square foot. :p

~~~
zem
i've known several ex-yahoo people. they all agree that yahoo has no shortage
of raw engineering talent in the trenches; it's just that they aren't given
the environment they need to get things done. hopefully mayer will change
that.

