Verizon Closes $4.5B Acquisition of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer Resigns (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader shares a TechCrunch article: After Yahoo shareholder approval last week, Verizon today announced that it has finally closed its acquisition of Yahoo, which it plans to combine with its AOL assets into a subsidiary called Oath, covering some 50 media brands and 1 billion people globally. It will be led by Tim Armstrong, who was the CEO of AOL before this. As expected, Marissa Mayer, who had been the CEO of Yahoo, has resigned. "Given the inherent changes to Marissa Mayer's role with Yahoo resulting from the closing of the transaction, Mayer has chosen to resign from Yahoo. Verizon wishes Mayer well in her future endeavors," Verizon said in a statement. You can find Marissa in her own words here on Tumblr. It's a long list of the achievements made with her at the helm these last five years, and -- alas -- you will only read of the struggles that Yahoo went through between the lines. The deal, nevertheless, brings to a close the independent life of one of the oldest and most iconic internet brands, arguably the one that led and set the pace for search -- the cornerstone of doing business on the spaghetti-like internet -- at least until Google came along and surpassed Yahoo many times over, and led the company into a number of disastrous and costly attempts to redefine itself, ultimately culminating in the sale we have here today.

Comments

Say hello

[ArchieBunker]

To the golden parachute.

Re:Say hello

[Penguinisto]

I don't normally ask this, but if she were a dude instead of a passably cute chick, would she have even lasted this long?

Re:Say hello

[grasshoppa]

Normally I'd suspect that as well, however the world of CEOs runs by a different set of rules.

So probably nothing would change. How many countless companies have we watched driven into the ground by incompetent CEOs only to watch them land safely at another company only to repeat the process. Gender doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

Re:Say hello

[cayenne8]

The thing I don't get...is with the kind of money she's gotten over the years and likely from the golden parachute out.....why ever work again??

I sure wouldn't....I'd spend the rest of my years enjoying the good life with enough $$ to easily live on without ever having to work another day.

Re: Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd imagine she will retire after this. Maybe run for president 2020.

Re:Say hello

[sudden.zero]

That my friend is the difference between you, and I (the peons) and the CEOs of the world. The driven continue to be driven, not just by money, but by their desire to create, innovate, and sometimes destroy. While the rest of us are only motivated by money. Not to compare Rock stars to CEOs, but there is the same sort of creative, and innovative spirit involved. Look at David Bowie, he was on his death bed, ridden with cancer, but instead of sulking in self pity he finished his final album only days before dying. That is the difference between us, and the innovators of the world that are motivated by sheer willpower, and creativity, not just money.

Re:Say hello

[alvinrod]

I think that in order to really want to be a CEO of a big company like that (which you didn't found yourself) you pretty much have to be a sociopath, or pretty close to one in a lot of ways. I think that explains why they just won't quit, because its about the power. The money is just a convenient way of keeping score.

Re:Say hello

[Muckluck]

Actually, that is only part of it. It is a sort of balance between three personality traits - the "Dark Triad". From Wikipedia: The dark triad is a subject in psychology that focuses on three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Use of the term "dark" implies that people possessing these traits have malevolent qualities. Many if not all CEOs tend to have a balance of these qualities. Where they fall within the triangle often helps define their own success and the company's success.

Re:Say hello

[g01d4]

Youth and gender were likely a factor in her hiring. These components were to be integrated with the brand being promoted. It was effectively a band-aid covering what was hoped to be the healing wound of the Yahoo brand. Her competence was on par with her peers and removing her would have been like tearing the band-aid off before the wound had healed. Verizon's changing the wound treatment.

What I've yet to understand is what unique or special skills these CEOs have that justify their compensation outside articulation combined with excessive ambition.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeebus - you're giving them way too much credit. It's simple a simple need for validation that never goes away. MM was a simple nerd as a kid and has just spent her adulthood trying to compensate. Creative - that's hilarious.

Re:Say hello

[ShanghaiBill]

You might soon find that sitting on the beach all day isn't what you expected. I have taken extended vacations between jobs, and after about a week, I start feeling an urge to "get stuff done". The satisfaction of achieving goals is not just about money.

Marissa had enough money for a very comfortable retirement before she even started as CEO of Yahoo.

Re:Say hello

[nine-times]

why ever work again??

Some people still want to accomplish things and do things with their lives. Some want to continue to gain prestige, wealth, and power. Also, I understand how not having a job can sound nice, but it gets depressing after a while. Even if it's not a "job" per se, it's nice to have some kind of role to play in society that's more than a hobby.

Re:Say hello

[ShanghaiBill]

I don't normally ask this, but if she were a dude instead of a passably cute chick, would she have even lasted this long?

The Yahoo board booted Jerry Yang, but he was arguably worse than Marissa. Yahoo was in decline when she took over. She didn't fix the problems, but she didn't cause them either. By the time she took the reins, I am not sure that Yahoo was fixable.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! This AC hit it right on the head. They are narcissists and want to keep feeling important and make sure everyone else continues thinking they are important.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on... lack of purpose is a real mind-numbing experience. Even the "good life" can get old rather fast. As a peon, it would be nice to have that option though.

Re:Say hello

[nine-times]

There are a few different aspects to your question that I want to expand a little:

1) You're implying that she was completely incompetent, and should have been fired. That's possible. However, I'd also point out that Yahoo was a flailing mess of a company before she took over, and it's not as though there was a clear and easy path to rehabilitate them. Getting purchased by Verizon may have simply been the best play that they had. If so, she got that done.

2) You're implying that being attractive helps you become a CEO (or keep the position once you have it). I think this is a bit of an unfortunate fact of life. People are often judged on superficial things. I think there have been studies indicating that taller men, for example, enjoy more success in politics and in business. There have been studies that indicate people lend more credibility to men with deep voices. People perceive more attractive people as being nicer, smarter, and better in bed. What can you do?

3) You're implying that being a woman helps you become CEO (or keep the position once you get it). That certainly doesn't seem to be the trend. It's not as though there are just tons and tons of female CEOs. Your own post illustrates that female CEOs don't seem to get more respect than their male counterparts. There may be some degree to which people would hesitate to fire a woman because it might "look bad", but ultimately, I doubt that would have much of an effect for very long.

4) There seems to be an assumption that CEOs are generally competent and doing a good job. Therefore, if one CEO is not doing a good job and isn't immediately fired, that person must be an outlier. All I can say is, that doesn't seem to be the case as far as I can tell. I see the insides of a lot of companies, big and small, and a lot of the upper management (including CEOs) frequently make bad decisions without much consequence.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel sorry for your negative world-view, and your hatred of artists.

Too bad they don't force music or art classes in school anymore. You might have turned out an artist yourself. You might be actually happy.

The funny part is, you probably consider writing code to be an art.

Re:Say hello

[sjritt00]

She'd probably like to retire, but if Verizon was smart (I know, a real stretch) they included a "must compete" clause in her termination contrtact.

Re:Say hello

[no1nose]

She is the IRL version of that girl from Showtime's "House of Lies". Very pretty and quite rich. Her husband, Zachary Bogue, and her kids are quite fortunate.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true. I won't argue she was any sort of great CEO, but to be fair, she was handed the wheel of the Titanic when it was 50m from the iceberg. I'm not sure there was anything anybody could have done to save that ship.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at Donald Trump. Billionaire. Billionaire lifestyle. Gave that up to be President and loathed by half the population.

If I reached even a fraction of his wealth, I would retire from everything even remotely considered work and just enjoy myself.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

1 in 5 CEOs are Psychopaths Not the murdering kind, of course. But the lack of empathy, the willingness to manipulate, and the self-aggrandizing are big things. Artists are often (but not always) polar opposites of the first two. Oh, and "writing code to be an art" is why a lot of code is a shitshow. Good art is rare. It's why there's so much more of a push towards science. Then the "art" is perfecting the application of science instead of it being 99% "creativity" and just enough science to get code to compile.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure she can find some other company to mismanage. CEOs generally are a bunch who watch each other's backs and try desperately to keep everyone from learning exactly how overpaid, overentitled, and undereffective they really are.

Re:Say hello

[fiannaFailMan]

I'd go around collecting academic qualifications. Get a PhD. Write books.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

ALLEGEDLY a billionaire, ALLEGEDLY with a billionaire lifestyle.

Why do you think he won't release tax returns? The guy's got tons of debt he's working off and he doesn't want his reputation tarnished.

Trump isn't a selfless guy. He didn't "give anything up." He has everything to gain from being President and he's using that power to enrich himself, his family, and his allies (I'd call them friends but that's a stretch).

Re:Say hello

[nitehawk214]

Yeah, or maybe they are just greedy motherfuckers.

Re:Say hello

[sootman]

> That my friend is the difference between you, and I (the peons) and the
> CEOs of the world. The driven continue to be driven, not just by money,
> but by their desire to create, innovate, and sometimes destroy.

BULL FUCKING SHIT. I *might* believe that for a *second* if they didn't ALSO get paid RIDICULOUS sums, REGARDLESS of their performance. Or did you miss the news that she will walk away with $186 million?

Show me an America CEO who makes within TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE what the average employee earns and I *might* believe that they're doing it for anything other than the money.

Think she doesn't like money? Maybe she'll share her newfound wealth with the 2,100 who were laid off last week. $186 million divided by 2,100 = $88,571 per employee.

Or share some with these people. (Feb 2016)
Or these people. (April 2015)
Or these people. (June 2013)

Don't you fucking DARE tell me that she is more driven by a desire to create or innovate than any of those THOUSANDS of people -- that THEY were only driven by money. Becoming CEO is basically like winning the lottery.

By the way, she was already worth $540M last week.

Marissa Mayer
CEO, Yahoo!
2017 AMERICA'S SELF-MADE WOMEN NET WORTH â" as of 6/8/17
$540 M

Add today's $186M and she's now around $720M. She's three-quarters of a BILLIONAIRE. But she's not driven by money -- just her desire to create and innovate. Gotcha. Too bad for the thousands of shallow, selfish former Yahoo employees who were only driven by money.

Re:Say hello

[harperska]

That's what hobbies are for. As a professional software developer, if suddenly I never had to work a day for the rest of my life I would probably start contributing to open source projects or start one of my own. Likewise an auto mechanic might get a classic car to restore. Though I have no idea what hobbies a CEO would take up to fill the void of no longer having a company to run into the ground.

Re:Say hello

[squiggleslash]

Are you really arguing there are no ugly male CEOs that suck? Is the guy who runs Sears devilishly handsome in your opinion, just to name a terrible CEO off the top of my head?

Re:Say hello

[Chris Mattern]

He probably is a billionaire. Forbes ranking of the wealthy (which is pretty well trusted) says he is. But he's not as rich as he says he is; he's blasted Forbes for rating his wealth at a fraction of what he claims. Forbes thinks he's worth $3.5 billion (down $200 million, as a matter of fact). Trump claims he's worth over $10 billion. I have yet to hear of anyone serious who believes that.

Re:Say hello

[cayenne8]

You might soon find that sitting on the beach all day isn't what you expected. I have taken extended vacations between jobs, and after about a week, I start feeling an urge to "get stuff done". The satisfaction of achieving goals is not just about money.

Not me, I guess different types.

Last time I was between gigs lasted maybe 7 months or so.

I frankly had NO problem keeping myself happy and occupied. I live in New Orleans, my general day dealt with, wake up about 8-9am or so, walk the dog...jump on my motorcycle and hit the gym for a couple hours, come home, eat lunch (and look for job)...then, I'd hop on my bike and go to museums around town or whatever and be a tourist in my own city.

When the day got to around 3-4pm, I'd go to a bar and meet friends that were getting off work for drinks....etc.

That was the basics and I NEVER got tired of that....but in between, I can find days to do hobbies I like..photography, videos...editing, maybe creating some art out of it with photoshop painting, etc.

I like to read a lot too.

And trust me, if that every got tiring, if I had all the money I needed, I"d travel and take a "vacation" away from it all.

My one and ONLY driving force to work, is to earn money to do the things I like to do...period. If I were paid enough, I really couldn't give a shit what it was I was doing to get paid that much for...I really have no loyalty to job...I just want money.

If I did not have to continue to make money to support my lifestyle, I would spend my time doing all the things I like to do now (and maybe find more)....without having to waste time working.

I have a very difficult time imagining someone actually wanting to work if they didn't have to.

Can that many people not find ways to entertain themselves when not working.....?

Re:Say hello

[cayenne8]

Even if it's not a "job" per se, it's nice to have some kind of role to play in society that's more than a hobby.

Hmm..well, while doing something nice for society might be a nice side benefit of doing what you like, I certainly never think of something like that as a driving force in any of my actions or direction in life.

I guess it could be for some, everyone is different, but I can't imagine its that as big of a deal for more than a slight majority of people in the world.

Re:Say hello

[JonnyCalcutta]

Can that many people not find ways to entertain themselves when not working.....?

I've often wondered that myself. I put it down to people fooling themselves because it makes it a bit easier to get through those days at work. Anecdotal I know, but I have a friend who said this for years ('I like work because otherwise I'd just be bored'). He now lives off the income from a few rental properties he bought on the side and basically doesn't work. He doesn't seem bored to me.

Re:Say hello

[phantomfive]

Seriously though, do you think another CEO could have saved Yahoo?

Re:Say hello

[phantomfive]

What I've yet to understand is what unique or special skills these CEOs have that justify their compensation

For Yahoo, it was hoped that she would turn the company around. If she had done that, it would have been worth the money, but she didn't so it was a risk.

Consider a more narrow skill, though. Imagine she was really good at negotiating (maybe she is, I don't know). That could have gotten an extra billion dollars onto the sales price, or could be the difference between making and not making a deal at all. I think you'll agree that it's worth a few million $ to get a CEO who is better at negotiation (since the other side is thinking the same thing, it becomes a game of escalation).

I knew a CEO who was really good at sales, and really good at firing up the sales team to get out there and sell more stuff. She didn't get paid as much as Marissa, but she was measurably worth her high salary, based on revenue before and after hiring her.

If you want someone who has a proven record of making good strategic decisions, chances are they already have enough money to retire. In that case, you need to throw even more money at them to make it worth coming out of retirement.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because his wealth is in property, and forbes ranking took the municipal weighted value that they use to assess property taxes and calculated that based on his property holdings and the property tax value, that is his wealth. However, i know the rental property i just bought for 1.8 million is assessed municipally at 890k. But the funions don't care, they just want to validate their delusion that he overstated his wealth. Truth be told, Donald could be up or down 3-4 billion every few months due to the nature of the real estate market. For example, forbes says 40 wall st. (trump tower) is worth 501 million, trump bought it for 1 million (just for putting that in there for a sense of scale), similar buildings today in manhattan have sold for upwards of 1.2 billion. In other words, Forbes was being intentionally biased.

Re:Say hello

[Dutch Gun]

By the time she took the reins, I am not sure that Yahoo was fixable.

One wonders what someone like Steve Jobs could have done with it. She had five years at the helm, you know, so I'm not sure I'd buy the notion that Yahoo was necessarily doomed.

Yahoo needed someone with a real vision to lead them. I don't believe Mayer was completely incompetent, but she certainly wasn't visionary. The fact that they never seemed to be able to get their tech in order (massive and completely unnecessary security breaches) and just don't seem to have a corporate identity speaks to a systemic rot from within.

It also feels like she wasn't a very inspired or inspiring leader. There are some real WTF moments, like when she read a children's book to her employees at a meeting when what they really wanted was answers about a new review system (which turned out to be pretty toxic). I can't imagine that endeared her to many employees. What does that say about how you view your employees? It seemed unbelievably condescending, at least to me looking from the outside in.

Well, it's nice work if you can get it, being a CEO. You always seem to land on your feet, no matter how badly you do.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

the special gift they have is to bullshit everyone into thinking they're worth that much when they clearly aren't. most ceo types are sales people, and you would expect to sell themselves best. we call them dark, because their only strategy is to lie about others and tell people that they are more worth it, sometimes lies, sometimes sabotage, goes with the territory. but there is nothing special about being a ceo. just like there isn't anything special about my Queen's MBA in Canada. I basically paid 110k for a one year MBA to get a basics economic course. now we all know we didn't learn anything there, but it's the fact that we can use this 'MBA' to justify to those other fools that we're worth more. i'm talking about competent ceo(s).

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

everyone is complicit in the system because they're just waiting for their turn. snitches get stitiches and all that jazz. there are exemptions of course, but i would say this describes about 70-90% of them, and then they feel guilty (or try to change the subject of their tenure in their mind's eye) hence all the attention to social causes from ceo(s)

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

and the whole 'debt' thing, if you're in the property business ofc you have 'debt' in the form of mortgage, if you're a publicly traded company you have 'debt' in the form of stock/bond. Every single company and ceo in the fucking world has 'debt' lol. Is noone teaching economics anymore? or are people just being intentionally stupid? i have to ask at this point these things are pretty basic.

Re:Say hello

[serviscope_minor]

Though I have no idea what hobbies a CEO would take up to fill the void of no longer having a company to run into the ground.

Running for president?

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? The stock value more than tripled under her watch.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the number from a different perspective. Under her management Yahoo's market capitalization increased by about $30 billion. Any investor in his right mind would gladly pay $186M for a $30B return.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

> By the time she took the reins, I am not sure that Yahoo was fixable.

False. Any company with that position and influence could become a great company if led well.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are apparently not teaching economics anymore; neither are they teaching English, judging by your post.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

CEOs rarely "apply" for their jobs. They are already part of the ruling elite, but without sufficient capital to just buy the company and run it themselves. CEOs, and to some extent boards of directors, are all "known" to each other and to the majority shareholders - of course that's how it works! The shareholders elect the board, and the board chooses the CEO. Go look on jobs.com for "CEO" positions. Many openings? Of those openings, how many are for actual companies (the term CEO is abused a little and gets applied to non profit organizations quite a bit) of any size or repute?

Once you understand that CEOs are part of the elite, it all makes sense: lack of correlation between performance and pay, completely bizarre career progression, lack of any real qualifications or experience...

Re: Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

She only got where she was because she was sucking the bosses dick.

Long hours at Google....just happened to be in close proximity to Sergei I think ?

Fast forward 6 months and she's taking it in the ass and getting on the promotion fast track.

Re:Say hello

[Bender0x7D1]

Though I have no idea what hobbies a CEO would take up to fill the void of no longer having a company to run into the ground.

Serial killer?

Re:Say hello

[arglebargle_xiv]

"Oath" as in "fuck, why the fuck did we buy this fucken piece of shit sucking chest wound of a company again? Fuck me".

Re:Say hello

[Chris Mattern]

Yes, the Forbes estimate includes deducting debt from his net worth; they are must definitely not that stupid.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

No, my understanding that Donald's 10 billion estimate was due to an absurdly high Good Will component. Forbes acknowledged a Good Will component but gave it a much more reasonable valuation.

Like everything else Trump, his ego forces him to believe that the mere mention of the word "Trump" sets female hearts a-flutter, MBA eyes cross-ways, and accountants spleens a-quiver.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't normally ask this, but if she were a dude instead of a passably cute chick, would she have even lasted this long?

Marisa Mayer didn't do much for Yahoo other than get it sold to the "country bumpkins" at Verizon. The stock price of Yahoo rose due to events outside of Mayer's control, like the Alibaba stock deal. Mayer trimmed some staff, stopped telecommuting as a "work choice", and closed down some failing stuff inside Yahoo, much to the outrage of the "spoiled snowflakes" (an excessive amount of descriptive terms but true in this case) that worked there, but the "dry rot" had already gotten too deep to be cured by anything other than a complete rebuild. The house was bound to collapse and not even the experts from PBS' "This Old House" could save it.

Perhaps Verizon can turn around the useful remaining Yahoo assets, but I don't see Verizon or it's AOL subsidiary being anything like the "skilled turnaround gurus of Wall Street" fame, and I think Verizon overpaid for the Yahoo assets. Let's face it, rehabilitating assets just is not in the DNA of Verizon. Just look at the copper outside plant that Verizon is trying to abandon everywhere for fiber... and the recent ruling in Pennsylvania that ordered Verizon to maintain that copper outside plant rather than stop maintaining it like they were trying to do.

Perhaps the AOL subsidiary of Verizon is different, but given the "hamstringing" of a heavily "siloed" company like Verizon, I will invest my money elsewhere regardless of the Verizon dividend that is based more and more on the profits of their slowly "flatlining" wireless subsidiary. Truthfully speaking, there isn't anything like a "growth" subsidiary anywhere to be found inside Verizon today, and the balance sheet is so debt-ridden that I'm surprised their corporate bonds still maintain any value above "junk" status.

So, I suspect Mayer had a good deal with her "golden parachute", though I can only wonder what "position" she could have gotten inside Verizon had she stayed. She is better off "taking the money and running for the nearest exit as fast as she can with her babies in tow". If I were her I would take some time to carefully consider my next moves since she will be judged by her performance, or lack thereof, at Yahoo.

Re:Say hello

[Anonymous Coward]

"between you and I" ... classic.

Will tank company for food...and $200M

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I'd be perfectly happy to drive your tech company into the ditch too for a couple hundred million dollars.

Re:Will tank company for food...and $200M

[hij]

A better analogy would be she found the pick-up truck in the ditch full of cash, and found someone with an even bigger truck willing to pull it out of the ditch so it could be stripped down for parts. You know, the usual stuff.

Re:Will tank company for food...and $200M

[Ogive17]

Just curious, how was Yahoo doing before they hired her?

Blaming her for the fall of Yahoo is like blaming the guy trying to keep the Titanic afloat by bailing water with a bucket.. Yahoo hit that iceberg long before she came on board.

Re:Will tank company for food...and $200M

[jfdavis668]

She tanked a company that was in a nose dive and about to hit rock bottom. Instead she put enough value into it for another company to see it as a worthwhile investment.

Boring Tumblr Page

[Anonymous Coward]

That has to be one of the most boring tumblr's ever. Needs more rage and random political posts. No wonder she was so out of touch with her customer base.

As a Verizon investor...

[Anonymous Coward]

...thanks for tanking my favorite stock. Good thing Verizon is still paying the dividend, but what a waste of money.

Re:As a Verizon investor...

[Dunbal]

If yahoo still had that chunk of BABA stock you should be happy considering what THAT stock is doing.

Re:As a Verizon investor...

[110010001000]

Yeah but Alibaba doesn't pay a dividend. Too risky.

What a great country we live in

[Lucas123]

Where you can fail hard, and still get a $23 million ‘golden parachute’ for your effort. /s

Re:What a great country we live in

[Captain Splendid]

Why do you hate capitalism, you commie simp?

Re:What a great country we live in

[Trailer Trash]

Where you can fail hard, and still get a $23 million ‘golden parachute’ for your effort. /s

To be fair, I don't think Yahoo was salvageable. But that doesn't justify giving her millions of dollars. If anything, the board should have found someone to take on the job of simply running Yahoo for a million or so a year, which the job is worth if they're able to keep it profitable.

Re:What a great country we live in

[Lucas123]

I love capitalism. I just wish I could get more of it.

Re:What a great country we live in

[alvinrod]

The boards of these companies typically aren't any better than the CEOs they select. More often than not if you look at board memberships, the CEO of one company will be on the board of another (or several others), and so on. So why no just pick on of their friends to rake in a bunch of cash for a while, when it's likely that friend will be in a position to do the same for one of them at some point in the future.

If you wanted a really good CEO you'd find some engineer within the company that knows what the hell the company does and how it actually runs and pay for an MBA so they can speak the business lingo the position requires while being able to make informed decisions about the direction the company should take.

Re:What a great country we live in

[eclectro]

Where you can fail hard, and still get a $23 million ‘golden parachute’ for your effort. /s

But seriously it's ok. There was a woman CEO. /s

Re:What a great country we live in

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't trust engineers with UI, let alone running a goddamned company.

Re:What a great country we live in

[ZenShadow]

Spoken like a true CEO.

Re:What a great country we live in

[fluffernutter]

Wait awhile and you might get laid off. Then you'll have gotten more of it.

Re:What a great country we live in

[Captain Splendid]

But seriously it's ok. There was a woman CEO. /s

What a weird thing to say. Why would the CEO being female make a difference?

Re:What a great country we live in

[lgw]

She only failed if you think her job was to turn Yahoo into a modern competitive internet company. That was never going to happen, and I doubt the board had any illusions.

Her job was to change the company in ways that made it sell for more, and keep the stock price up in the mean time. She did that quite well. There's a whole industry around "boost the selling price of this failing company", BTW. mostly for small companies.

Hey - I hear ...

[Hentai007]

Uber might be in the market for a new CEO - And hiring her would be a great way to get rid of the "sexist" image they've cultivated lately! WIN WIN!

Re:Hey - I hear ...

[slashdice]

... and Uber will be dead in 3 years. Triple-Win, FTW.

Re:Hey - I hear ...

[Hentai007]

that's just a fringe benefit.

Re:Hey - I hear ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead because having hired Marisa, the women-victims are encouraged to speak out, and the last nails in Uber's coffin happened to be the harassment and/or discrimination that seem to be considered normal in Uber.

Re:Hey - I hear ...

[Archangel Michael]

You're under the impression that Uber is going to survive 3 years. The question is, which company is going to buy Uber, Tesla, Apple, Alphabet(Google) and marry it to their self Driving Cars.

My guess, Tesla, paired with Hyperloop, seems like something that Musk could do.

Re:Hey - I hear ...

[Hentai007]

I hear Axe body spray might be working on an offer.

Re:Hey - I hear ...

[serviscope_minor]

And hiring her would be a great way to get rid of the "sexist" image they've cultivated lately! WIN WIN!

I like how you put sexist in "scare quotes". We know uber doesn't give a fuck about laws (lots of stories), there are plenty of horror stories of various sorts from people working there, lots of people completely independently have reported sexism and Uber even admitted it with that whole "we're sexist but so is everyone else so come and work here" story.

I reckon there's no amount of evidence that would ever convince you that the corporate culture was a problem there. That's not skepticism, it's religion.

Strategy was wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem wasn't Mayer's leadership, but that she was the wrong person when she was picked for the Yahoo! CEO role back in 2012.

Their bankers, consultants, technical and strategy leaders should have realized their hopeless position, and fixed up the various parts of the company for a sale, with the aim of extracting the maximum price on the sale. They didn't need a Product Manager from Google, they needed a turnaround person from a PE firm.

Instead they spun their wheels for 3 years, falling further behind their competitors, with security compromises constantly demonstrating how weak and fundamentally broken their technology was.

Yep

[rsilvergun]

She's somebody's niece or something. It's nepotism (and the ruling class taking care of their own), not sexism.

Re:Yep

[deesine]

This. Skull & Bones, Bildabergers, Rothchilds, conspiracy about the world's corporate rulers and their secret societies -- none of that is needed to explain why the world's wealthiest people act tribal. Turns out tribalism isn't relegated to the under-developed. And people tend simply to look out for themselves and who they care about first.

She couldn't break "The Big Five"

[Anonymous Coward]

The top five US companies by market cap are now relative young tech companies based in either SV or Seattle, and all are considered platform-and-Internet companies. Yahoo wanted to make it six, but they didn't have a killer product or service to back it up. They did do a bunch of major infrastructure open source projects, such as Hadoop (that was in response to the Google papers), which was eventually spun off as Hortonworks I think. They couldn't figure out how to monetize it.

It should be noted that a long line of Yahoo CEOs failed, not just Mayer.

I do think Mayer did a good job modernizing Yahoo's front page. Yeah, she was overpaid.

Reading Between the Lines

[Anonymous Coward]

"Given the inherent changes to Marissa Mayer's role with Yahoo resulting from the closing of the transaction.."

In other words, "Thank you Marisa, but your position has been eliminated. We welcome you to apply to this new position we have for you: lead custodial engineer. In this role you would be in charge of cleaning out all the wastebaskets in Sector 7-G. Try not to think of this as a demotion. You would still be in charge of a very important part of the company and for that you should be proud."

$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

Under Marissa's tenure, the valuation of Yahoo went from $20 Billion to $49 Billion which is pretty damn impressive for a five year stretch. Why is everyone so anti-Marissa here on Slashdot, saying she ran the company into the ground?

Re:$29 Billion

[russotto]

Short memories. Mayer's position is basically that of someone appointed to captain the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. She probably took the job because she wanted "CEO" among her accomplishments, but bringing that ship safely to shore just wasn't going to happen. That she managed to delay the sinking this long is reasonably impressive.

Re:$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes she took over a company in bad shape but what did she do to improve the situation? I'm not going to commend someone for standing around and watching the place burn or worse yet setting a few new fires.

Re:$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, ignore the OP statement that Marissa saw the valuation increase by $29 Billion.

Re:$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

Short memories. Mayer's position is basically that of someone appointed to captain the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

It is possible that someone (and that someone might have been Mayer) could have been able to save the ship, but it did not happen. While one can certainly point to some bad decisions along the way, for Yahoo to survive as an independent company it would have required a few of the Hail Mary passes to be caught, and that did not happen (at least it did not happen before the end of the game).

Re:$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem everyone points out is she didn't do that. All the rise is due to Jerry Yang's investment in this tiny little Chinese company called Alibaba.

Re:$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

because it didn't, shares from alibaba cause that inflation that were purchased from before.

Re:$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why is everyone so anti-Marissa here on Slashdot?"

Challenge accepted.

1). Yahoo used to be both a thought leader and one of the highest earning of the early Internet companies. Those days haven't existed for, what, 15-20 years? And Marissa did nothing that changed that;
2). Yahoo effectively ceases to exist under this buyout and Meyer was the last CEO of Yahoo. This isn't a 'glorious new future for Yahoo', this is Yahoo's swan song;
3). I'll accept your valuation numbers at face value. Does anyone seriously believe that this change in valuation wasn't due to some financial engineering? If Yahoo's financial performance was so impressive, why did Yahoo get bought out and cease to exist? Does 'ceasing to exist' suddenly constitute corporate dominance and triumph? Gee, I remember a day when corporate dominance meant you were the one buying others out, not when others bought you out!
4). Yahoo banned working from home, despite having large numbers of their workforce doing so. Say what you will but this seems like a regressive step and it caused lots of resentment in the workforce. IBM's about-face on working from home isn't validation either, it looks more like MBA-led stupidity. Even if working from home had gotten out of hand and needed reigning in, there are low key, non-resentment breeding ways of accomplishing this;
5). The Golden Parachute. Say what you will, and lots of apologists have (and will). A payout this large, for this kind of performance, reeks of rewarding failure. This is the antithesis of "aligning executive compensation with corporate goals", which is the way that incentive-based pay packets are always passed at shareholder meetings. Yes, technically a Golden Parachute isn't annual compensation, but so what? Are you saying that the $23 million won't be paid out? And won't be paid out due to actions presumably taken by, or at least with the close involvement of Meyer?

The whole situation reeks of a careless attitude with Other People's Money.

Re:$29 Billion

[Tough Love]

IBM's retreat on remote work is only partial.

Re:$29 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

And? So?

Does regressive MBA-led stupidity somehow become less stupid because it is "partial"?

Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[drew_92123]

She was hired as a PR stunt because women were the hot thing in the CEO world at the time... too bad she was a terrible hire with an air tight contract that made it all but impossible for Yahoo to get rid of her. Yahoo *could* have been transformed and saved had she known more about technology than a backwoods inbred hillbilly.

Re: Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite true unfortunately. Mayer had no experience to be CEO and clearly was a poor leader. Investors would be wise to avoid PC attempts to install management that checks certain ideological boxes.

Re:Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[Anonymous Coward]

That all is true and I wouldn't mind fucking her.

Re:Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[serviscope_minor]

She was hired as a PR stunt because women were the hot thing in the CEO world at the time... too bad she was a terrible hire with an air tight contract that made it all but impossible for Yahoo to get rid of her.

See, here's why there's something of a reputation for rampant misogyny in the comments section. Yahoo had been in a bit of a decline, to put it mildly and was values at something like $20 billion in 2012. Now, as Marissa Mayer is leaving, the company it's final valuation on acquisition was $34 billion.

To me that looks like she did a pretty fucking amazing job. I thought Yahoo was down for the count, she nearly managed to double its value. But according to you she was only hired because she was a woman and did a bad job. You are completely divorced from reality.

Yahoo *could* have been transformed and saved had she known more about technology than a backwoods inbred hillbilly.

Alright genius, what would you have done to double the value over years?

Re:Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[Anonymous Coward]

See earlier reply.

Re: Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sat at my desk and watching alibaba shares go through the fucking roof while counting my money.

Fuck, you're not too good at this whole "thinking" thing, are you ?

Re:Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! Are you ignoring all the other comments here?

The bump in valuation was due to prior CEO Jerry Yang's investment in Alibaba.

Re:Fuck Marissa Mayer....

[Tough Love]

She was hired as a PR stunt because women were the hot thing in the CEO world at the time...

And what could possibly go wrong with hiring Larry's former bedwarmer and kicked-out-of-the-executive-suite CBCO (Chief Broom Closet Officer)?

Future endeavors=ruining more companies

[Anonymous Coward]

She should go take Travis Kalanick's job

The geology has to be right for this to work

[Applehu Akbar]

Verizon's plan is to locate a stable granite formation containing old mine tunnels, in which AOL assets can be permanently isolated from the biosphere under a concrete backfill.

Re:The geology has to be right for this to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilarious!

Credit?

[GerryHattrick]

Does anyone here think Ms. Mayer (in 'Corporate' terms), just might have done a good job for the formerly-benighted shareholders? In 'ordinary' companies (non-tech) the most senior people are - regrettably - not specialists in the underlying business, but hotshots in maximising value for the shareholders who validate their appointments. Failure is easy; she didn't. Well, my daughters are proud of her.

Re:Credit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, actually.
When she started, the share price was ~$16. It was ~$53 when she resigned. Nice rate of return - ~28% annually.
I'm glad she got a payout.

Of course, it should have been (float)INFINITY% annually,
which explains some of the hate.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

another cunt left.

RIP my 18 year old email account.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the rest of you? How many years old was your yahoo or aol email, or IM account when you shuttered it as a result of the Verizon buyout/closing?

Re:RIP my 18 year old email account.

[FunkSoulBrother]

I'm guessing it's 20 years old or more, not sure when they started doing webmail.

Mine actually has a 4 character password I made when I was a teenager that I've they've never forced me to update in all that time. I've always kept it that way out of a sense of nostalgia for web 1.0 -- not like the account is used for anything anymore.

Verizon and AT&T

[sconeu]

The completion of this sale puts Verizon and AT&T in a rather interesting position...

Namely, Verizon now controls a major competitor's (AT&T's) email servers.

Years ago, AT&T contracted out its customer (joe.blow@att.com, etc...) email to Yahoo! I actually have one of these addresses (kept it for nostalgic purposes, because it's a pacbell address, dating from the late '90s). So what happens with AT&T email now?

At least she raised the stock price

[jfdavis668]

She is the only CEO of Yahoo that was able to seriously raise the stock price of the company. The company was on a long, slow decline for most of its existence. She pulled it out of its nose-dive long enough to make it worth buying. Not purchasing Google when they had the chance was their biggest mistake.

Re:At least she raised the stock price

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure she was responsible for the stock price increase: source.

Re:At least she raised the stock price

[Anonymous Coward]

She did not attribute to this rise. Apparently, "the rise is due to Jerry Yang's investment in this tiny little Chinese company called Alibaba.".

Re:At least she raised the stock price

[jfdavis668]

That investment happened long before she took over and was part of the stock decline.

To be fair....

[p4nther2004]

I agree with you....for MOST hired CEO's. They're simply out to make money and don't give a damn about the company or the desire to "create".

That said...MOST self-made CEO's are entirely different.

• Fred Smith of FedEx - he cares about his company and what he is creating.
• Walt Disney

Re:To be fair....

[Anonymous Coward]

Walt Disney made money by using stories from the public domain, that is hardly innovative.

Re:we need more women role models

[Miamicoastguard]

Saddest day of my life when I found out she was married with children.

Why?

[TheSouthernDandy]

which it plans to combine with its AOL assets into a subsidiary called Oath, covering some 50 media brands and 1 billion people globally

Thank goodness Verizon was finally able to buy the dog shit for their Central Park diorama, because it just isn't a park without a healthy helping of dog turds.

OK, maybe Finance is worth something, possibly Sports I imagine, but what else does Yahoo bring? BRAND recognition? A savvy user base? Maybe they're conflating (defunct) accounts with "people"?

Worshipping ceos

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting that America worships its ceos, perhaps not all but many think img they are the answer for everything. Here again it's all MM fault - well it is or in the case of her parachute, her actions that make her worthy of the $$$.

So many websites list the board, as if they are all that counts. Sure they make a difference, but without everyone else they are nothing.

Ceos are the new aristocracy in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ceos are the new aristocracy in America. Kings and queens of old didn't earn the gold but they had castles after castles, and the same is true of ceos. They are overvalued in the same way for the same reason.

Oath

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon today announced that it has finally closed its acquisition of Yahoo, which it plans to combine with its AOL assets into a subsidiary called Oath

I see they're naming to accurately describe the user experience.

Yeah, nobody used Yahoo search before Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Altavista was the search engine before Google came along. No one has ever used Yahoo search on purpose, then or now. Only when it's set as a default and people don't know how to change to a better search engine.

Marrisa Mayer for CEO of Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Its pretty obvious Verizon bought Yahoo so they could take MM and make her their CEO.