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[entremet]

Pretty fair article on Mayer's tenure at Yahoo, which honestly, would have been a miracle to save.

So why did Ms. Mayer receive more than $900,000 a week? The answer, like so many things about Yahoo, is surprisingly complicated. It is rooted partly in the never-lose structure of modern executive compensation packages, but also in two farsighted investments made long ago by one of Yahoo's founders, Jerry Yang.

By Wall Street's most basic yardstick — Yahoo's stock price — Ms. Mayer earned every penny she got. Yahoo's share price more than tripled during her tenure. After the $4.5 billion sale to Verizon, shareholders will still own an investment company with $57 billion of stock in two Asian internet companies, Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan.

Ms. Mayer's pay was mostly in stock and stock options, and she reaped the rewards alongside the other stockholders.

”The only sign you can point to when evaluating a company over a long period of time is how shareholders have done in the exchange," said David Wise, who heads North American sales at Korn Ferry Hay Group, a firm that advises companies on executive pay packages. ”Over the last five years, Yahoo shareholders couldn't have done a lot better than this."

More than most chief executives, Ms. Mayer was working for those shareholders.

She was essentially hired by one hedge-fund manager, Daniel S. Loeb, who got her predecessor fired and won three seats on Yahoo's board in 2012. Mr. Loeb was particularly interested in finding a way to unlock the value of Yahoo's stake in Alibaba, which was already shaping up to be one of China's leading internet companies. He pushed the board to recruit a star like Ms. Mayer to get people excited about a company that had been stumbling for years.

I think Mayer was definitely overhyped, given her lack of experience running a company before. But I also think she got more scrunity than your average white male baby boomer CEO.

This quip summarizes it:

”She was an attractive, high-visibility C.E.O. trying to bring some excitement and glamour to Yahoo," said Martha Josephson, a senior partner at the recruiting firm Egon Zehnder, who helped Ms. Mayer find several of her top executives. ”As hard as the job was, she didn't get a break. If she were an ugly man, she'd be a hero."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/technology/yahoo-marissa-mayer-compensation.html?_r=0

That's not to say that she didn't make poor choices--killing off remote work, buying Tumblr, and many others. But the way the game is rigged, she played it well, tripling the stock price.

 

[Sapiens]

Overhyped massively, but if it was her job to ultimately sell Yahoo and land that ship in one piece, then, everyone should be happy.

 

[mr jones]

What is the job of a Chief Executive Officer that they make that much?

 

[nature boy]

She was overhyped because 1) she was a successful exec at google and 2) the expectation was she would turn Yahoo around, after Yahoo refused the Microsoft 44 billion bid in 2008.

I don't think she should be singled out in this exec-overpayed world we live in.

Edit: Although she should be criticised for her hypocrisy on maternity leave.

 

[entremet]

What is the job of a Chief Executive Officer that they make that much?

For public companies, it's right there in the highlighted text.

 

[hodayathink]

What is the job of a Chief Executive Officer that they make that much?

To make shareholders money, which is exactly what she did.

 

[ZeroGravity]

The revisionist history has begun.

 

[KingV]

The revisionist history has begun.

No shit, the only reason Yahoo!'s share price rose was because of passive investments they made years before she was CEO that performed well. She literally didn't do anything successful at Yahoo, she was just was lucky to land in a can't fail position stock-price wise.

There's a quote in there about her changing compensation to compensate people for developing great products.... I'm not sure what they're talking about, because what new products, let alone great ones, has Yahoo brought to market in the last 5 years?

 

[entremet]

No shit, the only reason Yahoo!'s share price rose was because of passive investments they made years before she was CEO that performed well. She literally didn't do anything successful at Yahoo, she was just was lucky to land in a can't fail position stock-price wise.

There's a quote in there about her changing compensation to compensate people for developing great products.... I'm not sure what they're talking about, because what new products, let alone great ones, has Yahoo brought to market in the last 5 years?

I think the point of the article is to show that the CEO game is rigged anyway.

She sure as heck made terrible choices from a conventional perspective--lack of innovation, work life balance, terrible acquisitions, etc. But as a Wall Street by the numbers CEO, she was definitely more than passable.

No one will confuse her for a Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

 

[andythinkpad]

Yahoo have changed CEO many times and nobody could have turned Yahoo around.

We are just in the consolidating phrase of the IT industry.

 

[Cairax]

I really have to figure out a way to get her to dump her husband and marry me....

 

[btrboyev]

I really have to figure out a way to get her to dump her husband and marry me....

That laugh though

 

[tearsintherain]

She played the game and walked out a tremendous winner. The rigged game where once you get a seat at the table you always win money, but can lose power quickly, which is more important to most of the players (which is why most of us never get to play).

They could have had a potato as the CEO of yahoo and it would have had a better impact on the stock price, since it wouldn't have actually spent any money on hiring Katie Couric, creating a network TV site and then closing it down soon after, spending $7m on a christmas party, etc. The only reason shareholders walked away relatively ok was the 24% of Alibaba Yahoo got as an early investor, worth $50b+ today. From one of the pioneers of the Internet to a footnote now, joining the ranks of companies like Altavista, Excite, and Ask Jeeves.

 

[siddx]

Nobody deserves $900,000 a day, I don't give a fuck what your job is or how good you are at it. Gross reminder of just how fucked our system is.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

Nobody deserves $900,000 a day, I don't give a fuck what your job is or how good you are at it. Gross reminder of just how fucked our system is.

Agreed, though it's let week.

 

[Complistic]

Nobody deserves $900,000 a day, I don't give a fuck what your job is or how good you are at it. Gross reminder of just how fucked our system is.

per week.

 

[Mathieran]

Nobody deserves $900,000 a day, I don't give a fuck what your job is or how good you are at it. Gross reminder of just how fucked our system is.

Title says per week, but your point still stands. She made more in half a year than I will in my entire career. It's sickening. Because I work fucking hard and I am damn good at my job, more than can be said about her apparently (based on what I'm reading here)

Edit: Actually probably more like 3 months

 

[Future]

And I thought Britney Spears 700,000 a month was high. Chump change compared to this.

 

[entremet]

Nobody deserves $900,000 a day, I don't give a fuck what your job is or how good you are at it. Gross reminder of just how fucked our system is.

It's not traditional salary. It's based on stock.

Ironically, limiting conventional executive compensation created this beast lol.

 

[Kayhan]

No shit, the only reason Yahoo!'s share price rose was because of passive investments they made years before she was CEO that performed well. She literally didn't do anything successful at Yahoo, she was just was lucky to land in a can't fail position stock-price wise.

There's a quote in there about her changing compensation to compensate people for developing great products.... I'm not sure what they're talking about, because what new products, let alone great ones, has Yahoo brought to market in the last 5 years?

This is a good post.