> I don't think the failure is on Mayer; Yahoo was a walking zombie before she arrived.
But they brought her on and paid her amply to specifically fix this problem. As a result she shares part of the blame for Yahoo's failure to right the ship.
But they brought her on and paid her amply to specifically fix this problem. As a result she shares part of the blame for Yahoo's failure to right the ship.
Do I fault the oncologist? Depends. Is there any reasonable expectation of success? Was the failure mode that ended up panning out one that could have been avoided with known courses of action? Was there any "user error"? Similar questions could be asked of Yahoo, and while I realize that I + most people not in a yahoo boardroom probably don't have sufficient visibility or background to answer decisively, never felt the external signals (her management decisions) I've seen demonstrated a course of action I would have been confident in.
Now, that could in and of itself be debated, but I think it's only a peripheral argument to the core point: Is compensation commensurate to the work done? (Which frankly I often think is the subtext in these CEO discussions) This is where a large amount of my personal issue lies, since regardless of which direction I think Yahoo could move, the course of action taken was "iffy" and the compensation extreme. Winding down a lost cause? Could have been done without nearly as much expenditure, and likely with greater shareholder value. Reviving a faltering company? Clearly has not happened. Nevertheless, she is pocketing hundreds of millions for what is by all standards a failed job.
So again, do I fault the oncologist (CEO) for failing to treat the terminal cancer (business failure), if all other options are undesirable? Probably not more than as the parent said, they "share a hand" in it, but to me that does not necessarily entail a declaration of aggressive "fault". Do I pay them exponential multiples of a typical salary to do so? Probably not. I realize that from this 10000 foot view it's a very subjective argument, but to go into line items requires a good deal more time than this post before work allows, and I hope this conveys the idea sufficiently even so.
* She took the helm of a failing company; is it reasonable to think that she was going to be able to turn it around, from any rational perspective?
* She was paid a lot of money to turn it around; is a CEO essentially paid to "take the blame" when a company fails /for whatever reason?/
The former is a question of business physics, if you will, and my personal belief is that she is not at fault in any real sense. Yahoo was a company on life support for several years before she got there. Nothing was going to turn that around. If anything, the point of bringing her in was to prop up the company long enough to cash in on Alibaba, and in that she certainly succeeded.
The latter question goes to a debate we should definitely be having regarding executive compensation, and one in which I probably agree with both you and other (somewhat self-righteous) respondents to my comment. She was paid far too much. However, in that she cannot be faulted any more than any other well-compensated CEO in the world, regardless of success. To say that she was paid far too much /to fail/ implies that had she succeeded the pay would have been appropriate. The notion that there's some outcome that warrants executive compensation on that level is not one I subscribe to.
A better metaphor might be: Yahoo! was like an old rusted out car. You hire someone who tells you how they can fix this car, you pay them a lot of money, and then they leave the car in worse shape than when you hired them. How much blame do they deserve?
Which is to say: A new CEO absolutely can turn a failing business around -- that's what she was being paid tons and tons of money to do. If Meyer did feel like Yahoo! was a completely lost cause or that she would be incapable of fixing its problems, then she should not have taken their money. As an extremely wealthy person to begin with, she had that luxury.
In short: She absolutely has culpability in the failure of Yahoo!.
Also: Yahoo! had a ton of resources in a rapidly-growing industry. I highly doubt turning Yahoo! around would be impossible. Hard, maybe. And maybe many people had already sort of given up the game and moved on to better things. But, again: If you're CEO, it's your responsibility to turn the company around. That's why you get the big bucks.
What I was commenting on was the implication that any company can be turned around. I don't think that's true.
Yeah, especially if the "oncologist" told the patient to change their t-shirt to purple to cure the cancer. Eg:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened-whe...
" For months, the team had settled on blue and gray. If users were going to read emails on their phones all day long, the thinking went, it was best to choose the most subtly contrasting hues. But now, Mayer explained, she wanted to change the colors to various shades of purple, which she believed better suited Yahoo’s brand.
ccording to one senior executive, Sharma’s body language changed the moment Mayer issued her request. He looked deflated. Altering the color of such an intricate product would require that members of his team spend all night adjusting colors in thousands of places. He slumped off and prepared to tell his staff the bad news. "
How is "it" possible given the fact that the engineers all made the last minute changes Mayer demanded and the outcome was unsuccessful?
If said oncologist has the hubris to claim they can...while accepting $100M+ to do it then, yes...yes I do.
https://www.themuse.com/advice/negotiating-success-what-to-l...
In hindsight this is tough to accept. Her only job experience was with Google, while that is impressive Google was it's own rocketship that was skyward from the get-go, she had no experience taking over a project on a downward slide and turn it around, she was also demoted while at Google. But hindsight is always 20/20, and maybe no one else more qualified wanted the job at Yahoo...?