How Marissa Mayer lost Yahoo

Dienstag, 01.12.2015 16:40 von Handelsblatt

Women are not tough enough – are you kidding me? Here are a few important takeaways from the decline of a former tech icon: the loved and hated, idolized and derided Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

Since I moved to Silicon Valley people have been asking me all the time about the lack of women in tech. Whether female entrepreneurs are just too soft for business. Whether they need help against nasty men. Or whether women are just not ready and need more Machiavelli to improve their career.

Yes, it is a disaster: Women are still a minority in tech, but that is definitely not caused by their lack of a ruthless entrepreneurial approach. One of my mentors managed her husband, her children and handled her company’s IPO – all at the same time. We never discussed what was more difficult, the IPO or the husband. Maybe that’s a question for another column.

Look at Marissa Mayer. Her struggle at Yahoo, including the rumors that she might get fired from the job as CEO, results mostly of the too tactical and rock-hard way she dealt with her staff. Former employees talk about her impatience, rough tone and preference for micromanagement. Instead of promoting others, Marissa was just promoting Marissa.

No small wonder Yahoo suffered from a brain drain. Key executives left, including Jackie Reses, Mayer’s chief development officer. In Silicon Valley the next nice job is always just a few hundred of meters away. And some of these people took a bunch of money. Former Google executive Henrique de Castro left after 15 months with a settlement weighing more than $100 million.

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