Seeing as this happened 20 years ago and she was quoting from memory, I think we can give her the benefit of the doubt. It could have also been that her view at the time was different than OP's/the person who made the deal & she recalls her opinion as "how it was".

Such things in-fact happened to me (even tho I'm a bit younger than Mayer & my career started a few years later than hers), human memory is really unreliable & a lot of times you remember your feelings & translate those to facts upon recollection even when that wasn't quite the case.

And unless the people who were at Google at the time were in the meetings, they are merely speculating.

I was at Netscape and was actually in meetings that marca, and others were not in, and it's funny to hear what they say happened, when they weren't in the room, nor were they consulted. Even the people at the top can be guilty of speculation.