Follow the Leader: Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer
Yahoo! Tries to Win Back Former Employees – TechCrunch
In a bid to convince former talents to come back, Yahoo! has been sending them purple official “employee welcome kits” for the past couple of months, Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch reports. With the words “Yahoo! welcomes you Back!” the packet was sent to engineers, VPs, and PMs who used to work for the embattled Internet giant to introduce to them the “big opportunities” that await in the now Mayer-led regime. While admittedly an aggressive method of getting prized people to come back, Tsotsis thinks that a more effective way for Yahoo to recruit them would be to let Marissa Mayer or some other high-ranking executive “to reach out in a meaningful way to former employees.” So far, Tsotsis writes that the purple kit has convinced at least one former employee to move back to Yahoo.
Mayer Plans to Save Yahoo! Sounds like Levinsohn’s – SF Gate
Marissa Mayer’s game plan to bring Yahoo! back to its feet is beginning to sound like former interim CEO Ross Levinsohn’s strategy, Nicholas Carlson of the Business Insider reports in an article reprinted in SF Gate. Levinsohn originally wanted Yahoo’s webpages to carry premium content from third parties so that ads could be sold against it and the revenues split between the company and its content providers. When Mayer took over the helm, she initially seemed to focus on products like updating Yahoo! Mail and launching Flickr for mobile. But as her plan continues to unfurl, it is beginning to sound like what Levinsohn had in mind. Highlights include: Yahoo’s recently concluded deal with CBS to bring content into OMG; COO Henrique De Castro’s comments in a conference about a transformation where Yahoo would have “aggregate premium quality content at scale, and distribute it in a personalized way;” and Project Zed which is a secret project that Mayer is working on which aims to make Yahoo a “destination where people go to find content regardless of where it originates from.”
Mayer’s Punctuality Problem – Business Insider
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer apparently has a punctuality problem, Nicholas Carlson of the Business Insider reports. Multiple sources—both from those who support her and those who don’t—say that she is routinely late from meetings for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more. Carlson had earlier received and published an angry email that supposedly came from a Yahoo employee which cited: “There has not been a single meeting or event here that since she has taken the helm, she arrives on time, not one.” This seeming lack of regard for people’s time is said to be detrimental to the company. Rumor has it that during the CES, “Mayer “blew off” a one-on-one meeting with the CEO of Unilever, one of Yahoo’s most important clients.” Can Mayer do something about her tardiness before it spells disaster for her and the company? That still remains to be seen.
Category: News In Review
