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Comment by Lagged2Death | Hacker News Reader

I'm no biz-geek, I probably can't name a dozen CEOs. But for years, MM's name was called put in every critical mainstream headline about Yahoo, of which there were many. I do not believe that's an accident. I do not believe a man would have been treated the same way.

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> I'm no biz-geek, I probably can't name a dozen CEOs. But for years, MM's name was called put in every critical mainstream headline about Yahoo, of which there were many. I do not believe that's an accident. I do not believe a man would have been treated the same way.

"Twitter Is Betting Everything on Jack Dorsey. Will It Work?"

"Twitter, Grappling with Anemic Growth, Tries to Bolster Its Advertising Business. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, in Sun Valley, Idaho, this month."

"How Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Plans to Fix the Company - Fortune"

"Jack Dorsey comments on Twitter staying independent - Business ..."

"Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Confirms Layoffs With Tweet | WIRED"

Fair enough to look for a counterexample, I guess, but here's the thing: I've never heard of Jack Dorsey.

That's not surprising to me. I'm not a Twitter user and I don't read the biz-interest publications.

Meyer's name (always the obviously-feminine "Melissa," never just "Meyer", just like "Hillary" rather than simply "Clinton") in contrast, was plastered all over the NYT and other mainstream outlets from the start.

It's a subtle way of making the headline function as "lady CEO" without coming out and saying it.

> I do not believe a man would have been treated the same way.

This. Larry Ellison fucks around on a sailboat. Larry is busy with "X" for years. And no one bats an eye.

> This. Larry Ellison fucks around on a sailboat. Larry is busy with "X" for years. And no one bats an eye.

If Oracle's valuation was less than the combined valuation of holdings it owned in other companies such that its core business had an apparent negative valuation, there'd probably be more negative attention to Larry's extracurricular activities.

When you are seen to be succeeding, no one questions your methods -- success implicitly validates them. That's not about sex or gender, its about apparent success.

Oracle and Google both make astonishing amounts of money. Nobody (least of all shareholders) is marching on their headquarters with torches and pitchforks. So nobody cares what the leaders of those companies do with their time -- so long as their companies continue to make astonishing amounts of money.

If the money dries up, rest assured that the line of people demanding that the leaders start paying attention to the business would rapidly become quite long.

Exactly. Ellison seen on a mega boat tells you how well he is doing and thus the company. MM answering low-level employee emails in the middle of the night says she doesn't know what's going on.

He's not the CEO of Oracle anymore. He's the executive chairman only.

MM seems to be very polarizing because she got so much praise and attention when she became the Yahoo CEO without actually doing anything. She was the golden child CEO without any merit. I think people found this frustrating (I did) and so when we saw Yahoo doing poorly it's easy to point out that maybe MM isn't so great just for being a CEO who's also an attractive woman who will pose for magazine covers in a tight dress. Additionally, not many CEOs have a personal brand. MM obviously does, and so even despite everything I mentioned previously, she is going to get lots of attention, good and bad.

IME, male CEOs of formerly-high-flying-but-now-struggling companies are treated the same way that MM has been.

>IME, male CEOs of formerly-high-flying-but-now-struggling companies are treated the same way that MM has been.

Look at the headlines in the ongoing VW scandal.

"Volkswagen Chairman Agrees to Bonus Cut"

"VW Executives to Accept ‘Significant’ Bonus Cuts to Quell Unrest"

These people stand accused of criminal acts, hugely damaging to the business, and they don't even get named in the headlines.

Nor are their bonuses completely held back. Like what do these people have to do to simply lose their bonus?

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