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Marissa Mayer Will Make $186 Million on Yahoo's Sale To Verizon (cnbc.com)

Vindu Goel, reporting for the NYTimes: Yahoo shareholders will vote June 8 on whether to sell the company's internet businesses to Verizon Communications for $4.48 billion. A yes vote, which is widely expected, would end Marissa Mayer's largely unsuccessful five-year effort to restore the internet pioneer to greatness. But Ms. Mayer, the company's chief executive, will be well compensated for her failure. Her Yahoo stock, stock options and restricted stock units are worth a total of $186 million, based on Monday's stock price of $48.15, according to data filed on Monday in the documents sent to shareholders about the Verizon deal. That compensation, which will be fully vested at the time of the shareholder vote, does not include her salary and bonuses over the past five years, or the value of other stock that Ms. Mayer has already sold. All told, her time at Yahoo will have netted her well over $200 million, according to calculations based on company filings.

26 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Fail upwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nothing like being a part of the ruling class.

  2. Please Retire by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just hope that with $185M in the bank she decides to retire. Either that or takes over as Chairwoman of Oracle

    --

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  3. Re:After 20+ years... by bigdady92 · · Score: 5, Funny

    you get an @aol.com address. I bet you can't wait to put that one on your resume....

    --
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  4. Re:So you Paid her.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did she really ruin it, though? She took command of the Titanic about 100 meters from the iceberg. Or possibly after it had already hit. Could anybody have done much better?

    She certainly didn't screw up as badly as Stephen Elop or Carly Fiorina.

  5. Re:Utterly incompetent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why was such an incompetent person made a manager?
    Was the Yahoo Board of Directors Bored of Directing?

    Judging by her personal outcome in this situation, she appears to me to be extremely talented and competent individual.

  6. Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! by swillden · · Score: 2, Informative

    The implication of this article is that Mayer made out like a bandit while doing a bad job. But the numbers say that she didn't do a bad job. That surprised me, because my perception was the opposite, but the last time this came up, I did the numbers, here.

    Under Mayer's tenure, Yahoo! generated a 21% annual growth rate in market value, beating Apple, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, as well as the NASDAQ, S&P 500 and Dow Jones. I should point out that those companies also pay dividends, but they're all in the 1-2% range, so the dividend payouts don't change the results.

    Now, you can argue that some other CEO would have done better, or that the main reason for Yahoo!'s success under her tenure was the decision to invest in Alibaba, made by her predecessor, but speculation about what someone else might have done is unproductive, and she decided to stay with that investment. The bottom line is that CEOs are supposed to generate value for shareholders, and market-beating value was generated, from a company that was clearly moribund before she was hired.

    You can also argue about whether any CEO is worth the millions they get, but if you judge against other CEOs she earned her money.

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    1. Re:Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The bottom line is that CEOs are supposed to generate value for shareholders

      Reports say that Meyer ordered underlings to not buy the resources to prevent and then not report the security breaches at Yahoo! That cost shareholders more than $1B in valuation on the Verizon deal.

      That's one heck of a negative RoI. She had the wrong instincts, she did the wrong thing, and her owners paid dearly for it.

      speculation about what someone else might have done is unproductive

      No, all her competitors invest in security and are not punished by the market for doing so. This is comparing her to the field, not some ubermensch ideal.

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    2. Re:Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      and she decided to stay with that investment.

      Which was made for her because of the tax implications of selling.

      A monkey in her office would have done as well.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    3. Re:Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wasn't ALL of Yahoo!'s growth from their Alibaba stake? None of the Yahoo! core services or acquisitions did jack squat during her tenure.

      The best thing she did was find a buyer, which means she is not the stupidest person around. That award goes to the people at Verizon who agreed to buy Yahoo!.

    4. Re:Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! by swillden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The bottom line is that CEOs are supposed to generate value for shareholders

      Reports say that Meyer ordered underlings to not buy the resources to prevent and then not report the security breaches at Yahoo! That cost shareholders more than $1B in valuation on the Verizon deal.

      Yep, had she done better there, perhaps Yahoo would be worth $48B instead of $47B. Considering it was worth $19B when she started, shareholders might be inclined to give her that one.

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    5. Re:Myth: Mayer didn't do well for Yahoo! by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      Considering it was worth $19B when she started, shareholders might be inclined to give her that one.

      Considering that that increase in value was entirely due to the increase in the value of Yahoo's Alibaba shares, which took zero skill and effort on Mayer's part, shareholders would be fools to "give her that one".

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  7. Re:So you Paid her.... by hey! · · Score: 2

    It must be government regulation because private enterprises are rational economic actors.

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  8. I'd have done it for half that by mtmiller100 · · Score: 2

    I could have f**ked Yahoo into the ground, and I'd have gladly have done it for half of that. Where's the shareholder value in paying her double my rate?!?

  9. Re:In other news by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    Yes I have! President of the chess club in 1987, SIR!

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  10. not for failure, for career-destroying mission by Green+Salad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Point of Order: It's *not* a reward for failure. It's a consolation prize for not winning the bigger reward and accepting very high probability of a publicly-destroyed career, lots of humiliation and public hate. The payment is to entice someone that already has rising pay and career prospects to knowingly take on "mission impossible" like beating Google with the full knowledge it will likely destroy their career and reputation.

    The many posts I've seen here validate that the risk to reputation was indeed, a real one.

    Marissa was a disaster, but frankly, so was the project she took on. I'm sure that many people besides me thought they could have done better against Google, but those are untested, ego-inflating opinions of little value.

    1. Re:not for failure, for career-destroying mission by netsavior · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If anybody with 186 million dollars gives a fuck about a "destroyed career" they are either addicted to smashing fabrige eggs; or otherwise mentally ill.

  11. Re:So you Paid her.... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    She took command of the Titanic about 100 meters from the iceberg. Or possibly after it had already hit.

    Recent research suggest that the Titanic may have had a coal bunker fire that weakened the outer hull where the iceberg struck.

    http://titanic-model.com/db/db-03/CoalBunkerFire.htm

    As for Yahoo, parts of the business may have been smoldering for years.

  12. Mayer's failure actually WASN'T a failure... by Beau1080p · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The implication of this article is that Mayer made out like a bandit while doing a bad job. But the numbers say that she didn't do a bad job. That surprised me, because my perception was the opposite, but the last time this came up, I did the numbers here.

    Under Mayer's tenure, Yahoo! generated a 21% annual growth rate in market value, beating Apple, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, as well as the NASDAQ, S&P 500 and Dow Jones. I should point out that those companies also pay dividends, but they're all in the 1-2% range, so the dividend payouts don't change the results.

    Now, you can argue that some other CEO would have done better, or that the main reason for Yahoo!'s success under her tenure was the decision to invest in Alibaba, made by her predecessor, but speculation about what someone else might have done is unproductive, and she decided to stay with that investment. The bottom line is that CEOs are supposed to generate value for shareholders, and market-beating value was generated, from a company that was clearly moribund before she was hired.

    You can also argue about whether any CEO is worth the millions they get, but if you judge against other CEOs she earned her money.

    1. Re:Mayer's failure actually WASN'T a failure... by flyingsquid · · Score: 2

      If you look at revenues, they're sideways over the past years. So OK, she didn't turn the company around. But she took a has-been company with little really going for it and... well, kept it from going bankrupt. Given that the market cap is currently $50 billion, I think $186 million is not excessive for keeping a sinking ship afloat. Hell, who could have done it? Sure, Jobs did an amazing job turning around Apple when he came back, but it had a strong niche in OS and hardware design, and Yahoo never really had anything like that once they passed their peak. And while I'm not some sort of hard-core feminist, I think there's a bit of hypocrisy that she's taking flak for making money off mediocre performance running a mediocre, has-been company. Any number of male CEOs have had been highly compensated for driving good companies into the ground, to the point that it's hardly even news. It's just sort of expected.

    2. Re:Mayer's failure actually WASN'T a failure... by Lost+Race · · Score: 2

      Replying to undo an incorrect (-1) moderation. I'm surprised this got modded down by the way, at the very least this is "interesting".

      Mod down was correct. GP is plagiarized from an earlier comment which deserves the +1 instead.

    3. Re:Mayer's failure actually WASN'T a failure... by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Under Mayer's tenure, Yahoo! generated a 21% annual growth rate in market value

      Which is only marginally above the other tech companies with similar annual growth rates. Speaking of growth, you know an easy way to grow value? Chop up things and sell it for cash then report good earnings. That's one of the problems with your figures.

      Yahoo showed great growth in the earlier period marked a lot by divestment and cuts. Yahoo then showed growth in the last two years by not delivering anything other than speculation that they will be bought by someone. The end result is a company that is literally dead.

      Under Mayer's tenure the company went under and got bought out. The shareholders got a bit extra as they always do so they are happy, but not even the name will live on as anything more than a memory of another company sunk by a crap CEO.

      She hasn't earned a cent. She was given money via the same stupid metric that get shareholders excited about their company potentially going under.

    4. Re:Mayer's failure actually WASN'T a failure... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      She didn't resist calls to sell Alibaba. She sold off a portion, and found out that there were huge tax consequences. She tried selling off the rest of Alibaba, and tried to avoid taxes the second time. The problem was that the IRS was going to treat spinning off Alibaba shares into a separate holding company as tax event, and tax accordingly. So she changes her mind, and decides to sell Yahoo's main business instead, and leave the Alibaba and Yahoo Japan shares in basically what well be a holding company for the shareholders tax-free.

  13. Perhaps its time to reign in CEO pay by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Real corporate governance would start with CEO compensation. Since they are paid such astronomical sums it would make sense to review and revise compensation. Unfortunately, the board of directors are typically made up of other CEOs and cronies that real reform will not happen.

  14. You're Doing it Wrong by dcw3 · · Score: 2

    "But Ms. Mayer, the company's chief executive, will be well compensated for her failure"

    A quick look at the stock price of Yahoo over the last five years shows that the value of the company has just about tripled. If you're only looking at the things us tech folks hate (and I agree that there's plenty to dislike), then you're failing at properly evaluating her as a CEO.

    --
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  15. Re:So you Paid her.... by ausekilis · · Score: 5, Informative

    To be fair, Stephen Elop has a track record of driving a business into the ground so MS can buy it and finish digging the hole. He's more of a hired goon in the embrace->extend->extinguish chain than an actual CEO.

  16. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion