Comments on: Why Marissa Mayer may not be a good fit for Yahoo

By: Chuey

Chuey — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:09:40 +0000

As a former employee of Yahoo, I would respectfully disagree with the premise of this article. The underlying assumption and basis of the argument (reiterated throughout the article i might add) is that “Yahoo is a media company”. I’m sorry, but this is exactly the reason why previous CEO’s have come and failed, including Terry Semel. If Yahoo were “just a media company”, as many prior leaders assumed it was and operated it as if it were, it would find itself, in a best case scenario, looking like a media conglomerate with proprietary assets and a constant revenue stream from those assets.

In truth, what Yahoo is and always should have been run as, is a product innovator at the intersection of Media and Technology. It is at this intersection that is constantly being reinvented and is here where Yahoo can reassert itself. As someone who’s experience runs deeply in this area of intersecting domains, Marissa Mayer is the best candidate since the early 2000′s to take the reigns and is, in my opinion, a perfect candidate for the job.

Because of this, I find myself excited for Yahoo’s prospects for the first time since I left the company.

TL;DR: What the pundits (including Mr. Ingram) miss entirely, is that Yahoo’s strengths was never its Media, it was it’s ability to innovate product offerings that drew eyeballs to its Media. Without eyeballs, Media is a lost cause. What drove Yahoo into a ditch is exactly what Mr. Ingram is prescribing, i.e. let Media run the show or in other words let the tail wag the dog.

By: miha

miha — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 02:51:31 +0000

Im my blog, “The memories of a Product Manager” I explain IMO Why Marissa Mayer will be good for Yahoo http://bitly.com/MkBhkk

By: YJ

YJ — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 02:39:14 +0000

For the article writer:
Might as well change the article title from
“Why Marissa Mayer May Not Fit Yahoo”
to
“Why Marissa Mayer Does Not Fit Yahoo”
Be truthful and be courageous. Don’t be afraid that someday you may have to beg a job from Marissa at Yahoo.

By: commenter

commenter — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 05:19:04 +0000

Experience is overrated. All of the four former CEOs have impressive experience. Did they manage to turn Yahoo! around?

By: Harmonia

Harmonia — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:35:43 +0000

Re that first line, let’s not overdo the hype and drama, OK?
It makes you seem like you’re working too hard.

Must be nice to be someone who can make millions deciding what shade of blue to paint the baby’s room, oops I mean
Google’s backdrop. Very important work that. Yahoo’s in
good hands, if they need a perky blonde interior designer. The real challenge will be how to get rid of that stupid company name….

By: Yah Who

Yah Who — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 14:24:34 +0000

Not that I’m a big fan of his, but what Tim Armstrong has done at AOL (minus that Patch nonsense) is what is needed at Yahoo, to at least salvage shareholder value, if not save the company. This is not a technical challenge, it’s more like a job for Bain Capital.

By: Greg Ivanov

Greg Ivanov — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 09:44:21 +0000

Agreed re too much emphasis on background! Yet it’s one of the only ways of trying to build a prediction, but a bit futile ultimately

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:27:08 +0000

I predict her first new product will be a social network called “Yahoo Plus”.

By: Doug Lay

Doug Lay — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:12:45 +0000

Yahoo internally is a morass of homegrown content management systems, apis, formats, and code bases. If Meyer can get the platform streamlined, she will increase the possibilities available to Yahoo as a media company.

By: Chels Clinton

Chels Clinton — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:18:05 +0000

The issue is that at Yahoo!’s core they have been run by their sales team. It’s always been about monetizing their properties by slapping as many ads on it as possible. It’s going to be very hard to turn that ship to be more product/consumer focused.

Marissa is a great manager and ran a tight ship at google, but at the end of the day all she did was run UI reviews for her corner of the company (search). That’s very different from managing the strategy of a 14k+ person company.