After the NY Times Article “What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs” was passed around the internet I became interested in learning more about Marissa Mayer, the famous Yahoo CEO and ex-Googler. I did a little research and learned that the author of the NY Times article, Nicholas Carlson, had also written a book about Mayer, so grabbed a copy from my local library and dove in.
I thought the book was going to be primarily about Mayer’s time at Yahoo, but it turned out to be a lot more than that. The book is officially divided into 4 parts, but really I felt it contained 3 main sections:
- History of Yahoo
- History of Mayer
- Yahoo + Mayer
History of Yahoo
This part was completely fascinating to me, and made the whole read worth it! I am always intrigued to learn about the big dot com boom and bust, since I wasn’t really involved in tech when it all went down. This section contained great stories about the creation and rise of Yahoo, as well as the beginnings of other companies like Google, Facebook and Alibaba. There were incredible stories of big personalities, big brains and big egos, and some great details about Yahoo’s attempts to purchase YouTube, Facebook and Google, as well as Microsoft’s attempt to purchase Yahoo.
My favorite story was when Yahoo attempted to purchase Facebook in 2006. Then Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had settled on the price of $1 billion. Zuckerberg came to the Yahoo campus to seal the deal, and Semel tried to undercut him! Even though they had previously agreed on $1 billion (and the board had even approved $1.2 billion for the acquisition), Semel claimed that Yahoo could now only afford $850 million. Zuckerberg refused the deal. One reason I loved this story is because it shows Zuckerberg’s resolve; there was no way he was going to let himself be undercut. At the time, Facebook was still small and Yahoo was a giant, but he did not let that intimidate him.
The other reason I loved this story is that Zuckerberg was only 22 at the time, while Semel was 63 and had over 20 years of experience as a CEO under his belt. There were a lot of stories in this part of the book where older experienced execs told younger folks they were making the wrong decision, or tried to intimidate them into an unfair deal. While I believe its important to listen to advice from more experienced people, it is always important to remember to do what you know is right for your situation. Just because you’re young, doesn’t mean you aren’t smart. Don’t get taken advantage of older people looking to play off your supposed naïveté.
History of Mayer
This part of the book was also very interesting. One thing that really stood out to me was Mayer’s almost unbelievable hustle at Google. She was hired as a coder after getting her Master’s in CS from Stanford. While at Google, she found a niche in data driven UX design. She volunteered to be a part time member of the UI team, to help coordinate with engineering. Soon she was leading the UI meetings, then created an email list to bring up and address new issues on the fly. Her team was growing, but the coolest thing to me was that she had just made the team her own. Then, Larry Page became “Chief of Products” and started a weekly meeting to review products at Google. Mayer jumped in and offered to run the meeting. Soon she was setting the agenda and making the guest lists. Less than a year after getting hired, she had enormous control over how the product looked and what new products were most important, largely because she just put herself in that position. Within a few years she was a VP at Google.
This section wasn’t all about her rise at Google, though. In 2010 she was placed on a project with an engineer she butted heads with, and ultimately, his design won out. After this happened, she was removed from Search and placed on Maps and other products. Technically it was a promotion (she was still a VP and now had a seat on Google’s operating committee). However, it was still a blow to her, because search is the most important product at Google.
Reading about her journey at Google was a phenomenal lesson in showing up and taking charge to get where you want to go. Group after group that she just started leading. Task after task that she just took on. It was also a good lesson that no matter how brilliant and high ranking you are, you can definitely still lose a big battle.
Mayer + Yahoo
Interestingly enough, this was my least favorite part of the book (even though it was what I originally thought the whole book was about). There were some great stories about the tension leading up to her becoming Yahoo CEO, both on the Mayer / Google side and the Yahoo side. This section also had some interesting notes on successes and missteps that Mayer has made so far running Yahoo.
Her successes have largely focused around increasing transparency within the company, and putting an emphasis on mobile (where there was practically nothing before). Their mobile team has expanded massively and they even won an Apple Design Award for their beautiful weather app. Mayer’s missteps were mostly related to hiring some wrong people for her executive team, and her desire to make Yahoo a ‘higher class’ product, when its main customer base in middle America. Yahoo is a massive company with a dynamic and interesting history. It is going to be really interesting to see where Mayer takes it, especially with its bizarre attachment to Alibaba.
While this book wasn’t exactly what I expected it to be, it ended up being a fascinating read, and I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a great back-story on some of the biggest players in the tech industry today.