11 ms·

Wow, years later, even after her de facto demotion at Google, people still think she's some kind of product genius? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028615

Wow, years later, even after her de facto demotion at Google, people still think she's some kind of product genius? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028615 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028615 This is a hilarious situation.

mnicole 14y ago
Interesting. So that reply was ages old, but in the event that you're dealing with a manager like that today - what is the best thing to do outside of leaving the organization?
- gfosco 14y ago
  I think leaving is your only option, actually, outside of going to HR and asking to be moved to a different team... and I'd never go to HR to ask that.
- acak 14y ago
  If the organization is large enough, try to make an amicable break and move internally. This is the simplest way if you do not have a conscience about the company or your work (not always a bad thing to be conscience-less about these things). If you can't move internally, pursue two threads of action simultaneously: (1) In most situations, you will have a smart, rational person you might be aware of in the layer that he/she reports into (though preferable, not necessarily her direct boss). Talk to them about what you see as problems. Be prepared to back up your claims with documented, solid evidence of the behavior. Keep emotional, hyperbolic, prejudicial expressions or assertions to yourself - they will only work against you in such situations. Be as paranoid as you can be about who you can trust to back you up in your peer group in case there has to be a discussion. Knowing people who're discontent like you helps only if you know they won't stab you in the back. Avoid ultimatums. Express faith in the system and the ability for the person to change. Express willingness to change yourself. In other words, come off as the bigger person right from the beginning and at all times. (2) Have an exit strategy if the situation turns on you. This could include escalation to several layers (CEO/Board) above the layers you're dealing with and looking out for a new job.
  - akkartik 14y ago
    "Be prepared to back up your claims with documented, solid evidence of the behavior. Keep emotional, hyperbolic, prejudicial expressions or assertions to yourself - they will only work against you in such situations. Avoid ultimatums. Express faith in the system and the ability for the person to change. Express willingness to change yourself. In other words, come off as the bigger person right from the beginning and at all times." Based on past bitter experience I've boiled this down to, "Don't be easy to dismiss."
swah 14y ago
Aren't you getting "We've temporarily limited requests for old items." for that link?
- luriel 14y ago
  http://web.archive.org/web/20100120004349/http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028615 http://web.archive.org/web/20100120004349/http://news.ycombi...
JPKab 14y ago
This is typical Yahoo bullshit. They hire a CEO not for the primary reason of effectiveness or experience, but instead for their perception of effectiveness in the media. Is she an improvement over Bartz? No doubt, because the first time I saw Bartz discussing Yahoo's future several years ago, it was immediately clear to me that they weren't getting out of their tailspin. Is Mayer a genius? I'm sure of it. But from all the things I've heard from Google employees and their dealings with her, I suspect that a lot of the hype she receives in the media is due to the lack of female role models in the Valley. She damned sure doesn't sound like a good leader. Biting off heads, interrupting people mid sentence, forgetting what happened in the last meeting....... this is the epitome of somebody who has bitten off more than they can chew. The sad part is that there are so, so many women in the Valley that deserve the attention she gets.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  Eh, I like Marissa, and I've worked on projects (the 2010 websearch visual redesign, and doodles) for which she was the executive sponsor. No, she's not a nice person, and most likely she does not give a shit about you as a person. But she is very often right about her design opinions, and when she's not, she'll listen to data. I don't think Yahoo particularly needs a nice person as CEO right now. Their culture is dysfunctional enough that they probably need a Steve Jobs type, someone with clear opinions who's willing to ruffle a lot of feathers (and make a bunch of people quit). Steve Jobs wasn't really a nice person either.
  - neilk 14y ago
    I've worked at both Yahoo and Google. I've never worked with Marissa directly but I think your opinion of her is pretty much correct. The biggest risk I see is that there is a huge difference in her role. At Google she stood atop a pyramid of other geniuses, with similar backgrounds and values, and was a filter for their ideas. At Yahoo she's dealing with a culture where engineering is not the highest value, and she's going to have to get off the top perch and descend into the ranks, clearing out the enemies of progress which exist at every level.
  - alayne 14y ago
aidenn0 14y ago
That actually makes it sound like she'll fit in at Yahoo just fine.
steve8918 14y ago
From the description, her behavior reminds me a lot of how Steve Jobs behaved. If you read the biography, Jobs would often contradict himself, he was extremely rude, he would cry at meetings, he would hear an idea and say it was shit, and then the next week propose the exact same idea as his own, etc. I'm not saying she is at all comparable to Steve Jobs, but it sounds like they both know what they want, and don't spend a lot of time with what they think is wrong. I've said this often, but Jobs was about 50% right and 50% wrong. When Jobs was wrong, it was usually a small strikeout, but when he was right, they were monster home runs, which is why people tolerated Jobs' behavior. Mayer needs to be right a lot more than she is wrong, so I guess we'll have to see how that pans out.
- RivieraKid 14y ago
  I read the biography too and this seems only remotely similar. Anyway, if someone shares some of Steve Jobs' bad traits, that means nothing at all. It's not an indication of a good CEO.
- packetslave 14y ago
  Yes. There's a big difference between a genius who's also a jackass, and someone who thinks they have to be a jackass to be a genius. Jobs was solidly in the first category.
- c2 14y ago
  CEOs in general tend to be hard to work with. There are also anecdotes about Gates being rude. Further, I would say the people who want to judge a character by a few anecdotes are being lazy, small minded, and short sighted. Jobs, Gates, and Mayer are all different people with their own styles. I'm not sure if Mayer's style will be what Yahoo needs, but I wish her the best of luck.
- wilfra 14y ago
  A lot of people are assholes. That doesn't mean they are like Steve Jobs. That description of her didn't include a single word saying anything positive about how she did her job. No description of Jobs of similar length, regardless of how much the writer hated him, would have failed to mention that Jobs also had many positive qualities.
rehack 14y ago
Anybody read 'I'm feeling Lucky' by Douglas Edwards? He came across as a good judge of people to me, just based on my reading of the book. And he is not negative on many people in his book. But he was critical of her, and there were lots of hints of bad blood between them in his book. Although he always remains very subtle in whatever he says. Reading that comment, you share, reminded me of some sections of the book.

mnicole 14y ago

Interesting. So that reply was ages old, but in the event that you're dealing with a manager like that today - what is the best thing to do outside of leaving the organization?

gfosco 14y ago
I think leaving is your only option, actually, outside of going to HR and asking to be moved to a different team... and I'd never go to HR to ask that.
acak 14y ago
If the organization is large enough, try to make an amicable break and move internally. This is the simplest way if you do not have a conscience about the company or your work (not always a bad thing to be conscience-less about these things). If you can't move internally, pursue two threads of action simultaneously: (1) In most situations, you will have a smart, rational person you might be aware of in the layer that he/she reports into (though preferable, not necessarily her direct boss). Talk to them about what you see as problems. Be prepared to back up your claims with documented, solid evidence of the behavior. Keep emotional, hyperbolic, prejudicial expressions or assertions to yourself - they will only work against you in such situations. Be as paranoid as you can be about who you can trust to back you up in your peer group in case there has to be a discussion. Knowing people who're discontent like you helps only if you know they won't stab you in the back. Avoid ultimatums. Express faith in the system and the ability for the person to change. Express willingness to change yourself. In other words, come off as the bigger person right from the beginning and at all times. (2) Have an exit strategy if the situation turns on you. This could include escalation to several layers (CEO/Board) above the layers you're dealing with and looking out for a new job.
- akkartik 14y ago
  "Be prepared to back up your claims with documented, solid evidence of the behavior. Keep emotional, hyperbolic, prejudicial expressions or assertions to yourself - they will only work against you in such situations. Avoid ultimatums. Express faith in the system and the ability for the person to change. Express willingness to change yourself. In other words, come off as the bigger person right from the beginning and at all times." Based on past bitter experience I've boiled this down to, "Don't be easy to dismiss."

swah 14y ago

Aren't you getting "We've temporarily limited requests for old items." for that link?

luriel 14y ago
http://web.archive.org/web/20100120004349/http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028615 http://web.archive.org/web/20100120004349/http://news.ycombi...

JPKab 14y ago

This is typical Yahoo bullshit. They hire a CEO not for the primary reason of effectiveness or experience, but instead for their perception of effectiveness in the media. Is she an improvement over Bartz? No doubt, because the first time I saw Bartz discussing Yahoo's future several years ago, it was immediately clear to me that they weren't getting out of their tailspin. Is Mayer a genius? I'm sure of it. But from all the things I've heard from Google employees and their dealings with her, I suspect that a lot of the hype she receives in the media is due to the lack of female role models in the Valley. She damned sure doesn't sound like a good leader. Biting off heads, interrupting people mid sentence, forgetting what happened in the last meeting....... this is the epitome of somebody who has bitten off more than they can chew. The sad part is that there are so, so many women in the Valley that deserve the attention she gets.

nostrademons 14y ago
Eh, I like Marissa, and I've worked on projects (the 2010 websearch visual redesign, and doodles) for which she was the executive sponsor. No, she's not a nice person, and most likely she does not give a shit about you as a person. But she is very often right about her design opinions, and when she's not, she'll listen to data. I don't think Yahoo particularly needs a nice person as CEO right now. Their culture is dysfunctional enough that they probably need a Steve Jobs type, someone with clear opinions who's willing to ruffle a lot of feathers (and make a bunch of people quit). Steve Jobs wasn't really a nice person either.
- neilk 14y ago
  I've worked at both Yahoo and Google. I've never worked with Marissa directly but I think your opinion of her is pretty much correct. The biggest risk I see is that there is a huge difference in her role. At Google she stood atop a pyramid of other geniuses, with similar backgrounds and values, and was a filter for their ideas. At Yahoo she's dealing with a culture where engineering is not the highest value, and she's going to have to get off the top perch and descend into the ranks, clearing out the enemies of progress which exist at every level.
- alayne 14y ago

aidenn0 14y ago

That actually makes it sound like she'll fit in at Yahoo just fine.

steve8918 14y ago

From the description, her behavior reminds me a lot of how Steve Jobs behaved. If you read the biography, Jobs would often contradict himself, he was extremely rude, he would cry at meetings, he would hear an idea and say it was shit, and then the next week propose the exact same idea as his own, etc. I'm not saying she is at all comparable to Steve Jobs, but it sounds like they both know what they want, and don't spend a lot of time with what they think is wrong. I've said this often, but Jobs was about 50% right and 50% wrong. When Jobs was wrong, it was usually a small strikeout, but when he was right, they were monster home runs, which is why people tolerated Jobs' behavior. Mayer needs to be right a lot more than she is wrong, so I guess we'll have to see how that pans out.

RivieraKid 14y ago
I read the biography too and this seems only remotely similar. Anyway, if someone shares some of Steve Jobs' bad traits, that means nothing at all. It's not an indication of a good CEO.
packetslave 14y ago
Yes. There's a big difference between a genius who's also a jackass, and someone who thinks they have to be a jackass to be a genius. Jobs was solidly in the first category.
c2 14y ago
CEOs in general tend to be hard to work with. There are also anecdotes about Gates being rude. Further, I would say the people who want to judge a character by a few anecdotes are being lazy, small minded, and short sighted. Jobs, Gates, and Mayer are all different people with their own styles. I'm not sure if Mayer's style will be what Yahoo needs, but I wish her the best of luck.
wilfra 14y ago
A lot of people are assholes. That doesn't mean they are like Steve Jobs. That description of her didn't include a single word saying anything positive about how she did her job. No description of Jobs of similar length, regardless of how much the writer hated him, would have failed to mention that Jobs also had many positive qualities.

rehack 14y ago

Anybody read 'I'm feeling Lucky' by Douglas Edwards? He came across as a good judge of people to me, just based on my reading of the book. And he is not negative on many people in his book. But he was critical of her, and there were lots of hints of bad blood between them in his book. Although he always remains very subtle in whatever he says. Reading that comment, you share, reminded me of some sections of the book.