What Mayer has been tasked with is an almost impossible mission, just stopping the free fall is impressive in it's own right. People really love to dig on her, and I can't help but think it's largely because she is a woman. She's clearly not perfect and can be pretty callous towards employees, but it's not like she is the first CEO in tech to behave that way.
I don't know what the future for Yahoo holds, but it's hard for me to say that she has done a bad job so far.
Seems to me most of her critics are from people who want Yahoo! to sell (or merge) so they make tons of $$$$$$. Before she came in they were set to strike it rich as Yahoo! went down in flames, now their money is tied up until she "fails" (from their perspective).
These people have just lost faith in the company after several consecutive failed executives promising similar things to Mayer. If she actually made Yahoo! profitable again they'd likely change their tune pretty quick, but she hasn't just yet, and she's spent a lot of "their" capital buying other companies which has further upset them.
Honestly I've seen very little "she's a woman" criticism, and rather a lot of broad criticism about the overall strategy. Although there has been a discussion of her interpersonal skills (however I've also read that about a lot of other, male, CEOs).
She takes over after years of neglect at a time of even more substantial crisis, and yet gets and will take far more of the blame than her very incompetent predecessors for Yahoo's failure. What's worth wondering is whether her being a bossy boss woman was also responsible for her being sidelined and pushed out from the OC at Google:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/technology/in-googles-inne...
How is it a glass cliff? She didn't work at Yahoo and was not promoted into that role to take a fall. She was offered a job there and took the job. Her choice. Not the same as being pushed in any way shape or form. At all. Separately impossible to feel sorry for someone at that level of sophistication knowing full well that the job is not going to be easy. People take chances all the time when the upside is high enough. Of course she could have stayed where she was or taken an easier job.
Not pushed out so much as sidelined -- it was clear that she was never going to get promoted beyond where she already was at Google, so if she ever wanted to move up she had to move out.
Well of course no one is going to say "she will fail because she's a woman". Bigots have learned to be a little more subtle than that. They would just criticize her strategy, while the same strategy from a male wouldn't draw the same criticism.
I'm not saying that is what is happening here or that Mayer's strategy shouldn't be questioned, just responding to the "no one said 'because she's a woman' so it can't be sexism"
I'm a pretty vocal opponent of sexism (to the point where I've been labeled by GamerGate-types a "SJW"), and I would criticize the same strategy if it was a man putting it forward. Or at least, I hope I would.
There's no shortage of sexism out there, but it's dangerous to jump to the conclusion that any criticism of a woman is automatically rooted in sexism. That doesn't do social progress any favors either.
I'm not saying that is what is happening here or that Mayer's strategy shouldn't be questioned, just responding to the "no one said 'because she's a woman' so it can't be sexism".
You can see the same thing happening with President Obama. All of the people who criticized him for his race directly have all but disappeared after his first few years in office. Now you get people who criticize him in more indirect ways. It's like natural selection of bigots, you need to figure out where the line of social acceptance is.
Again, not saying anything about Mayer in particular. Just that the parent had said "it can't be sexism because no one mentioned that she's a woman" isn't a rational train of thought. Of course no one would directly mention it.
>and I can't help but think it's largely because she is a woman.
Maybe. When she first came on board, there was lots of gossip about her having a baby and being a CEO and all that. I personally think that was unfair nonsense.
However, I do have a problem with how she generally treats people and I have a problem with the relentless self-promotion she seems to spend much of her time on.
If it's unfair to talk about her being a CEO with a baby just because she's a woman, why isn't it unfair to talk about the uncountable number of fashion magazine covers and fashion focus she seems to have plenty of time for? (I understand of course that there's a bit of a feedback effect from the media on this, but really, just run the company and ignore the noise).
She's obviously very smart, but I worry that some of her personal interface issues may overwhelm all that. All the best business decisions in the world may still turn into a failure if you alienate your people by reading nursery rhymes to them and treating them idiot children.
I don't know, I'm obviously not the target for that kind of cult-of-personality marketing strategy, but I think it's a huge waste of time and as a stock holder it makes me grit my teeth every time.
I don't really mind the occasional interview, I think that's important for a business leader to do, especially a large publicly traded one, but at the same time, prancing around in high-end boutique clothes is not where I want my corporate leaders to be spending their time.
(and before you complain that I'm trying to dictate what they do in their free-time, I'm not, these magazine covers and interviews are very much part of their corporate work)
This is actually the type of thing (annoys me as well btw) that is pandering to everyday people and gets good publicity for the company which helps in creating star appeal which does in many ways further the companies agenda. (Which will increase the value of the stock and also helps with hiring as well..)
For example even when dealing with Washington, star appeal goes a long way to getting people to take you seriously and to listen to you.
As a similar example, take Steve Job's fame and how he was able to use it in order to close deals that an unknown CEO from an equally large company would never be able to do.
> People really love to dig on her, and I can't help but think it's largely because she is a woman...
I agree. This article is very positive, but in the past, when I've read a lot of her criticism, I have often wondered: is this being said because she's a woman? Would they be saying similar things if she was a man? And the answers, often, are "yes" and "no".
I'd say that she is a prominent person in tech. Prominent people in tech get a lot of attention, good or bad.
One reason (among many) she is prominent is the fact she is a successful woman in tech.
In other words, I don't feel the criticism is because she is a woman, but I do think she's more in the spotlight than her predecessors because she is a woman.
Was it a "free fall?" Yahoo was generating $2billion a year. It wasn't "sexy" but it still has a huge amount of traffic and was bringing in cash.
It almost seemed like a trick to me, convince the world that things are really dire at Yahoo! then whoever you bring in is going to be a hero unless they are completely incompetent because things weren't that dire. They had both cash and revenue... and an f-ton of traffic and eyeballs. They definitely weren't growing at internet rates though.
I'm not saying they hadn't bought a lot of stuff that they didn't need and they didn't need to kill some products and focus but dire?
My sense too is the "first time CEO" problem that's unavoidable. I think some of her public known missteps are just a function of being a rookie and something you see from nearly all first time CEO's of large companies.
>and I can't help but think it's largely because she is a woman
I would say the hate stems from her pushing a policy of ending working from home. A lot of companies followed and it really pissed off a lot of devs and ops people.
I think the people that "dig" on her would dig on a male for the same things regarding treatment of employees so I don't think that's right. It's not like any of us on HN have given Zynga a free pass.
I don't know what the future for Yahoo holds, but it's hard for me to say that she has done a bad job so far.