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Yahoo gives CEO Marissa Mayer severance package worth $55M

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C

chocoedd

Member
Is my assumption correct that these people wouldn't want to be CEO if there's no severance package in the first place?
 
C

Chichikov

Member
BreezyLimbo said:
Eh, Workaholism isn't a bad thing. If the person really gets through the day by putting in alot of work, even an excessive amount, than good for them. Granted I like my time off, but I can see why a person would put in alot of hours doing something they want to do.
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I really don't think it's a good thing, a ton of studies showed that people always end up regretting it, and when you create a system that rewards such behavior, even if you don't explicitly demand it, you create a pressure on your workforce to do the same.
Such systems discriminate against single parents, people with family health issues etc.

Also, and that's admittedly a bit anecdotally, but in my experience with workaholics, I wouldn't necessarily want those people run a company or have a huge impact on our economy and politics like they currently have. Not saying every workaholic is a bad person, far from it, but on average I think there's some negative correlation there (though again, this is all anecdotal, so take it as you will).

p.s.
This has nothing to do with work ethic by the way, I think you can be a very hard working person while still putting "only" 40 hours a week.
 
Z

zashga

Member
Ah, to be a CEO. These enormous severance packages always make me question what their motivation even is. Do a good job, make a fortune. Do a terrible job, make an even bigger fortune.

This one is particularly perplexing since they're announcing the huge severance package without actually firing her. What's the message there? "There's a ton of money in it for you if you get yourself fired..."
 
B

BreezyLimbo

Banned
Chichikov said:
I really don't think it's a good thing, a ton of studies showed that people always end up regretting it, and when you create a system that rewards such behavior, even if you don't explicitly demand it, you create a pressure on your workforce to do the same.
Such systems discriminate against single parents, people with family health issues etc.

Also, and that's admittedly a bit anecdotally, but in my experience with workaholics, I wouldn't necessarily want those people run a company or have a huge impact on our economy and politics like they currently have. Not saying every workaholic is a bad person, far from it, but on average I think there's some negative correlation there (though again, this is all anecdotal, so take it as you will).

p.s.
This has nothing to do with work ethic by the way, I think you can be a very hard working person while still putting "only" 40 hours a week.
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Touche.

Work ethic is a different thing indeed, and I must have confounded the two appendages. (As it goes, you can spend 24 hours trying to get a square into a triangular fitting, but that only makes you a bad worker despite the time spent)
 
B

Blue Ninja

Member
_woLf said:
It never ceases to amaze me how CEOs are paid millions of dollars when they're fired. Gotta love backwards-ass corporate America.

"Thanks for ruining us, here have some more money!"

Don Mattrick has mastered this art.
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Not just in America, it happens fucking everywhere. Which is ridiculous. 55 Million, and watch the people inevitably getting laid off there getting next to nothing.
 
J

Jimrpg

Member
Meyer has not moved the needle on yahoo's stock one little bit in the two years I've watched it. In fact she hasn't done anything.
 
I

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
I feel sorry for this millionaire. These business practices are all endemic of how broken business can be when money and power are the only things that live in isolation
 
S

Sidewinder

Member
I mean it's a hard life for such high profile CEOs, what's she gonna do if they fire her, live on the street?? Some of you are just heartless!
 
J

jellies_two

Member
The board are afraid of bad news so they buy her loyalty in order to preserve what there is left in the stock before an inevitable sale. It's a shit situation and she is in a position to cash in.
Tech executives all too often look like geniuses when they are riding a wave, it's difficult to have had a senior career at Google and not look like a mastermind (well, unless you were only responsible for google glass, or google wave).
 
S

siddx

Magnificent Eager Mighty Brilliantly Erect Registereduser
In what universe does her job performance or her contributions to the company make her deserving of 55 million dollars? Fucking gross.
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
Mindwipe said:
Last time I checked Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik, Line et al are pretty major businesses.

Yahoo Messenger could have played in that space if it hadn't been mothballed and shunted between divisions.
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Maybe but Yahoo is more MSN Messenger and AOL IM than it is anything close to the apps you mentioned. Each of those got to be brand new instead of a variation on a relic of the early internet.

It died the same way those died and the same way ICQ fell out of favour. I doubt there was anything they could actually do.
 
Z

Zaptruder

Banned
To be fair even before marissas tenure yahoo was already a company that reduced the value of the portfolio they owned. As in the stuff they owned were worth more than the business entity as a whole.

Not that marissa has actually helped the situation. Hopefully the last we see of this person in the public sphere and their overblown head.
 
L

LOLDSFAN

Member
El-Guap-Cakes said:
I was just reading about her the other day. She put in 130 hour work weeks at Google, and would sleep under her desk, so at least her work ethic wasn't part of the issue. I really do think she tried her best, it just seems like she/Yahoo was doomed to fail. 55 mil does seem like a ridiculous severance package though.
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Actually that's horrible work ethic. If she can't get what needs to be done in a reasonable amount of time, than she's doing something wrong.
 
W

Wafflecakes

Member
LOLDSFAN said:
Actually that's horrible work ethic. If she can't get what needs to be done in a reasonable amount of time, than she's doing something wrong.
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Ya no.

Anyone with a real career can tell you that there is always more to do if you can find time to do it.

I can do my job in 40 hours a week, or I could do it WAYYYY better if I spent 80, but I have no desire to do so.
 
jts

jts

...hate me...
Yahoo was already a sinking ship, but a 55M severance for a a CEO of big (ex-big?) tech company in a world where we talk about billions like it's nothing, is not a shocking amount.

Hey, she didn't appoint herself for the job.
 
L

Lead

Banned
Even though it was probably a sinking ship when she jumped on board, it never ceases to amaze me that CEO's are rewarded this much for failure.

That is an insane exit package.
 
S

Striek

Member
Sounds about right. Not that she wont just roll into another high-powered CEO position if she does get sacked, regardless of performance. She has the experience required to run companies, whether she runs them into the ground or not isn't important.

Much like electing bankers who cause financial crises to powerful positions because "they're the only ones smart enough to get us out of the mess they created", its a different world at the top.

God forbid one of your bottom wage slaves has a bad week at work though.
 
R

Rootbeer

Banned
It's an obscene amount of money. If I were removed from my job as a result of a buyout, I'd get my PTO as severance and that's it. Most people are in that boat. Must feel wonderful to get that kind of payout when you weren't able to make a dent in improving the company's outcome.
 
S

siddx

Magnificent Eager Mighty Brilliantly Erect Registereduser
Wafflecakes said:
Ya no.

Anyone with a real career can tell you that there is always more to do if you can find time to do it.

I can do my job in 40 hours a week, or I could do it WAYYYY better if I spent 80, but I have no desire to do so.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. If you have to work 80 hours a week to do a good job, you have failed or your company has failed by not hiring the appropriate amount of people, not delegating work, not having the right departments, or not being organized. Working an excessive amount of hours is unhealthy and unproductive. After a certain amount of time fatigue and being overworked makes the quality of your output plummet to garbage levels. You would not do a way better job with 80 hours, you would be a disaster,
 
2

2MF

Member
Cyan said:
Oh, I read the title as meaning she'd been fired. So she hasn't been fired, but if/when she is she'll get a big bundle o' cash. Huh.
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Wouldn't it be nice to be told that if you get fired you'll get this big bundle of cash, even after you've already been on the job (and not doing great to put it mildly) for a while?

This isn't really golden chains as far as I can tell.
 
jts

jts

...hate me...
2MF said:
Wouldn't it be nice to be told that if you get fired you'll get this big bundle of cash, even after you've already been on the job for a while?

This isn't really golden chains as far as I can tell.
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It's good to know, but it's part of the game. By chance or by merit she got to that olympus of being a CEO of a huge company, was always gonna get paid regardless of outcome. But she can earn a lot more if she makes the company perform.

In european football, managers can be paid royally by huge clubs, and if they perform poorly and get the boot early, they'll just get the remaining of their contract right away (also in the tens of millions) and be free to take their next big job. It's amazing.
 
Z

Zaptruder

Banned
siddx said:
Nonsense. If you have to work 80 hours a week to do a good job, you have failed or your company has failed by not hiring the appropriate amount of people, not delegating work, not having the right departments, or not being organized. Working an excessive amount of hours is unhealthy and unproductive. After a certain amount of time fatigue and being overworked makes the quality of your output plummet to garbage levels. You would not do a way better job with 80 hours, you would be a disaster,
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It's like people have this mental conception of mental work as not requiring energy or something.

I mean even a 3 year old can tell you they can't sprint full pelt for hours on end... and yet, somehow the belief that people can work at peak efficiency for many many hours somehow persists throughout most of the world as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Victorian era bullshit still haunting us.
 
element

element

Member
GCX said:
Flickr is the best part of Yahoo.
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It could be the best part of Yahoo. They have had so many opportunities to pivot it to be a leader in social media but fumbled every attempt while Snapchat and Instagram explode.
 
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