Yahoo had been in trouble for a long time before Mayer got in the driver's seat. She got picked. She tried. It didn't work out, but one has to admit it was a long shot for "success" if your idea of "success" is completely turning around a behemoth floundering company.

What would it have taken to make Yahoo viable again? I don't know if anyone could have done it.

Now the next best thing is a sale and that appears to have been a success of sorts.

When ordinary people take a job and fail, even when the job itself is impossible, they don't get rewarded. CEOs shouldn't be treated differently is my point. If it was impossible and the company couldn't be salvaged, there was no compulsion for her to take the driver's seat. If she was hired to sell the company and she accomplished that, then I'm fine with her getting rewarded. If she was hired to turn the company around, but if instead, she drove it to the ground and ultimately sold, then she does not deserve the reward.

No "good" C level exec would take the job without a guarantee. You can define "good" based on the company's need. Here it was a high profile exec from one of the most profitable Internet companies ever.

I think they just chose the best executive they could find and hoped for the best.

Could they have chosen a c-level that would take zero in the event of a sale? Perhaps. But they did not.

Because in modern american business culture, CEOs deserve every salary and bonus they can get their hands on, regardless of their actual ability or the performance of the company