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Comment by jinglbox | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs worked himself to the bone and took zero money for years when he was trying to save Apple. That's what a good faith effort looks like. If he had failed he would have wasted years and got nothing in return. If Mayer had done this I would be impressed. But Mayer had no vision, didn't put in the effort required, and milked Yahoo for a hundred million dollars she didn't earn. Silicon Valley loves failure like Elon Musk's rockets blowing up the first few times. But not this corrupt Wall Street-style failure. Marissa Mayer's failure at Yahoo was caused by pure incompetence, negligence, and laziness of all involved. Nothing about it that deserves praise.

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"... milked Yahoo for a hundred million dollars she didn't earn."

"Marissa Mayer's failure at Yahoo was caused by pure incompetence, negligence, and laziness of all involved. Nothing about it that deserves praise."

I just wanted to thank you for this comment, because it is important that we get the facts straight. There was not one thing she brought in the company that showed a hint to financial success.

She is overrated at an almost fraudulent level.

> an almost fraudulent level

Fraud isn't a function of magnitude. A $2 fraud and $2 billion fraud are both fraud.

What matters is intent, the concealment of material facts and the victim's harm resulting from the foregoing.

Reading some other comments, I think the suggestion is that the overrating was fraudulent. In which case the price is a relevant factor. Mayer was worth some amount of money, a mild overestimate would be human error, but a massive overestimate would be evidence towards a fraud claim (in the sense that the error would demand explanation as unintentional). I don't endorse that on a Mayer-specific level, but I think it's the shape of the argument.

None of which disagrees with you, it's just an interesting note for assessing what a hypothetical fraudulent CEO appointment would look like. Presumably it would factor in price in the sense of "could a reasonable person assess the CEO's worth at this value?"

Appendum: When I said "She is overrated at an almost fraudulent level." I meant the she and other people from the board created an image of superiority around Meyer, that led to and justified a fantastic compensation plan. Then when you compare this fantasy image to her real accomplishments, the term "delusion" would not be wrong. And at a certain level of delusion, we can also name it fraud. Yes, I think this is fraud.

What facts are you referring to and what does overrated at a fraudulent level mean?

Basically she Trumped it or is Trump going to Mayerr it? (Promise bullish ideas and deliver high grade bullshit)

Sorry to drag in politics, but I could not resist this cheap-shot.

Not sure why a "good faith effort" requires taking such a crazy amount of personal risk. Yahoo was willing to pay millions to the exec they thought had the best chance to turn the company around. She should have declined that and and unnecessarily played on Extra Hard mode instead?

That's why the responsibility was on the board to find somebody willing and capable of playing Extra Hard.

Obviously if finding good CEOs who would work for free at failing companies was easy, all boards would do that.

Turns out it's not.

I'm trying to imagine Jobs taking a 'free' turnaround role somewhere other than Apple. That was a labor of love, but it's pretty hard to import talent on those grounds - particularly if no one has significant affection for your brand.

Part of the power of startups (and Apple) is that they get some economically-irrational commitments from people who care deeply about them, and it's pretty unfair to expect that for other organizations.

The money they paid out to Meyer was not a problem for yahoo, even from a opportunity cost perspective. Deciding to only pay someone willing to work for close to nothing would have been really foolish. Not sure what you are proposing other than like bringing back Jerry Yang.

Sorry, my comment was too short. I said nothing about money. I simply pointed out that they should have done more due diligence when choosing the CEO. (Based on what I read at the time though, sounds like they didn't even try -- they went for short-term gains based on her name recognition).

You don't think that a public CEO's incentives should be aligned with their shareholders?

That's the only way you can have real change, instead of the moral hazard situation we have now.

It's funny how many on the right (not you, mind you!) simultaneously hold that

- the rich are sensitive to incentives, and big option packages and low taxes are required to align them with the shareholder and make them work hard enough

- the rich are not sensitive to incentives, being so rich that they do not need any extra money, therefore are basically immune to corruption and not really in need of any legal oversight

Sure, in the form of stock, incentive bonuses, etc. Not the entire salary

Why not the entire salary? If you're already worth $100m, you're working for fun and prestige not because you need cash to pay your rent.

All the famous rich ceos have tiny salaries and make their money on capital gains. It's more tax efficient to boot!

You're worth $100m and are running in a crowd of high achievers worth a lot more, suddenly it doesn't feel like very much even when all of your basic needs are more than met.

The human condition is such that we want what we don't have and we can never have enough.

> If he had failed he would have wasted years and got nothing in return.

Steve Jobs' personal wealth is mainly from Pixar (acquired by Disney) and less from Apple, especially after SEC shut down the goldmine of backdated options http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2007/01/snow...

Yes, and he was already rich from previous money he made in Apple's early days. Just like Marissa Mayer was already rich from Google stock.

Neither needed the money at all. Jobs knew that and didn't take any. Mayer for some reason took as much as possible.

> "For some reason"

We don't need a narrative of sacrifice to glorify an exec with. She has a family, 100 different wealthy suitors if she were to look, and the board approved the compensation because they thought it was worth the risk of turning the company around. The reason was because she could and had to reason not to.

Jobs was paid in the form of the NeXT acquisition and the personal vindication of being brought back and turning things around. He was strongly personally invested.

Mayer was brought into a company in a death spiral, that she had no strong personal investment in, presumably knowing very well that odds of failure were great and will likely affect her future opportunities (I'm sure she'll do fine, but I'm sure she'd have done better if she'd gone to a big success)

How many people would take the Yahoo! CEO job without a significant risk premium over their market rate?

> for some reason

I know, crazy, like what kind of person would accept that kind of money if offered? It really boggles the mind. Hell, I was offered a raise recently, but I told them no way. I won't play that game!

Literally 3x what the average Fortune 500 CEO was paid.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/09/maris...

Don't blame Marissa for simply accepting what the CEO market was willing to pay her. You and I and every single human being would do no different in her shoes. If you have a problem with it, blame the market for poor judgement in capital allocation.

What? If you already have $100+ million in the bank it's a given you'd take a crap job just for more play money?

The whole point of FU money (which she already had) is you get to make big decisions, like what you're going to spend the next 5 years doing, without worrying about personal financial impact.

> Jobs knew that and didn't take any.

His total grants from 1997 and until death amounted to 5.5 mln AAPL shares (one would have to multiple this number by 7 to account for 2014 stock split).

right, they should pay Marissa with Yahoo (sorry, Altaba) stock. vesting in 3 years.

> Neither needed the money at all. Jobs knew that and didn't take any. Mayer for some reason took as much as possible.

Apple was a company that Jobs founded and got fired from. Coming back to "save" it would have been a very personal battle, and a way to prove people that fired him wrong.

Why on earth would anyone want to do the same at Yahoo for free (and tie their personal reputation to the success or failure), even if they didn't need the money?

As one of the founders, Jobs had an emotional investment in Apple you could never expect from an outsider brought in to helm a mature company.

The problem with Yahoo is nobody knows what the company does. I don't see how anybody could have turned what amounts to a couple popular news websites into something like Google or Apple without engaging in some kind of very-low-odds moon shot.

What they probably should have done was liquidated the company. The web sites would have fetched top dollar, and the company has technical expertise in business units that seem to be pretty much wasted at this point.

Difficult to say how much "good faith effort" she put in but nobody questions her commitment and work ethic. It's fairly well-documented, perhaps to a fault: http://www.redbookmag.com/life/money-career/a45516/marissa-m...

I am not suggesting that working long hours, even as CEO, is necessary or even good for success but I, for one, would definitely not assume Mayer isn't really trying to do a show of good faith, regardless of how much money Yahoo and its board agreed to pay her.

Steve Jobs was paid in stocks. A lot.

If she had been willing to be paid that heavily in stock she would be looked at very differently.

I agree. Skin in the game.

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