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Comment by brianbreslin | Hacker News Reader

Here are my thoughts on this: - Mayer's tenure at the helm of a big co like this is over, she will take a multi year hit before she resurfaces somewhere else (will take a while for her to get another CEO job)

- Yahoo still has tons of traffic (default browser tabs?), though the quality of it is questionable.

- If someone can pull a 1980s style buy and chop up and resell deal, they could extract positive value instantly. They are trading right now at a negative value to their cash.

- Can someone buy the company and then sell the email users to google? The search traffic to Microsoft?

- They are going to need to lay off thousands of people (many might be best off quitting now and beating the crowds to the market)

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I want to play devil's advocate here, just a bit. Looking at it solely from a stock price perspective, she's done remarkably well: the share price roughly doubled during her tenure there. Obviously there are a lot of other metrics to look at, but if you're a struggling company as Yahoo was, that's probably enough to consider hiring her.

Not to mention, I think a lot of people would argue that Yahoo was a sinking ship regardless of who was running it. She'll probably spend some time with her family, and eventually pop up at some other company that's looking to turn things around.

> I want to play devil's advocate here, just a bit. Looking at it solely from a stock price perspective, she's done remarkably well: the share price roughly doubled during her tenure there. Obviously there are a lot of other metrics to look at, but if you're a struggling company as Yahoo was, that's probably enough to consider hiring her.

She has done terribly. The stock price has little to do with her and almost everything to do with Alibaba. If you remove Alibaba she is now in control of a company worse less than its cash.

> She has done terribly. The stock price has little to do with her and almost everything to do with Alibaba. If you remove Alibaba she is now in control of a company worse less than its cash.

Wasn't that the case when she started, too?

One could argue that she was hired to fix that, though. And failed.

Sure, but when was the last time Y! had a successful CEO? Terry Semel before people he fell out of favor? Lasting 4 years is pretty good.

Tough to say, Alibaba wasn't public when she started so no one knew how much Yahoo's stake was worth. The stock had a nice period before the IPO when people who wanted to buy BABA shares instead bought YHOO because they were available. It didn't hurt that the market was red hot and there were huge expectations for BABA.

If you take out Alibaba, she has delivered net negative value.

You could have taken out the Alibaba share at the start of her tenure and that would be worth more than Yahoo today.

> She'll probably spend some time with her family, and eventually pop up at some other company that's looking to turn things around.

... e.g. Twitter

Why you think any other company would hire her to turn things around given her performance at Yahoo really baffles me? And you are even jumping the gun by suggesting the name of companies?!

Definitely not true. The only reason why stock has gone up is because Alibaba valuation went up during her tenure. It has nothing to do with Marissa. If you listen to her analyst calls, she keeps on talking about her Maven strategy and that has gone nowhere - wrt the rest of the market.

> will take a while for her to get another CEO job

Genuinely curious: Why would she get another CEO job (excluding startups and sinking ships)? There was no reason to think she would do a good job at Yahoo, she has no track record of success as a CEO, she certainly can't point to anything she's done at Yahoo, and as far as I can tell, people don't like working for her.

Because CEO jobs (as with most other valuable things in life) aren't doled out solely based on merit or track record. Mayer is one of the few women in a high-profile position in the Valley, and hiring a female CEO can be good for optics.

Agree.

Judging her on her track record would just be sexist.

To be fair most of the male CEOs get hired because of their story rather than raw skills. Honestly, the dye has been cast before Mayer entered the fray, but she cashed the hype and that was my only point of criticism. She will live to be CEO of another company and it could be sooner than most of us expect.

Was the die cast before Steve Jobs returned to Apple? I read it had less than 1 year of runway. I do not think Yahoo has ever been in such a dire position...

Steve Jobs was a rare talented individual who actually mattered in the CEO position.

Many CEOs have negligible impact.

It may be an arguable point, but I think at bare minimum she brings some value via bringing ton of cache and PR with her, so she may be a good fit for a small firm that could benefit from a lot of press and razzle dazzle.

She seems absolutely obsessed with the fashion industry (why did Yahoo need to open an office in Milan and spend $3 million sponsoring the Met Fashion Gala) so perhaps some sort of online fashion store would be a good fit, like Net-A-Porter, Shop Bob or Poylvore.

It would be extremely amusing if Mayer ended up running Polyvore, a Yahoo! acquisition that she has been criticized for[0].

0: http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-...

Too bad Camille stepped down, but I'm sure Rent the Runway could use some serious new talent.

Even if you think she failed, AND if you think this was her fault, she now has a LOT more experience at being a CEO than someone who has never been a CEO.

That's like saying "bet all your money on that horse, because it has lost a race and knows more about racing than a horse that doesn't race."

Seriously, it doesn't make sense. You can pick other people, who haven't been CEOs yet, but have shown potential. She never showed potential. Quite the contrary I'd say.

Running a company and running around a race track might be different sorts of skills.

Hmmm. Yeah unfortunately this isn't one of those "I just learned 1000 ways of how not to make a lightbulb" kind of things.

There aren't enough high profile companies for Mrs Mayers to expend until she acquires those skills, which we know she doesn't have. If for some reason she acquires them in the future, good for her. I wouldn't invest on that hope though, and you have no argument to convince anyone that they should.

In case you haven't noticed yet, CEOs and board members all appoint each other on various other corporate boards and in various companies.

Once you're in the inner circle, unless you messed up MAJORLY (i.e. bankrupted a billion dollar company), you'll always be able to get a new gig at some point.

Yes, it's not always a meritocracy - yes, that's how the world works. If I sit on a board, would I rather appoint my buddy, who will have my back? Of course.

As much as I think Marissa did a terrible job, she didn't pick the easiest company to become CEO of. Some CEOs have it easier than other; certain companies run on autopilot and have just a few major competitors.

I know and agree with everything you say. I was just replying to my parent who was trying to spin this as an advantage for Marissa, under the context of "all else being equal".

Under your context, which is indeed the reality, both my comment and my parent's comment are irrelevant.

Highly unlikely she will get another CEO job. She has made a lot of money from Yahoo and Google. She will most likely become a VC and funding startups that have design angle.

Why will she become a VC? So she can waste her money? VC has the worst returns out of any investment class.

If you mean invest other people's money as a VC, then maybe, but I haven't seen her show any interest in that.

VC is where high-profile tech execs are put out to pasture (see: Marc Andreessen, Dick Costolo, Reid Hoffman, Phil Libin, Peter Thiel). You won't see Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos becoming a VC any time soon (or probably ever).

And of course she will be investing other people's money, not her own.

http://www.bezosexpeditions.com/

Bezos runs a VC. (With Bezos, it's super dangerous to say he won't do X; chances are he's got a 30 minute meeting scheduled for 2am Sunday morning to review his X operation.)

Just because Bezos makes some investments doesn't make him a VC ('runs a VC,' as you put it, isn't the same thing and also isn't really accurate). His primary job is running Amazon, and the idea that he's got his hands in all kinds of pies ('it's dangerous to say he won't do X') is just an illusion he's been very successful at creating.

Online retail, cloud and networking services, original content creation, audiovisual content distribution services, video games, mobile phones, eBooks, audiobooks, video codecs, self-publishing, service marketplaces, freight/shipment services, money transfer services, grocery delivery...

I don't believe you are correct to say that Bezos/Amazon are only successful at creating the illusion of diversification. Amazon's encroachment into many different fields is baked right into the company's business model.

Source: I worked for Audible, an Amazon subsidiary, for four years.

... newspaper/website, rocket ships, ...

same issue as expert exchange url

We track his firm in our platform - they've made some pretty solid investments in the past two years and co-invested with some heavy hitters.

http://imgur.com/ZLmV68b

Biotech has some gigantic "early stage" raises - is that typical?

Yah, pretty common - very hard to get off the ground and require a ton of cash early, but boy oh boy when they pay out...

VC is what bored rich people do when they want to still feel relevant but not actually have to work any more.

I think more important is the fact that she probably doesn't need another job. She's worth $380 million apparently - why would she bother?

You'll be surprised. For some people $380m is not enough especially you know when Jack over at Twitter and Zucker over at Facebook have more money.

And Larry Ellison is worth what, 40billion or something silly? He still works like a beast at Oracle every day.

Working at the company you founded and is one of the most successful in history is a lot different than riding Yahoo into the ground and trying to find another gig.

It is not about the money anymore. That milestone was left far behind even before she joined Yahoo - she was worth $250M then.

It is about power.

Well, if she can't "get" another CEO job, she can just create one. She's got enough money and contacts to simply start her own company and be its CEO.

It is easier for a "failed" CEO to become CEO of a new company, than it is for a non CEO to become a CEO (of a publicly traded company of significant size)

>Mayer's tenure at the helm of a big co like this is over, she will take a multi year hit before she resurfaces somewhere else (will take a while for her to get another CEO job)

That's a shame really, we need diversity in tech, and she could continue her excellent job in a company like Microsoft or Apple.

That would also help ending a monopoly, so everybody would win.

> That's a shame really, we need diversity in tech

Diversity for diversity's sake is not the goal (seems what you're implying, unless I misunderstood).

"That would also help ending a monopoly, so everybody would win." makes it sound like he was sarcastic, but I'm not sure.

I missed that part. I guess you're right.

Don't worry about Mayer. She can follow the path blazed by another bozotic Silicon Valley CEO and run increasingly high profile elected office. After all, if you can ruin a company, you can ruin a nation.

Didn't work for Carly Fiorna, either at HP, the Gov of CA, or her (now) failed presidential bid.

Perhaps they can go for joint speaking gigs[0], now that they both have plenty of free time on their hands.

0: http://fortune.com/2016/02/11/carly-fiorina-speaking-gig/

You forgot that Fiorina ran for the Senate (in 2010). It was Whitman who ran for Governor.

Touche, you're right, but still just further my point.

It's pretty unfair to say Mayer ruined anything. She didn't save Yahoo, but there is no evidence it was ever in a position to be saved by her.

If a pet rock was installed as CEO instead of Mayer Yahoo would be a more valuable company today. She didn't ruin it, but she sure helped shove it off the cliff.

That is a fairly extreme position to put forth as an unsupported assertion.

What has she done to provide value to Yahoo shareholders? She has had many failed acquisitions, failed to navigate the Alibaba situation to expectations, failed to stem the brain drain and even punted and hired McKinsey to help with her tough reorg decisions.

When Mayer took over Yahoo, it was a poison chalice. I don't think anyone could have turned Yahoo around unless they were truly exceptional. For the truly exceptional, Yahoo would give them little benefit and they could do better elsewhere (financially and recognition wise).

Mayer's performance had nothing to do with her gender. I'm adding this statement to respond to some other peoples' comments.

I also wholly agree that diversity for diversity's sake is idiotic. Can't wait to read The Verge and Ars Technica spins on this one..

Why would wall street value a company at less than its book value? Struggling to understand how that could make sense.

As an example - imagine a company with a billion $ in cash. If investors believe that the company will be wasteful with that money (for example by making poor acquisitions as is sometimes the case with companies with an excess of cash) then investors will value the company at less than a billion $.

I've heard it said that stock price is the market's best estimate of the NPV of future cash flows. If that's true, does that mean that the market expects some of Yahoo's cash to disappear? I can imagine ways that it could: lawsuits, golden parachutes, maybe even stupid acquisitions...

In general, though, the market is not as rational as it's credited with being. Perfect information never exists, and emotion can distort prices; think of Black Tuesday, or all stock-market bubbles, or how MLPs are falling right now because of problems with Kinder Morgan (which isn't even an MLP in the first place).

you usually bad mouth things you want to buy. it brings the price down.

One obvious reason would be if they don't trust the book value. For example, if the assumptions made in computing the book value are systematically wrong in some way.

Taxes. You might have to pay extra to convert assets into cash.

I didn't realize Wall Street had to make sense. Is that a new rule?

A lot of people believe in the efficient markets hypothesis

If you believe that they don't make sense, take the opposite position

She could easily morph into a VC or professional board director, and make plenty of money without the headaches of being a public company CEO. She doesn't need the money at all.

The irony is despite the company sinking, Yahoo is still a great place to have on a resume, and boasts a loyal alumni network.

> The search traffic to Microsoft?

IIRC Yahoo Search is powered by Bing so I'm not sure what MS will gain from that besides brand name

I think that deal was expiring, and they split revenue on that traffic with yahoo, 30% of yahoo's revenue comes from that deal. So could add a couple more Bs to Microsoft's top-line.

She's not getting another crack at CEO. She's done. She'll sit on a board or two, maybe.

I don't know about that. The business world tends to recycle CEO's like the NFL recycles head coaches. And for something of the same reason - some people believe it's better to hire somebody who's done a job and failed (and learned a lot about what went wrong and what to do better next time), as opposed to hiring somebody who's never done the job at all. Some look at it as "I'd rather hire somebody who got trained on someone else's dime".

I'm not necessarily endorsing this position, but I think it has at least some merit.

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