
Marissa Mayer Wants Three More Years to Turn Around Yahoo - jackgavigan
http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-45097
======
braythwayt
Maybe instead of beating up on MM, we could look at Yahoo the way we look at
Twitter: Yahoo could be great if the world would let Yahoo be Yahoo.

But Yahoo being Yahoo would be a smaller company, with smaller, focused
business, and happy customers. But it would have a smaller market cap, and
today’s investors would take a massive haircut. So they keep plowing ahead
trying to be a tech giant.

Because they bought tech giant shares, and it’s tech giant, or collapse until
it’s sold for scrap. And MM has to parrot the “this is the road back to being
a tech giant” line to keep the illusion alive.

I’m not sure that anyone can do any better given the “tech giant or nothing”
circumstances.

~~~
valhalla
I actually thought MM had the right idea at first re: Yahoo! being a low-brow
web entertainment portal. At one time Gweneth Paltrow was going to have her
own lifestyle blog/website on Yahoo!. Even though anybody reading this comment
or anyone we're close with probably wouldn't be interested in that there's a
large number of US consumers who would be.

Either because of a personal bias or something else (we'll probably never
know) she pulled a 180 and did things like buying the rights to every season
of SNL (which was a favorite of her's growing up) and poached Katie Couric to
run their news desk.

Having said all that, I don't know if I would anything different myself: If
I'm bringing a tech giant back from the grave, I want to make it "sexy" again.
I want the glory that comes with that. I don't want _my_ company to be a
mouthpiece for celebrities' personal brands

~~~
valhalla
Here are some trending Yahoo! searches I texted to friends in July '15:

Buffalo Wild Wings| Janet Jackson | Mega Millions | Type 2 Diabetes |

------
bborud
My first question would be, as it has been for 12 years: "what is Yahoo
supposed to be good at?".

The failure to answer that has been Yahoo's biggest problem for the entire
last decade, and probably for most of the one before that.

In fact, this was the first question I asked when the company I worked for was
acquired by Yahoo and their management team came over to talk to us. The
answer I got was a completely delusional "we take what others have invented
and we do it better". I didn't score any brownie-points for pointing out that
while the copying bit was true enough, the "improving" part was pure wishful
thinking unconnected with any observable reality.

I kept insisting on an answer, I never got one and eventually I quit and
joined a competitor.

I think the key question is not whether or not Marissa believes she can save
the company. She might be delusional as well. The question is whether or not
Marissa can articulate what Yahoo is supposed to be good at.

~~~
nickpsecurity
A number of us here agreed it was a nice one-stop shop for a little bit of
everything with Directories' curated info being a particular gem. Thing is,
the former has been 100% surpassed (esp by Facebook/Google) with the later
sold off long time ago.

So, the question must be asked. I supported Marissa's first attempt to save
it. Looking at current situation, I'd reject the second one. She could apply
this attitude to less hopeless companies with a lot better results.

------
justabystander
> Marissa Mayer ... has a “three-year strategic plan” ... that entails
> building and improving the services people use on their mobile phones every
> day, such as search.

It's a good thing they killed their own search engine and tossed the majority
of their mobile apps, then. And that it all happened under Mayer's leadership.
Considering they've lost a lot of experience and market share in search and
mobile, I'm sure they'll be well prepared for this.

To be fair, streamlining the app portfolio isn't a bad thing, as they had a
bit of cruft. But she's had years to make these changes into a reality without
success. It's hard to tell if she's asking for three more years in order to
continue the same ineffective moves or to undo them.

Who knows? Maybe if she runs the ship far enough aground it'll grow legs.

------
linuxkerneldev
I wish I could tell my customers, I just need 3 more years to solve these
bugs.

~~~
ant6n
I wish too that fixing those bugs last week had the same impact as turning
around a struggling multi billion dollar business.

~~~
chris_wot
Yeah, because she hasn't had enough time already. Or made decisions that have
made things worse at Yahoo.

~~~
ant6n
That's quite the non-sequitur

~~~
chris_wot
Could you explain why?

------
jackmodern
Her answers were very trump like "some things have gone well, some things
haven't gone well, some things have grown faster than expected, some have gone
slower" "Have we made big bets? Yes we've made some big bets"

No real insight into changes that are coming up, just really empty answers.

------
nabla9
Is she willing to take $1 pay and get rest of her compensation in stock
options that expire 5 years from now?

How much is she willing to invest in Yahoo stock or stock futures by herself?

If I were in the Yahoo board, those would be my first questions. Best way to
test her commitment and trust for her own strategy is to see how much she is
willing to bet her own money on it.

~~~
heimatau
I had a lot of faith in Mayer's turn around. Do I think she needs more time?
Yes. Do I think she can do it in more time? I'm skeptical now. Will the board,
that she created, try to keep her accountable like you're saying? I hope so.

I'm skeptical. It seems AOL/Armstrong really wanted to merge to become a new
Yahoo. I'm curious on how Yahoo will pivot, with the time. FB, SnapChat,
Instagram, Twitter, and Google are fighting for mobile ad revenue. It's my
understanding that's how Yahoo is trying to reinvent itself. Might be too
little, too late.

~~~
BogusIKnow
I had no faith at all in Mayer. Not because she isn't a good product manager.

Mainly because for a turnaround situation I would hire someone who was there
before with a successful turnaround under h-- belt. Not someone without any
turnaround knowledge (what to cut, high investor pressure, ...)

~~~
crikli
Mayer is a prime example of what happens when someone whose career should have
peaked at COO becomes CEO. You see it all the time in sports when guys who are
brilliant technical coordinators get moved to head coach and subsequently
flounder.

There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than
technical proficiency and strategic capability. There's a mix of requirements
that are hard to quantify: human understanding, charm, charisma,
empathy...character traits that are as much innate as learned.

I look at Mayer...she has very few of the "head coach" traits. Brilliant
operator, excellent technician, all of the things you want in a coordinator.
But not someone you want as head coach.

[EDIT] Typos/clarity.

~~~
GlideCleanser
> There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than
> technical proficiency and strategic capability.

Eh, not that I totally disagree with you, but I dunno that that's really true.
There are plenty of head coaches (and CEOs) who are just so technically
proficient and/or excellent strategists that their lack of
charm/empathy/charisma is a non-issue.

Belichick and Jim Harbaugh (say what you want, but he's successful by any
sense of the word) are two examples of very successful head coaches who aren't
well-known for being particularly charming or empathetic (one is an emotional
brick wall and the other is a screaming psychopath).

There are CEOs who aren't particularly well-known for their people skills, but
they're so good at strategy and execution that it really doesn't matter much.
Anecdotally (from my tenure there), Bezos never gave/gives the impression of
being particularly charismatic or charming. He's just really good at building
the juggernaut that is Amazon.

I'm not saying those skills are unimportant and certainly people like
Belichick are the exception, but it's entirely possible to just be so good at
strategy that the rest doesn't really matter. Mayer just doesn't seem to be
quite at that level.

~~~
SeeDave
I encourage you to read the book 'First Rate Madness' to get an understanding
of the link between crisis leaders and mental illness.

Meyer appears to be a peacetime leader, not a crisis leader. Yahoo honestly
needs a nutjob the likes of Steve Ballmer to survive.

~~~
WoodenChair
I would really enjoy seeing Steve Ballmer take a break from his basketball
career to be the CEO of Yahoo! Great idea! A part of me thinks he could
actually turn the place around, and a part of me just thinks it would be
hilarious.

~~~
SeeDave
I agree that there would be something deeply funny about seeing Steve Ballmer
being his glorious and insane self, to then revive a company with so much
potential.

It would be a fantastic and endearing final act for a truly larger-than-life
character.

------
cft
One of their most valuable assets is Android Yahoo Mail app, that they are
methodically killing: my mom (a loyal Yahoo user of 18+ years) says it has
become too complicated (grouping conversations), with an unpredictable spam
filter. Until recently it suffered from a serious memory leak (which was not
fixed for years).

They already successfully killed the Android Yahoo Messenger app (remember
when Yahoo Messenger was huge on desktop?). Ironically, WhatsApp founders are
from Yahoo...

~~~
dingbat
who needs functional email.. Y! really needs more katie couric, to retain
loyal users like your mom

------
ddorian43
Need 3 more years to really sink this ship.

------
planetjones
Yahoo mail has got much worse under her leadership. Flickr has become
unreliable and buggy under her leadership. Personally I wouldn't pay her
another dime.

~~~
dexterdog
Did Pipes go away on her watch? That was a sad day.

------
revel
Yahoo has already transitioned into being a niche advertising and media
company. That's not necessarily a problem, but Yahoo still fancies itself as
big tech player and that hasn't been the case for over a decade. It may make
sense for Yahoo to try and become a better media and advertising company, but
Marissa Mayer is surely not the best choice of CEO for that kind of company.
I'm not even saying she's a bad CEO, just that she is not an appropriate
choice for the kind of company that Yahoo has become. I don't see how 3 more
years with her at the helm can result anything other than an extension of
Yahoo's long skid into mediocrity.

~~~
shubhamjain
I don't think Yahoo could ever make that transition without losing billions in
market cap. I know that's what is happening right now but it is a tough call -
make a last ditch try to be "genuine" tech company or kill everything to make
business of whatever is possible. Considering that Yahoo still has tech talent
and a tech executive as it's CEO, I can guess it will try to gamble on the
former.

------
programminggeek
I don't think she can turn it around in ANY amount of time.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Do you think anyone can?

~~~
programminggeek
No.

------
shubhamjain
The management, the talent may have infinite problems and might have
contributed to Yahoo's demise but I don't think solving any of them would give
it a magical upswing. There is no way it can get turnaround without nailing
down a product that everyone wants. Frankly, I don't see that happening in
near future, considering that all the previous efforts including acquisition
of Tumblr haven't really contributed much.

------
manishsharan
I am sorry to say that Yahoo management doesn't have a clue about what its
doing. Case in point : I used to be a avid fan of the show Community and was
elated when Yahoo picked it up. However for Canadian viewers I learnt it was
only available only certain days of the week. WTF? And don't event get me
started on the streaming issue. They couldn't even get the basics of online
video right.

~~~
irq-1
> only available only certain days of the week. WTF?

Hilarious. Conways law in action. "organizations which design systems ... are
constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication
structures of these organizations"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law)

~~~
dang
I recently learned that Mel Conway (the same Conway) did some of the earliest
work on recursive descent parsers.

[http://www.melconway.com/Home/Inventor.html](http://www.melconway.com/Home/Inventor.html)

Appel's compiler book credits him with the invention, but Cooper and Torczon
cite one earlier reference.

Edit: poking around that site reveals an article which seems like it deserves
a thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11273710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11273710).

~~~
agumonkey
Slightly related, I learned today that the 4-color theorem Appel is Compiler
Appel's father.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem#Proof_by_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem#Proof_by_computer)

[https://twitter.com/agumonkey/status/708681730278989824](https://twitter.com/agumonkey/status/708681730278989824)

(all this after reading that prolog primer
[http://www.cpp.edu/~jrfisher/www/prolog_tutorial/pt_framer.h...](http://www.cpp.edu/~jrfisher/www/prolog_tutorial/pt_framer.html))

~~~
dang
Fascinating!

~~~
agumonkey
I don't know if you've seen this tweet too:
[https://twitter.com/igstan/status/708684782016798721](https://twitter.com/igstan/status/708684782016798721)

found it pretty funny.

------
dsr_
Personally? I'd give her three months to come up with a plan and tell everyone
about it.

For some reason I don't run the world.

------
mentos
Anyone else feel like a rebranding of the company should be considered?

~~~
draw_down
They did that. She even "helped" with the design of the new logo, remember?

~~~
paulddraper
Ah, but what if they did another in the next three years? Perhaps that will
work?

------
ceocoder
Yahoo!'s identity crisis has been going on for _at least_ 6 years, here[1] is
then Yahoo! CEO trying to describe "what is Yahoo!" in 2010 . It may have
started earlier, but this was the first time I noticed it.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/ok-seriously-what-is-
yahoo/](http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/ok-seriously-what-is-yahoo/)

------
0xmohit
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)

------
redwood
Yahoo could have been the dominant messenger. But then they killed the browser
based messenger... forced you to use their terrible email based messenger. And
then forced you to use their atrocious mobile app which forces you to verify
phone number. They expelled at anon/safe communication before that but then
everyone went to kik/snapchat/what's app/etc

------
elorant
Yahoo! was great fifteen years ago, now it’s just irrelevant. The world moved
on to niche content sites and they were left behind. I can’t think of a single
sector where I’d choose them over competition. I’ve heard that their web mail
service is stellar but so is Gmail and I’m staying with it. It’s not like they
came up with a service that was x10 times better than anything out there, far
from it. They have been around since the dawn of the web and haven’t manage to
build anything innovative in the last ten years. Where is Yahoo! in the whole
social media thing? I mean Google tried their luck with Google+. What did
Yahoo! did? They bought Tumblr and didn’t even bother to integrate it with
their services.

Yahoo! has to focus on doing one thing and doing it very well. They can’t be
both a services and a content shop. It doesn’t work like that. When it comes
to content they have to compete with traditional news organizations that have
decades of experience on the field. When was the last time you read something
interesting and original on Yahoo!? For me, it’s like never. The problem
though is that if they had to choose one sector that would mean massive
layoffs and that in turn would send the stock way down. So that’s never going
to happen, at least not unless reality hits them hard.

I feel kind of sad for them though because for me there was a time that I
visited Yahoo! on a daily basis, before Google came-up with a better search
algorithm and stormed the web. As with every company that was there from the
beginning they hold a special place in my heart. But the reality of the web is
that unless you innovate you become obsolete sooner or later.

~~~
rythie
Flickr is still the go to site for photographers, there are other sites, but
Flickr is the most popular.

However, Adverts on login page suck though and for those that don't pay they
have adverts inserted that look exactly like photos. I don't see the later
normally, but it's a pretty awful way to make money (though Google search and
Facebook advertising are equally bad).

------
js2
You can watch the full interview at
[http://charlierose.com/](http://charlierose.com/)

(I'm on mobile and don't see a way to link to a permanent URL, but the video
is currently on the front page.)

------
faCeti0us
The best thing yahoo has done is create a robust fantasy football platform. If
they could innovate half as well as they built that platform, they would be
ok.

------
wodenokoto
A lot of commentors are writing things like "if Yahoo wants to succeed...",
but the thing is, a large part of yahoo doesn't want to succeed.

------
hobaak
Under her tenure, yahoo product quality went downhill. I think the course is
set to go out of business. 1

------
brakmic
Is she selling Yahoo in pounds?

Milligrams?

------
nickthemagicman
Marissa Myspace

------
nickgrosvenor
ummm....

------
known
No. Thanks.

------
frik
Yahoo has still some good assets. But they are killing them left and right. If
Yahoo wants to survive as company, not just as Alibaba stock asset, they need
a CEO who understands the entertainment, portal, advertisement and search
business - after all that's Yahoo. The dumbest decision was to kill their
search engine in 2009. It had the second largest market share back then.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search)
) At least the open sourced Hadoop and Traffic server survived.

------
yuhong
I hope the double taxation on sales can be fixed in the three years.

------
wahsd
June

------
simula67
Why is HN obsessed with Yahoo ? See for example :

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013507)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11121796)

~~~
parfe
Nothing to do with yahoo. Mayer failing makes hn happy.

Wonder why?

~~~
mdorazio
HN likes it when overpaid, over-hyped leaders fail in general, especially
after doing massively unpopular and short-sighted things like killing work
from home policies. If Mayer had actually done a good job at Yahoo and turned
things around, HN would be propping her up as a hero. Instead, she proved her
inexperience, inflexibility, and narrow focus make her a poor CEO for a
company like Yahoo, and the board and media should never have propped her up
as the harbinger of amazing female CEOs.

~~~
cbeach
Yes - I think this comment sums it up well.

Remember how the media celebrated her appointment, focussing on her gender, as
if the silver bullet of "gender diversity" will resolve the many problems we
have in tech management. The media did this before she'd demonstrated any
leadership or success.

For some who hold more interest in identity politics than technology, the mere
appointment of a female CEO was success enough.

Yet, ironically, it is this politically-fueled attention to her gender that
now resonates as we observe her failure. Let's hope it doesn't create damaging
prejudices against other female leaders. If it does, I hope the real culprits
are as obvious to other readers as they are to me.

We need to rein in the social justice warriors and stop tech being used as a
vehicle for gender identity politics and virtue-signalling.

~~~
meric
The media has hyped up Mayer and Elizabeth Holmes too much, so much so now
that their companies are embroiled in difficulties they're still the first
female CEO's I can think of, when there are better examples where the female
CEO's track record has already been proven.

In my mind, to think of the corresponding female CEO to Steve Jobs, Holmes
immediately comes to my mind, who leads a company with smoke and mirrors...

------
hajrice
Not sure why all the hate. When she joined Yahoo in 2012, stock was ~$18 for a
good 6 years. Since then, it's doubled

~~~
morgante
The stock increase is due entirely to appreciation in the value of Yahoo's
Alibaba holdings.

