Marissa Mayer Is Still Here

Here is David Gelles’ profile of Marissa Mayer for The New York Times. To read the complete article and check out others, please click here.

Credit: Matt Edge for The New York Times

* * *

The former Yahoo chief is renting Google’s original office, where “there’s a lot of good juju,” and planning her next act. She just won’t say what it is.

Marissa Mayer was celebrated as a savior when she left Google to become chief executive of Yahoo in 2012.

A brilliant computer scientist, Ms. Mayer was the 20th employee at Google, and influenced many of the company’s signature features — including Gmail and Google Maps.

But could she save Yahoo? The company was reeling from boardroom tumult and a series of executive changeovers when she arrived, and Google and Facebook were winning the war for online eyeballs and ad dollars.

Her tenure was ferociously controversial. Investors did well during Ms. Mayer’s five years at the helm, seeing the value of their shares more than triple. But Ms. Mayer’s every decision was second-guessed by Silicon Valley, and she was unable to make Yahoo relevant again. Last year, Yahoo was sold to Verizon, and Ms. Mayer left the company.

This interview — Ms. Mayer’s first since leaving Yahoo — was condensed and edited for clarity, and conducted in her personal office in Palo Alto, Calif.

What are you up to now?

I rented the old Google office. So this is actually the office where I started my career in 1999. This is also where PayPal started, so there’s a lot of good juju here.

Coming back here, it reminds me of what Google felt like in those early moments. I remember running up those steps, because if you didn’t get here fast enough on Saturday morning, someone in the world was going to get worse search results, and it might change their life for the worse.

* * *

Here is a direct link to the complete article.

David Gelles writes the Corner Office column and other features for The New York Times’s Sunday Business section, and works with the Well team to expand The Times‘s coverage of meditation.

To learn more about him and his work, please click here.

Posted in

Leave a Comment





This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.