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Businesses Yahoo!

Marissa Mayer is Back (bloomberg.com) 104

Posted by msmash from the it's-not-over-yet dept.
Former Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer is starting a technology business incubator, Lumi Labs, with longtime colleague Enrique Munoz Torres, she revealed in an interview with The New York Times. Bloomberg: The venture will focus on consumer media and artificial intelligence, according to the company's website, which is set against a backdrop of snow-covered peaks. Lumi means snow in Finnish, Mayer told the New York Times, which reported the news earlier Wednesday. The next project for Mayer, who was an early employee at Google and worked there until leaving to run Yahoo in 2012, had been a matter of considerable speculation in Silicon Valley. She left Yahoo, once a leading search engine and web destination, after it was sold to Verizon Communications last year.
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Marissa Mayer is Back More

Marissa Mayer is Back

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  • And if you work with her this time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19, 2018 @11:05AM (#56464811)

    you are a moron.

    • Re: And if you work with her this time (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Marissa will teach you all about how YOU can run your successful business into the ground through perpetual incompetence.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Yahoo hasn't been a successful business in 15-years.

        • But it is still in business.

  • So is MM fishing for attention from Nokia or Linus Torvalds?

    I'm betting on Linus. What is sexier than a raging, beer-fueled Finnish programmer?

  • Woman-owned company, of course (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Gotta suck that Federal teat.. Enrique Munoz Torres is probably the brains behind the whole operation, but of course she'll be listed as "owner." Let those tax dollars flow!

  • Hey, it's all good. If people want to keep giving her money, that's their business. I'm sure some of them will do well.

    • Hey, it's all good. If people want to keep giving her money, that's their business. I'm sure some of them will do well.

      I plan on giving her money... once this crashes and burns and she's living on a sidewalk, I'll hand her a dollar so she can go get dinner from Burger King.

      • Why prolong her misery? And ours.

      • Re:And finance is coming from where? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @12:07PM (#56465453)

        Hey, it's all good. If people want to keep giving her money, that's their business. I'm sure some of them will do well.

        I plan on giving her money... once this crashes and burns and she's living on a sidewalk, I'll hand her a dollar so she can go get dinner from Burger King.

        Sadly, that's not going to happen. When she left Google she already had more money than you'll make in your entire life. It's more likely that she'll be giving you a dollar for Burger King.

  • Again, news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sqorbit ( 3387991 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @11:18AM (#56464931)
    Is this really news? A tech CEO launching a start up. I know she made headlines with the disaster Yahoo was. Yahoo was pretty much a disaster before she got there and she just made it worse. If her startup does something super innovative it should be news. Someone simply launching a startup with a rather vague plan is not news, and it definitely does not matter.
    • Apparently it is in Silicon Valley:

      The next project for Mayer [...] had been a matter of considerable speculation in Silicon Valley.

      So any SV peeps want to chime in and let us know if you've really all been holding your breath about Mayer's new job, or if no one cared for or even remembered her.

    • Re:Again, news? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @11:39AM (#56465131)

      There is a reason why CEO Salary is normally inversely proportional to the success of the company.
      1. Its future doesn't look great, so things like stock options arn't that great of a compensation.
      2. If you are going to lead a sinking ship, you better be paid more to help compensate the fact that you were CEO of a troubled company, and we get all the negative press that we see now.

      Yahoo had its problems before she started. Yahoo Business strategy was poised to go against AOL, not Google and Facebook. While they had their search engine, there was a Yahoo Community and services, and games... Mostly designed to have Yahoo to be a site that you stick to for your internet fix.
      They still have some popular services. Yahoo Business is still preferred for serious business folks. And Yahoo Answers is still popular. But After AOL got kicked out and Google and Facebook had risen, It pushed Yahoo out of many of its markets.

      Could Yahoo have innovated sooner. In retrospect yes. But there were and are a lot of fad competition that get some traffic but just don't hold onto it long enough. However other fads just grew and become more popular.

      Back when Google came out. Its simple search engine, vs yahoo with gave you a list of popular categories to help filter down from. Has me using Yahoo for years as my default search engine, until Googles algorithm got smart enough, and they were enough people with dial-up who used google because of its small download size. At the time, yahoo will just figure speed will always get bigger so just keep a lot of content on the front page. And the Google fad will wash out when everyone is at 500kbs speed. It may have worked, but it didn't.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        You certainly correct about (1). I am not so sure about (2). The plan is not sink the ship. If it were the board would not bother hiring a new CEO at all they'd do the sensible thing and hire a law firm to sell off the assets and cash out. Probably would not cost them a whole lot more than a couple years CEO salary to do.

        The plan when you hire a CEO is obviously to turn the company around and make it profitable. The assumption is a number of presumable smart people think that is possible or they would

        • While the plan is to turn the company around. Sometimes that just can't happen no matter if you got a Zombie Steve Jobs back, Where keeping the course will drive you down, and a rebranding will cause your existing customers to flee, so you don't have the capital to get the new branding out. Sometime the best they can do is layoff a bunch of people and make it a smaller business, hoping to find a new avenue in the future.

        • Yahoo was very likely to fail. But it was not quite at the point that the board was prepared to admit the ship was doomed, rather than hire someone with fancy-sounding ideas that could be hyped but would probably fail regardless. That Mayer was easy to hype in a lot of superficial ways was part of the package the board chose to pay top dollar for -- was she supposed to not play along, not cash in?

          I do not see any compelling evidence that Mayer's was not at least as good as any other Yahoo CEO. Par for th

        • You think we're a sinking ship???
          Oh sorry we're only interested in CEO candidates who actually like our company.

      • Yeah that's a good point instead of offering a stellar Yahoo executive what they'll consider the opportunity of a lifetime... let's hire someone outside the company who is willing to stoop to the position if we pay them enough.
        Maybe they figured some fresh management would help move them back into the cutting edge, like when they bought the web 1.0 looking tumblr and had major security incidents every few years like clockwork.

      • CEOs of successful companies are members of the ruling class. That's because they're less like positions of leadership and more like fiefdoms doled out to barons and baronesses.

    • This IS news. She'll make and then run into the ground her own business rather than fucking up someone else's.

    • Is this really news?

      Nope, but it's still fun to bash people like Mayer and Fiorina once in a while.

      • Re:Again, news? (Score:5, Informative)

        by i286NiNJA ( 2558547 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @04:10PM (#56467641) Journal

        Fiorina really pissed me off because she did horrible things to the computing community and then her career was promoted by feminist media when she would have been considered a miniature dick cheney by the same people if she wasn't a woman.

        Can you imagine why the tech industry distrusts professional activists?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mvdwege ( 243851 )

          her career was promoted by feminist media

          Surely you have an example of that?

          • https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

            Sure. They cheered for her back when she was a piece of shit executive destroying HP. They only abandoned her when her politics became apparent.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by mvdwege ( 243851 )

              No. I asked for examples. This is not an example. In fact, the majority of the links on that page contradict your thesis.

              Do you even understand what feminism is?

              Don't bother answering, that question is rhetorical. You've already proven that you are just another stupid parrot.

              • 2nd hit: Carly Fiorina, the highest paid top manager in the U.S., still earns less than her male colleagues. I do not see any changes in the near future.
                3rd hit: Recalling her stint as the head of the troubled computer giant Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina said in a recent interview that her enemies in the corporate and tech worlds routinely referred to her “as either a bimbo—too soft, or a bitch—too hard.” She shook up the entire company, eventually laying off 36,000 people and attr

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by mvdwege ( 243851 )
                  Neatly proving my point. Here's a cookie, Polly.

                  • In the timescale I indicated she wasn't presidential nominee candidate famous outside the tech community.
                    I'm not even sure what you're arguing here anymore or why you'd work so hard to defend retarded political bloggers who are almost universally horrid regardless of their political leanings.

                    Clearly people were cheering that she was becoming yet another powerful piece of socially destructive shit simply for doing it while being a woman. Apply some logic here and refute what I've said or admit being a russi

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by mvdwege ( 243851 )

                      Producing word salad is easy. Actually doing some research as to what feminism actually is and how much actual feminists support Carly Fiorina (here's a hint: aside from some old Second Wave feminists, not a whole lot) is a lot harder. And obviously above your brain power.

                      I don't have to refute anything. You brought it up, yours is the burden of proof. Simply parroting what you hear in your alt-deluded bubble does not constitute proof. So here's a cracker, Polly. You're a good bird. With quite a good brain.

                    • I see so you're moving the goalposts. Look I support feminism too and am probably more liberal than yourself. I just don't let people off the hook because they dress up in causes I like. The feminist media has embraced radical feminism and deserves to get flak for it. Anyone pandering to toxic elements on the left should be called out. Especially since people defending and espousing toxic politics are often paid posters.

                      Paid posters like you.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by mvdwege ( 243851 )

                      I don't. You're the one studiously avoiding to shore up your claim that the 'feminist media' is hailing Carly and Marissa as great examples. Without, I note, submitting any proof when asked nicely.

                      You're a disingenuous twat.

                    • I don't believe I mentioned Marissa at all I have to wonder what else you've imagined in my comments and the links I've posted.
                      Anyhow based on my new understanding of what's going on here I'll bid you farewell.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by mvdwege ( 243851 )

                      You answered to a post mentioning Marissa.

                      Really, is this all the deflection skills you can muster? You're pathetic.

    • Even if this should has nothing to do with her presence within the tech news, she is pretty pretty, and that helps.
  • Skip all that and go directly to ICO scams. The same end result.

  • Just because she can't put out a dumpster fire doesn't mean everything she touches is a dumpster fire. Just another CxO moving around.

    • Re:Non-news (Score:4, Informative)

      by epine ( 68316 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @03:51PM (#56467495)

      Just because she can't put out a dumpster fire doesn't mean everything she touches is a dumpster fire.

      In more than one instance at Yahoo, she brought a water-based fire extinguisher to bear on an electrical grease fire.

      What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs [nytimes.com] — 17 December 2014

      During a breakfast with Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, Mayer asked if there might be any partnership opportunities between the magazine and Shine, Yahoo's site for women. According to Mayer's own telling of the story to top Yahoo executives, Wintour looked appalled. Shine, with its 500 million monthly page views, appealed to a mass audience, not a narrow and affluent one.

      Nevertheless, Mayer quickly became infatuated with the idea that Yahoo could attract more sophisticated consumers. She began pushing for deputies to commission high-quality shows, the way Netflix was doing with "House of Cards" and "Orange Is the New Black." One Yahoo executive was forced to explain that only a company that sold subscriptions to consumers could expect to make money off such expensive productions.

      Keep reading from that point in the article. Her legacy of dubious guidance doesn't end there.

  • "Bad Penny".

  • GIRLZPOWER !! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Maybe she can auger them into the earth as well... but it's worth it to inspire mediocre little girlz everywhere

  • Between the lines (Score:3)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @11:33AM (#56465095)

    focus on consumer media and artificial intelligence

    I interpret this to mean they will be producing fake celebrity porn.

    • I read is as using AI to monetize media consumption, a market with Facebook and Google already a couple of laps ahead.
  • Because I laughed and asked what she's going to fuck up next...

  • Erlich Bachman (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @11:56AM (#56465321)
    Has Erlich Bachman met his match?

  • Is she really a good fit for this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @12:29PM (#56465681)

    I would think a successful tech business incubator would require a fair amount of flexibility. Marissa Meyer's management style, on the other hand, seems very rigid, rules-based and inflexible.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @12:32PM (#56465693)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Such a fitting name (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I will only say that "lumi" means whore/hooker in informal spanish.

  • Thats all it takes to be a 'leader'

  • "The venture will focus on consumer media and artificial intelligence" Perhaps she can make an autonomous excavator to bury the corpse when she is done with it.

  • Good CTO, bad CEO (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I worked at Yahoo for 8 years, the last several of which she was at the helm. She would have been a first rate CTO, but she was a horrible CEO. The free food was a nice change. However, stack ranking killed morale on teams. She also had to personally approve new hires. Imagine trying to hire a new college graduate. It should be an easy, quick process when a hiring manager approves. Nope. Had to wait 3 weeks for Marissa to get to reviewing it, at which time, top talent were already agreeing to deals

  • There's always another job for terrible CEOs (Score:3)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Thursday April 19, 2018 @04:15PM (#56467673)
    Marissa isn't the exception she's the rule. Look at Jeffrey Immelt of stalwart industrial giant GE. He let that company rot from the inside out, only now are they finding out how bad he left it. But don't worry, not only he's got himself a $200 million golden parachute he has a new gig as CEO of Athenahealth. All that for being terrible at his job.

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