On July 2012, Marissa Mayer became the chief executive officer of Yahoo, one of the world's most iconic Internet companies. At the time, Ms. Mayer was just 37 years old. A year earlier, she had been the head of the location and maps services division of Google, a Yahoo rival. Working at both companies helped Ms. Mayer accumulate a personal fortune of $500 million by the time she was 40 years old.
Her meteoric rise to the top echelons of the two tech companies is perhaps more surprising considering that the tech industry is notorious for its relative lack of gender diversity. Considering her successes and the nature of the challenges she faced, there are several lessons that can be learnt by scrutinizing her career, argues Nicholas Carlson, author of "Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo" and chief correspondent at Business Insider.
The first lesson? "Know when to say goodbye," argues Carlson. During her tenure at Google, Ms. Mayer made a number of enemies. Over time, these enemies gained power and used it to sideline her. Despite this, she opted to stay with the tech giant and went on to lead projects that included the development of Google Maps for the iPhone. She similarly bode her time before joining Yahoo. A friend had encouraged her to seek the chief executive post after the then CEO Carol Bartz was fired in 2011, but unsatisfied with the composition of the board heading the company at the time, Ms. Mayer declined the offer. She only took up the job after almost all members of the old board had left.
Second lesson? "Recognize relative weakness," adds Carlson. Ms. Mayer had been hired by Google to develop the search giant's advertising system. Unfortunately, she remained unsuccessful even after several months of work. Eventually, Google was forced to hire another coder, Jeff Dean, who completed the project in a few weeks. Rather than leave the company, Ms. Mayer opted to serve it in other ways.
Third lesson? "Choose the opportunity that's scariest," argues Carlson. After finishing her graduate studies at Stanford, Ms. Mayer had her pick of jobs that included a professorship at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University and a consultancy that would have paid her extremely well. Instead, she opted to join Google, at the time a small startup populated by a large number of extremely bright employees. Without knowing it, she had made a choice that would eventually make her $500 million richer.
Fourth lesson? "Don't worry too much about stepping on toes," explains Carlson. In the course of her job at Google, Ms. Mayer clashed with a number of her fellow employees. She did not let that distract her, and with the support of Google's management, she focused on solving some of the company's most pressing problems.
Final lesson? "Identify the company's problems and solve them," emphasizes Carlson. After her lackluster performance as a coder, Ms. Mayer focused on serving Google in other ways. She eventually became the ultimate judge of the appropriateness of the user interfaces used on Google's products and services. Ms. Mayer also helped develop a management training program for students with technical skills.
Photo courtesy of TechCrunch50-2008 (Flickr) via Wikimedia Commons
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