back to article Yahoo! Poaches! New! CEO! From! Google!

In a surprise move, Yahoo! has named top Google exec Marissa Mayer its new president and CEO – the fifth in five years. "I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet's premier destinations for more than 700 million users," Mayer said in a statement. "I look forward to working with the Company's dedicated …

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  1. ratfox
    Go

    Good for Yahoo

    And good luck to her… She'll need it.

    1. Captain Save-a-ho
      Pint

      Re: Good for Yahoo

      Luck will help, but this makes sense on a lot of levels for Yahoo! and for Ms. Mayer. Yahoo! gets to steal a key contributor from a nearby competitor. She gets a challenge that never would have been available at Google, given that they have passed over her before for higher level positions. She had to leave to get a shot at a C-level position and there's a real opportunity at Yahoo!, despite the obvious skepticism that all of us should have. Yes, she'll need a lot of luck, but hopefully she's prepared to kick ass and chew bubble gum, as it were.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good for Yahoo

      Lets be honest here, she was employed because the Yahoo needed a bit of totty to brighten the boardroom up.

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: Good for Yahoo

        Nope - she has a very impressive CV.

        This could be interesting. IT is currently suffering from a rash of moron CEOs. She doesn't seem to be in that camp at all, and might even be able to do something innovative at Y!

        Tough job. I wish her well.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good for Yahoo

          > Nope - she has a very impressive CV.

          Not half as impressive as the last guy's!

      2. Hollerith 1

        Re: Good for Yahoo

        I bet you say that about all the girls.

  2. Captain DaFt
    Joke

    And the betting pool is now open...

    Place your bets on who they afflict with... er, appoint to the job next year!

  3. Don Jefe
    Unhappy

    Goo Gone Bad

    Poor lady. She's very likely to be at the helm of a doomed company & will get saddled with all the blame. I can't see it furthering women in business.

    1. SilverWave
      Happy

      Poor lady - Nope worth $300M

      The title - read it.

      1. pompurin

        Re: Poor lady - Nope worth $300M

        And possibly one of the best looking CEOs I've ever known, even after five kids!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Poor lady - Nope worth $300M

          > And possibly one of the best looking CEOs I've ever known, even after five kids!

          Over the years, people keep asking the question 'Why aren't there more women in IT?'

          Thank you for being the living embodiment of the answer.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Poor lady - Nope worth $300M

            There is nothing wrong with men admiring an attractive woman. (Or man, if that's what floats your boat.)

            There is nothing wrong with women admiring an attractive man. (Or woman, if that's what floats your boat.)

            Please, go back to Saudi Arabia.

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Go

      Re: Goo Gone Bad

      She's a multi-millionaire and certainly doesn't need to work, so why shouldn't she take a break and have a go at raising the dead? It's probably more fun than just doing the same-old same-old at Google. If she succeeds it'll be one in the eye for Larry&Sergey, and if she fails it'll be blamed on Yahoo! anyway. Either way she'll still be marketable in a year or two, whatever happens.

  4. Random K
    Pint

    Best of Luck Lady

    She's gonna need it, but this looks shockingly like Yahoo! making a good decision. I guess they were overdue...

  5. Chris 171
    Thumb Up

    Flickr

    Here's hoping the above gets pulled back up the important tree for a start, she likes kittens right? Especially seeing as Flickr has now adopted Nokia maps for its location stuff. Interesting times ahead.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At least she is wicked smart

    Yahoo is giant mess, but she is by far the best CEO they have had since Wang the Elder (the first time around). They finally have a proper technologist instead of one of these media/advertising world types that doesn't know anything about building products of interest to anyone or someone with totally irrelevant "management" experience. First time in a long time that anyone has thought Yahoo might turn it around. Take note, HP.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Awesome Decision

    way to finally think it through Yahoo Board.

  8. beep54
    Devil

    As to that 'sinking ship' comment, it really is taking one hell of a long time for Yahell! to take on enough water to finally go under.

  9. jake Silver badge

    Talk about setting up one's self for a fall ...

    The former self-proclaimed "GooGirl"[1][2] has absolutely zero business sense ... all of her education is in technology. I seriously doubt any tech-knowledgeable person with an MBA would touch that position with a barge-pole. I certainly wouldn't.

    [1] Warning ... not safe to google from work!

    [2] No, she had nothing to do with the site ... but in theory she should have had enough of a clue to google the term before applying it to herself :-/

    1. ratfox
      Facepalm

      "all of her education is in technology"

      You mean, she should get an MBA first to be competent for the job?

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: "all of her education is in technology"

        Apparently yes.

        Because just having an MBA guarantees you really know business[tm], and are literally incapable of being a moron.

        It's so much more important than making stuff that works, isn't it?

      2. jake Silver badge

        @ratfox (was: Re: "all of her education is in technology")

        "You mean, she should get an MBA first to be competent for the job?"

        Uh ... If I were a Yahoo! stockholder, them hiring a Chief Executive Officer without any real concept of how multi-billion dollar, several decades old[1], international businesses are run would give me pause to reconsider my portfolio.

        Why the kid with Management aspirations hasn't slept thru' an MBA is beyond me ... Quite honestly, it was the easiest degree I ever received.

        [1]Which google & yahoo decidedly ain't ...

        1. clean_state

          Re: @ratfox (was: "all of her education is in technology")

          I don't know about running tech companies - I've been told biscuit bakers can do it. But in my experience, in a product design meeting, every time someone is loud, off-topic and not helping, he has an MBA.

          1. AceRimmer

            Re: @ratfox (was: "all of her education is in technology")

            Yahoo needs someone technical at the helm, their value has been dropping as various non-technical management decisions interms of what to buy into and sell have come back to bite them on the arse.

            Have a look at this if you want to see how bad their situation is

            http://www.scores.org/graphics/yahoo/

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Talent

    She will attract a lot of talent that would never have considered working for Yahoo! in the dire state it is in.

    I'd work for her any time, any place, anywhere...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Talent

      "I'd work on her any time, any place, anywhere..."

      There, fixed that for you.

    2. stanimir

      Re: Talent

      you also talented, your(silly)self? look deceive, i mean you really know her or you just horny?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CEO Mayer is pregnant and due in October

    Add this to the list of shockers:

    http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/16/mayer-yahoo-ceo-pregnant/

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: CEO Mayer is pregnant and due in October

      That might suggest she has been given a kind of shepherding role to manage portfolio divestitures prior to Yahoo being rolled into another company. This is no slight on her ability or commitment but the board would be mad not to consider the risks involved in terms of her availability over the next few months. Credit must go to them for taking it into consideration and still going ahead. I sincerely hope it is successful.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: CEO Mayer is pregnant and due in October

      Well educated, rich and attractive but I do have to question the savvy of someone, male or female, who believes its ok to leave a new born child in the hands of a nanny to progress a career.

  12. hugo tyson
    Coat

    So finally....

    ...there's a reason to visit yahoo? Sorry, I mean Yahoo!?

  13. Jonjonz
    Thumb Down

    Kind of pointless

    Yahoo has been foundering about for years now. Totally directionless while halfheartedly trying to add me-too social media functions. They basically gave up on search, gave up on being a directory, and now hang on mostly out of the momentum of people over the years who use their free web email accounts, which Google is now chipping away at with the superior Google mail.

    She's no doubt a smart girl/woman now looking squarely into the mouth of middle age and eventual retirement, so she has to be doing her spreadsheets on how to maximize her earning potential to provide for herself and her offspring. She has also concluded that she has no further promotion opportunities at Google, so why not take the position at Yahoo. She finally gets to be the big cheese with the best parking spot, office and perks and only has to suck up to and charm a board, who most typically are completely clueless and more often a simple challenge of massaging overblown egos once a month.

    She has never impressed me as the vision type, more the office politics corporate ladder climber, so other than cementing her political house within Yahoo staff and board, I doubt she will make any significant improvement to Yahoos value. Yahoo lacks vision, they simply have no clear objectives.

    1. AceRimmer
      Facepalm

      Re: Kind of pointless

      Somehow you manage misogynistic and bitter in one post

  14. deadlockvictim

    Google finally gets to take over Yahoo!

    Dear Ms. Mayer,

    Can Google have the exclamation mark once it has finally devoured the remains of a once great search engine please? Google! would look rather good.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    All that Yahoo needs is focus.

    Many companies have diversified themselves into obscurity, WH Smith comes to mind, once a great place to buy stationary and quality writing equipment, now just another newsagent/cd shop/video shop/card shop/... and not particularly memorable for anything in particular.

    If she can give them focus then she might be onto a winner.

    Perhaps a product-focused techie can bring that to Yahoo where a corporate suit cannot. It's not like Steve Jobs didn't do that for Apple is it?

    Either way, I wish her success.

  16. Eddy Ito

    Vote of confidence?

    Good luck to the new CEO and board members now the only question is whether I should add any YHOO to my portfolio. Why not (Y! ?), might as well go in for a few shares and trade out a known slug that's back where I started in October. Yes, I'm looking at you F, if only I had sold in the spring.

  17. KayKay
    Happy

    So what she's expecting

    Being CEO is not like ditch-digging work.

    She doesn't need the money and she doesn't need a better CV, she can afford financially to ever work again. She wants to work for the challenge of producing something excellent.

    Thank heavens she doesn't have an MBA. Way too many people in Y! already have...... and look at everything in numbers with absolutely no idea what the numbers mean. Like big worry over reduced page-views, when caused by finally blocking illegal scrapers. Like thinking 20,000 new accounts a day is good business when 19,000 of them are spammers. Like thinking closing data centres will save money, when the same number of servers will cost the same whether in 2 centres or 4 (but cost a fortune to move).

    A CEO many in the company are looking at with hope, not fear.

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