Comment by Shenglong | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Shenglong | Hacker News Reader

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There's a good amount of criticism as well as praise for her, and I'm not entirely sure your question is entirely fair.

The reality of it all is that transformations take time, especially when things at Yahoo had been so Scott Thompson'd. Marissa has been rebuilding a sinking ship from the inside out - where most people would've just tried to patch it up as it slowly sank, or sold it off for parts; I think that's what's admirable. I think that's why people defend her. She dared to defy the status quo. She dared to employ the same dedication as founders do day in and day out, and she demonstrated over and over again, the audacity to take risks.

I find it stranger that more people don't defend her. All of us should know that technology companies thrive or die from the inside; it's why startup founders spend such a disproportionate amount of time hiring great people. To anyone who actually bothered to pause and compare Yahoo's culture today to yesterday's, it would be obvious that Marissa's conviction and aptitude is heralding a new era of prosperity; the transformation is apparent - and even if not yet absolute, it is still miraculous.

Remember: people -> product -> profit

>That’s why she has spent $2 billion on acquisitions, most notably the $1.1 billion for Tumblr, which instantly gave Yahoo a credible entry into social networking and user-generated content. (It was, in fact, a Tumblr post that was Patient Zero in “The Dress” contagion that ate the Internet last week.)

I think the above excerpt, is a good reflection of what I believe the OP means by defending MM.

It may be unfair to try to sum up MM's time as CEO in terms of acquisitions, but its simply what the media has highlighted and I am sure Yahoo wants the media banging that drum for all its worth. Therefore, if the biggest argument for the $1.1B Tumblr acquisition is pointing to the latest viral post, I consider that running to her defense. From the tone of this article, the stockholders are demanding cost savings (sounds like less employees), new revenue streams and a general direction for the company. For better or worse the CEO is responsible for making the stockholders happy, I personally think Yahoo's niche could be in privacy - give users alternatives to Google, Facebook, Gmail, cloud storage with a focus on what people want...privacy. IMHO Yahoo has always had a respectable focus on the cross section of technology, privacy and human rights (maybe one of the first in tech to create a human rights program).

privacy typically does not drive revenue up, unless you are violating it. this might be something your social circle claims to want, but if you look at the "average" person, they have next to zero concern for their privacy.

New startup idea: convert existing privacy-apathetic customers of big companies like Google/Yahoo into privacy-aware customers who fear their data or identity being stolen, then sell conversions to a Google/Yahoo competitor who values privacy more highly.

If fear mongering works for wars, it should work for tech company privacy concerns meets mass consumerism!

/s .. or is it?

>this might be something your social circle claims to want,

Professionally I practice law so yes, myself and my colleagues are concerned about government entities violating not just privacy but the attorney client-privilege...though I digress and this is not what I am talking about, but it does happen.

>but if you look at the "average" person, they have next to zero concern for their privacy.

The "average" person isn't using Yahoo, that's why it would be a niche. I'll leave you with a interesting quote: "A search engine whose users consisted of the top 10,000 hackers and no one else would be in a very powerful position despite its small size, just as Google was when it was that search engine."[1]

[1]http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html

It's an interesting thought for sure, I just don't see how you sell it to shareholders. If I had to make a baseless assumption, I'd say the bulk of yahoos users are seniors who moved on from AOL, and don't know any difference.

I would be really interesting to see yahoos audience demographics to confirm or deny that though.. Perhaps they have a larger international audience I'm not aware of.

I think that makes sense. It would also explain the articles I see about Microsoft's new ceo Nadella. Thanks

To anyone who actually bothered to pause and compare Yahoo's culture today to yesterday's, it would be obvious that Marissa's conviction and aptitude is heralding a new era of prosperity;

That is the complete opposite of what I've heard from those still at Yahoo.

Yes her mandated Quarterly Performance Review system in which managers were forced to put a % of employees in under performing buckets single handedly damaged the moral more than anything in the companies history.

Didn't Microsoft do something similar to this in past? Heck there's a Wiki about this type of screwup:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve#Companies_utiliz...

> in which managers were forced to put a % of employees in under performing buckets

... except other managers, of course! ;-)

I'm an ex-Yahoo, and I feel that Yahoo has too many layers of management. Marissa would be well served by reducing the ratio of managers to engineers to something like 1:10 (currently I've heard it's close to 1:3, but that's just rumor and speculation).

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