"Keep Moving": Marissa Mayer's First Memo to Yahoos | Hacker News Reader

"Keep Moving": Marissa Mayer's First Memo to Yahoos

allthingsd.com

31 pointsdave161929 comments

It is fun to see this memo, but it does not tell me anything useful. I will be looking for three key things that will determine a lot about how Marissa's tenure will go.

1. When she starts actually changing things, what changes will she make? The importance of this is obvious?

2. Who is going to follow her from Google? Sure, she's not allowed to solicit, but people are allowed to solicit her. Good execs usually have a core follow them to a new position, and this core is essential to any possibility of success. (For an extreme and unlikely example, if Jeff Dean were to follow her, I'd buy Yahoo stock immediately, even if I had to borrow money to do it.)

3. What will motherhood take out of her? Like a lot of high-powered women, she appears to think of motherhood as being something she can limit and compartmentalize. Judging from the experience of other new parents that I have known, and my memories of my own children, she's in for a shock. What will the impact be? (She may or may not succeed in hiding it.)

> "Please come by my office in building D on the third floor and say hello."

I'd add another (possibly minor) item to your list, which is 'What actually happens if an employee goes to her office in building D on the third floor to say hello?'

Might sound trite but if someone makes this offer and those who take it up get rebuffed then I'd say it's not a good signal. Sure, she's crazy busy but she didn't have to make the offer and anyone who turns up obviously cares to some extent.

Is nobody here working at a public company? These memos all look the same. They mean exactly nothing and people really do not care about them. Want a free template, here you go:

Dear $EMPLOYESS_OF_COMPANY,

$COMPANY is close to my heart because, because, because.

You people are the most important asset. Talent. Innovation. Amazing. Don't drop the ball. Bla bla bla. Need time to figure out what to do next.

Thank you $FORMER_CEO.

Talk to me.

$NEW_CEO

> You people are the most important asset. [Except I will become the highest paid one by an obscene multiple order of magnitude.] Talent. Innovation. Amazing. Don't drop the ball. Bla bla bla. Need time to figure out what to do next.

added something to the template

I like the context-appropriate use of sigils. Nice touch.

An idea for companies sending out "do not forward" memos:

Have specific words in the memo (eg: first adjective in paragraph #1, verb in paragraph #2 and adjective in sentence #5) and use combinations of randomly selected words (or punctuation) to create a "signature" for each recipient. Would be easy enough to do automatically. For example employee #1 gets "This move is great for the company..." and employee #2 gets "This move is brilliant for the company..."

Although I guess if you need to do such a thing you have bigger problems and if employees know such a thing is done then they'll obfuscate their own memos when sharing.

Presumably they might already attempt to do this -- the article reads:

> I took that to heart in tracking down this do-not-forward-oops memo — which I changed around a bit to thwart those who try to stop me from getting these emails via tricky computer programs — so enjoy.

It's been done. There's a link on HN few years ago about a company doing exactly that. Can't find it now, though.

I think it's better to make even more subtle changes like replacing some normal spaces with non-breaking spaces, or using digraphs in some words and not in others.

That sounds easier to mechanically revert, though.

Wow, I'm impressed she invited anybody to stop by her office anytime to meet her and share ideas. Pretty cool.

Based on Google's culture (or what I have heard about it), I don't think this is surprising.

It also lets her get introduced to the people at Yahoo! who have ideas, those that are still passionate about the company, and those that will make a difference.

The only reason this isn't surprising is that every new executive in the history of business has proclaimed an open door policy. Email would be far more efficient to deliver and review ideas on their merits. Open door is more about gauging the political climate and finding out who will be a follower from the get-go, who is star struck, etc.

And then they go on to put secretaries in the room in front of the open door to stop people from going through the doorway.

I once happened to walk past the open door to the office of the Director of the CIA. I briefly considered walking in to say, "Hi," but then I thought better of it.

IIRC, Scott Thompson had an open-door policy as well. I remember because in the leaked email he mentioned it after acknowledging layoffs.

Such offers tend to be self-limiting, though. Most people will know whether they are really welcome.

I'd love to see her take that cash and talent and completely throw the company through a renaissance. Yeah, fire all those people like everyone else is saying. Now run the company like a start-up. A start-up that has 2.5B and is profitable on projects on cruise-control.

Google is getting love and attention for the ambitious ideas it has about the future, yet it's still focusing resources on G+. Yahoo! has an opportunity to focus entirely on it's own ambitious visions.

What will be interesting is to see if yahoo now becomes more google-like and the two companies try to compete to be the most relevant. Google is very cult like in it's image of corporatey perfectionism and superiority. What is going to happen if Yahoo actually turns it around and builds the same image? Would tech be big enough for two Google sized corporate egos?

Have you ever seen a CEO who brought significant change in a major company. Allright, Steve Jobs, maybe, but he was a funder in the first place so it doesnt really count.

And even if it did, let me break it for you. She is not Steve Jobs.

Typical Corporate bullshit. Harly surprising for a first memo, but seeing Yahoo and 'bold innovation ' in the very same sentence made me laugh. She has no clue about Yahoo or what?

Reading this memo, she seems more like a manager instead of a leader. Nothing inspiring, just orders. Also, very awkwardly written.

With the exception of whistleblowing it is wrong to publish internal communications that were clearly meant to stay internal.

How would Kara feel if her email was compromised and someone decided to choose which emails should be made public for no other reason than voyeurism and pageviews?

HN shouldn't even allow the links.

I believe that she knew this message will be "leaked". It would be close to stupid to think otherwise. Hell, this message was written with leaking taken in account.

It's a journalist's job to get the internal story, even if that requires exploiting various forms of petite disloyalty. Also, a rah-rah message this generic was written with the expectation it would be leaked.

And, Swisher as a journalist would likely expect (and perhaps even respect) if her own correspondents leaked her own emails, if and when it could advance a story of industrywide interest. Journalists aren't especially thin-skinned, naive, or hypocritical about such things.

Interestingly, Swisher's spouse is a VP at Google.

So so much text to say absolutely nothing. But let's see how long before she starts cleaning out the house that will be the big indicator

Would Kara Swisher please openly admit she has a grudge against Yahoo? And I thought HN wouldn't promote such blatantly passive-aggressive articles to the front page. I thought this is a place for intelligent, well-reasoned debate. Oh well, now I know better.

She comes across so smug and arrogant, it's uncanny. Definitely no celebration of the bold move or tough challenges here.

I don't see any evidence of a grudge in this article. It's just Swisher covering her beat. (Has some bit of editorializing been clipped out? It's essentially forwarded without comment.)

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