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Comment by altoz | Hacker News Reader

Marissa Mayer's going to be on this list shortly.

She really isn't. Her efforts at Google, especially as time went on, were increasingly mediocre, and at Yahoo she's proven to be little different.

What she has going in her favor is that Yahoo was mismanaged to an utterly stunning degree before her time. I don't doubt that a more sensible approach is going to do net-good things for them.

But there's just no way she's going to be included in the same chapter of history as the other names given.

Maybe not the same chapter, but at least the same font size.

I think she's going to go down as the first female major player in the Big Tech realm -- which is not to disparage Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina, but they haven't achieved the same level of household recognition that Marissa has.

(I'm not really familiar with her goings-on at Google, but everything she's done at Yahoo seems incredibly positive. Like you said, though, that could just be a 'going from awful to merely okay' effect.)

I wouldn't call an end to remote work incredibly positive.

She's pretty and smells good but I think we need some more solid proof.

@shit_hn_says

Think about how much you hear about Yahoo in 2013.

Think about how much you heard about Yahoo in 2011.

Everytime I hear about Yahoo it's because we're all collectively cringing at yet another ridiculous thing they did. Or is that not how everyone feels?

It's funny that's the case. But Yahoo is picking up on demographic that's slowly but surely adapting the Internet. My mom being a great example. She's been on the Internet as long as I have, but I would say she's adapting now. Unfortunately using Facebook, but also Youtube and all of her services from Yahoo(mail, news, search).

Say what you will about Marissa Mayer(I don't know enough about her). But she's making right decision on who her market is and although growth may be slower, I can see a larger number of people retiring that are going to be spending all sorts of time on Yahoo. Since HN is the anti-thesis of the Yahoo demographic, I think there is a more nuanced and emotional approach that Yahoo is taking. But I could be wrong.

edit: Also if anyone from Yahoo read this, please fix the problem with Yahoo mail and Chromium in Linux. My mom is annoyed by being asked to upgrade(Safari or Firefox) and asked to change the theme.

Maybe I haven't been reading much, but what else has Yahoo done recently besides bring in Mayer and do a website redesign?

They've done a lot of acquisitions. I think the biggest was Tumblr. Not much to show from the acquisitions yet, but based on the fact that there has been acquisitions, Googlers moving to Yahoo, etcetera, I think there's a pretty good chance they're working on some things that will eventually pay off.

Yahoo was mismanaged to an utterly stunning degree before her time, so I don't doubt that a more sensible approach is going to do net-good things for them.

Yes-Yes-and Yes. Yahoo decline always bothered me. I think their stock will eventually be higher than Google, as long as they don't start acting like Google. Yahoo still has historical stock API's, while Google decided to hog the info, and is most likely charging. I wish I bought Yahoo stock a few years ago.

Well right now that sounds a lot like the old Yahoo that blew massive amounts of shareholder value on terrible acquisitions that never panned out.

Tumblr will pay for itself? Not a chance they're going to earn a billion dollars off of that, much less turn a healthy profit. As such, at it seems like all Mayer is doing is burning value on a spend $3 get $1 back exchange. Works great in a stock market bubble of course.

You're right that Tumblr probably won't pay for itself as an individual unit, but perhaps the new Yahoo might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's not a sure thing, of course. We still need to see if they have a coherent direction. If they don't, then they probably can't be greater than the sum of their parts.

I don't like saying this, but her looks have something to do with it?

I'm no feminist, but look up Mayer's background before making idiotic statements like that.

Nah, tech doesn't have a sexism problem at all.

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