Of all the tech companies in the world, it’s hard to imagine one less appealing for exhaustive treatment in a book than Yahoo, a firm that has meandered from one bad strategy to another for more than a decade and lost its cultural currency before Mark Zuckerberg even started Facebook in his dorm room. But a book about Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, is an entirely different story.
Like Hollywood, corporate America has its stars. And Mayer is one of them. Even before she became the leader of Yahoo two years ago, Mayer’s rise was the stuff of Silicon Valley lore. She was one of the earliest employees at Google — a brilliant Stanford grad who had her pick of companies but, because she could sense the startup’s potential, chose to work at a company focused on Web search. She quickly rose to a powerful perch overseeing the look and feel of Google’s consumer products, from search and Gmail to Google Maps. Users responded, flocking to Google’s products and abandoning rivals such as Hotmail and MapQuest. In an industry where women are a rarity, here was one in the top ranks who also wrote code. Soon, Mayer became a face of Google, routinely appearing on magazine covers and on TV to brag about the company’s latest products.
When she left Google in 2012 to run Yahoo at age 37, her star power only grew. She was pregnant when she accepted the job — news that shocked the business world but a milestone that Mayer carried off with aplomb. There were more magazine photo spreads, including a much-discussed Vogue feature showing Mayer posed upside down in a lounge chair, her blonde hair fanned out, holding a tablet with her face on the screen.
Two years into her tenure at Yahoo, the only question is: Has any of Mayer’s glow brightened Yahoo’s prospects?
In his new book, “Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!,” Business Insider writer Nicholas Carlson concludes that, for all the fanfare, Mayer hasn’t delivered much. Of course, you don’t need a 300-page book to reach that conclusion. The company’s financial results on Mayer’s watch have been unimpressive. Revenue from the company’s most recent quarter is essentially flat, compared with when she started. The stock is up, but that’s because of Yahoo’s valuable stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, rather than anything Mayer has done.
What Carlson offers, instead, is juicy details about Mayer’s missteps and management style. For instance, she handed over responsibility for Yahoo’s revenue, sales force and media business to Henrique De Castro, a former top sales executive at Google, even though he had no experience for a job of such magnitude. To Mayer’s credit, she fired De Castro when he turned out to be a disaster.
Mayer also has stumbled in her attempts to turn Yahoo into a successful media company. She starved the budget for Shine, the company’s popular Internet destination for women that brought in $45 million a year. She poured money into launching “digital magazines,” hiring personalities such as TV anchor Katie Couric and tech columnist David Pogue. But advertising revenue from ads running alongside Yahoo content also is declining.
All in all, reading “Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!” makes one thing clear: The question isn’t whether Mayer can save Yahoo. It’s whether Yahoo can be saved at all. Either way, Mayer remains the most interesting thing about Yahoo. And she appears to be unstoppable.
NONFICTION: INSIDE LOOK
Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!
by Nicholas Carlson (Twelve)
