

The Adventures of Marissa Mayer - d4
http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/adventures-marissa

======
fourspace
Ah, geek celebrity. While publicly Google is viewed as a meritocracy, working
there you quickly realize that it's very much a hierarchy of intimidation and
arrogance. You may have great ideas, but if you really want to be successful
you need one of the Google engineering celebrities to back your play. These
"chosen ones" aren't in their position because they necessarily have the best
ideas; in fact, many of the good ideas at Google are never explored because
folks with social influence express doubt. Marissa Mayer isn't the only one in
engineering, she's just the most famous.

As the company increases in size, the meritocracy of ideas fades and being a
good politician becomes more important. While it's not the primary reason I
left after five years, it was certainly a consideration.

~~~
nostrademons
There's a grain of truth to what you say, but it's misleading to attach it
specifically to Google.

 _Whenever_ you're doing something for somebody else, they're going to want to
see two things from you: 1.) that you understand their problems and concerns
and 2.) that you're doing your due diligence to address them. It doesn't
matter whether it's Google, some other big corporation, your own startup, or a
consultancy. If it's your startup, your _customers_ will want to make sure
that you understand their problems and do your due diligence before they fork
over their money. If it's your consultancy, your _clients_ will want the same.

I've found that teams that understand this, grok Marissa's way of thinking
about the world, and are willing to put in the legwork to iterate on their
ideas and make them as good as possible have quite a bit of latitude to do
what they want. Those that just spit some <div>s onto the page and come
unprepared tend to be the ones that gripe about how Marissa blocks them from
getting anything done. Many of the teams I've seen that had problems with
Marissa also had _terrible_ UIs, and I'd really hate to inflict them on the
user.

In many ways, this is just another way of saying the same thing you did - if
you want to be successful, you need one of the decision-makers to back your
play. But that's the case _anywhere_. I've been fond of saying that
entrepreneurship is just trading one boss for many bosses - it's great if you
hate your boss, not so great if you hate your bosses. Which is a good reason
to pick a company or market whose bosses you fundamentally agree with.

Also, speaking as someone who let his startup die because pretty much everyone
with social influence over me expressed doubt - if you give up because of what
other people think, it'll severely limit your ability to get anything done. If
senior executives don't like your project, the best thing to do is listen to
them, figure out if they have a point, and if they don't, go do it anyway. The
worst thing that happens is that they fire you, and then you're in exactly the
same boat as if you quit to found a startup, except that you've been learning
about the problem domain while drawing a paycheck the whole time.

~~~
fourspace
Fair enough. I 100% concede that the onus is on you to sell your ideas and
rationally respond to criticism, even when the criticism seems irrational.

That said, my point was simply that it's a myth that to be successful at
Google is to just have good ideas. You have to play the social game as well,
as it's an environment where reputation plays just as much a role as
innovation.

For what it's worth, I didn't mean to attach this specifically to Google. It
happens at every large company, almost by default. It's just that many folks
are surprised to find that Google is so "corporate", especially many Googlers
that started straight from graduation.

------
mahmud
It's unfair to men that the technical press ignores our sex appeal, bulging
crotches and foresting chest-hair, and focuses instead on the tiresome minutia
of our work and accomplishments.

~~~
wmf
Except Lou Montoulli:
[http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20129755,00....](http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20129755,00.html)

~~~
joshu
Just remember that he invented the blink tag.

~~~
nostrademons
Supposedly, that's only half true:

<http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag>

~~~
joshu
Shrug, I asked Marc.

------
sachitgupta
Note: the article is from 2008. I thought it was more recent. Still doesn't
take away from the content though.

~~~
flyt
Interesting side note that when this article was originally published it was
under the title "Googirl" which, it was pointed out, had a pretty strong nsfw
meaning ([http://valleywag.gawker.com/362143/googirl-article-
vanishes-...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/362143/googirl-article-vanishes-
from-web)).

It was quickly pulled from the site and reposted with the current, more boring
title.

~~~
nostrademons
Other interesting side note: if you search for [googirl], 3 of the top 4
results are about Marissa. The remaining one is the urban dictionary entry
with the snippet "A whore that enjoys and/or loves the taste of cum." Oops.

------
jayzee
Aaah.. the subtle sexist bias even in Marissa comes through. From the article:

Indeed, Mayer invokes her mother a lot, which makes sense, given her steadfast
devotion to the ease of the end user.

------
tedjdziuba
Another Marissa Mayer article that boils down to "hey look, a girl!".

~~~
samd
It's depressing that the article has to start with an exposition of her looks
and dress.

I've never read an article about a male luminary that focuses so much on
looks.

~~~
sp332
I think they discuss her clothing because it's cool and interesting. I mean,
almost every article about Page & Brin mentions their clothing, it just
doesn't take as long to communicate "Short-shorts and a t-shirt." Also, the
article makes a case that her appearance is relevant:

 _“Marissa is surprisingly pretty in person,” says Valleywag blogger and
editor Owen Thomas. “That in itself is a rarity in Silicon Valley, and you’d
have to be naïve to think that doesn’t color people’s views of her.”_

~~~
samd
Looks are almost always relevant to people's opinion of you. That's true for
men and women, but it's only in articles about women that it seems to be
pointed out as if to undermine their accomplishments.

~~~
sp332
I know it's subtle, but I think this article put those quotes from other
publications at the beginning in order to shoot them down. Quotes like this:

 _For gossip websites like Valleywag, Mayer is an easy mark... and (so they
say)... uses her looks for publicity._

are followed in the next paragraph by:

 _Mayer manages 150 product managers, who direct the efforts of nearly 2,000
software engineers; levels criticism and praise with the same cool gaze; and
is an arbiter of much of what goes before Page, cofounder Sergey Brin, and CEO
Eric Schmidt, who trust her as their gatekeeper. Just about everything that
goes on at the Mountain View company, which is more valuable than the U.S.’s
three largest traditional media companies combined..._

OP seems to be undermining the other publications which were undermining
Mayer. The substance of the article refutes the pettiness of Vallywag et al.

------
sabat
Surely one of the most unimpressive, boring people in technology. Her
distinction: she was in the right place at the right time.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm as put off as anyone by all the excess publicity she gets, but your
comment doesn't really do her justice.

Marissa is very, very sharp. She can rub many people the wrong way (including
myself) because she's almost always completely certain that she's right.
However, she _is_ right a good portion of that time, certainly more than most
people I've met. And when she's wrong, she'll always listen to data that
proves her wrong, and the issue gets dropped. I can respect that.

