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A comment on Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'.

Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by apaitch on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:17AM (#4442248)
I know almost nothing about her, but Marissa Mayer doesn't come off as a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk-like "visionary" who will drive Yahoo to unexplored and unexpected market openings. Her approach seems to be to make Yahoo a great place to work, attract and empower talent, and let said talent churn out great products. Some would say that she should focus on changing the market direction of the company, and that's certainly one of her responsibilities. At the same time, I think what she's doing is admirable and valuable. It's certainly putting Yahoo on the map in the communities that matter. Let's hope Yahoo can ride this momentum and make something of it!
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by aaronblohowiak on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:54AM (#4442344)
Yahoo! is a conglomerate with many, many offerings. It isn't a company with one product. From the tales in the valley, it seems that bureaucracy and infighting are the greatest impediment to doing good work. "Hire great people and get out of their way" is a great strategy -- not everyone has to be a despot.
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by greenyoda on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:31AM (#4442285)
Not every CEO has to be a visionary. If the CEO can hire good people who have good ideas and get out of their way, she doesn't have to provide all the ideas herself. But she'd need to create an environment where good ideas can be born and come to fruition. Giving people free food won't do this. You'd need to set up a culture in which good ideas actually get rewarded and people aren't afraid to fail.
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by apaitch on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:49AM (#4442333)
That's actually what I'm trying to say - she doesn't come off as a visionary (in my opinion) but if she is able to set up a good and healthy work environment then she won't need to be the one coming up with all the ideas.
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by yuhong on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:33AM (#4442289)
I hope modern MBA courses teaches things like this.
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by hcal on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @07:20AM (#4443071)
They do! Modern MBA programs focus heavily on a concept called servant leadership. It can get surprisingly in-depth, but on the surface its a simple idea that can be summed up in two steps. First, hire good people. Second, provide the support they need to do their job.

Modern management models have tended to move away from issuing rules and directives. These days its more about designing jobs from which the employee can derive some self-satisfaction and than providing business context so employees can self-direct toward the company's goals.

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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by trimbo on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:48AM (#4442331)
> Her approach seems to be to make Yahoo a great place to work, attract and empower talent, and let said talent churn out great products

Why isn't that, in itself, "visionary"?

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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by apaitch on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:52AM (#4442341)
That's part of the reason I put visionary in quotations. It's a slippery term. In this case, when you think Steve Jobs = visionary you don't think "he made Apple a great place to work." Since Steve Jobs seems to be one of the paragons of "visionary" leadership in the valley, all I meant to say was that Marissa is not in the same mold.
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by timc3 on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:58AM (#4442351)
I would say that is a standard job description for a CEO in certain types of company, particularly most smaller growing enterprises.
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by hobonumber1 on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:31AM (#4442283)
What makes you say that she's not a visionary?
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Re:Marissa Mayer's Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolu... by apaitch on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @01:50AM (#4442334)
As I said, I barely know her/of her so my opinion is based on superficial things like reputation. The main point I was trying to make is not that she's not a "visionary" but that the things she's doing to help Yahoo are admirable and worthy of praise >.>
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