She is the woman who ran Yahoo into the ground, taking it from one of the giants of the dot com era into a largely worthless and useless has-been
Yahoo was once a big recognizable brand, but there was pretty much no moment in history when anyone would have said “Oh no, Yahoo is down, now how will I get important things done?” It was never focused, it was never indispensable.
Yahoo was valued at over $100B briefly in 1999-2000, after Google had demonstrated a much, much better internet search. Yahoo cratered to as little as 5% of its all-time high, recovered for a while, then began fading away. Its market cap was just under $20B when Mayer was hired in 2012. After which the market cap trended up.
And that’s why I say she ran it into the ground- because when Google demonstrated a MUCH MUCH MUCH better Search, Yahoo didn’t do anything differently. They kept going as a ‘start page portal site’, kept pushing their really shitty email system, and just rode that wave into irrelevance.
Yahoo HAD some properties that COULD have been immensely valuable, even post-Google, if done right.
Flickr is one that comes to mind. Google had Picasa, and Google was innovating and pushing updates while Flickr (app and website) stagnated. So with no innovation everybody eventually left Flickr. With some vision, Flickr could have become what Tumblr or Google Photos ended up being.
Yahoo Answers was another one. It was a forum sort of like AskReddit where you could post questions on any subject you wanted and others would answer it. Again, stagnated, became irrelevant.
I’ll give you that Mayer came in after much of the value had been lost. But she came into a diamond in the rough, a site that was ready to reinvent itself into something relevant again, and she just didn’t.
And that’s why I say she ran it into the ground- because when Google demonstrated a MUCH MUCH MUCH better Search, Yahoo didn’t do anything differently.
Look, this sentence literally blames Mayer for things that happened before her tenure. You acknowledge that this doesn’t make any sense, but you can’t really deny that it’s what you’ve said. Somehow the media that’s covered Mayer has made a lot of people react this way.
Flickr is one that comes to mind. Google had Picasa…
As a response to its community’s concerns, Flickr saw a substantial engineering investment from 2014-2015 or so, under Mayer’s tenure. I’m afraid the best summary I’ve found is pretty obvious AI slop, but it’s relating some real events.
Flickr lives, Picasa was killed, Google Photos is now an extremely annoying nagware for backup services. Things could be so much worse for Flickr.
Yahoo Answers was another one…
God I hated Yahoo Answers.
Mayer’s attempts to make Yahoo relevant again may not have worked but it’s not responsible or accurate to conclude that she was necessarily inept.
It is my suspicion that if, say, Jack Dorsey had overseen the dismantling of Yahoo, the business press would have told us that he made a great effort but Yahoo’s problems went too deep. Rather than leading us to believe that he was just inept. Or that he failed because he took the wrong amount of paternity leave.
Yahoo was once a big recognizable brand, but there was pretty much no moment in history when anyone would have said “Oh no, Yahoo is down, now how will I get important things done?” It was never focused, it was never indispensable.
Yahoo was valued at over $100B briefly in 1999-2000, after Google had demonstrated a much, much better internet search. Yahoo cratered to as little as 5% of its all-time high, recovered for a while, then began fading away. Its market cap was just under $20B when Mayer was hired in 2012. After which the market cap trended up.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/yahoo/marketcap/
And that’s why I say she ran it into the ground- because when Google demonstrated a MUCH MUCH MUCH better Search, Yahoo didn’t do anything differently. They kept going as a ‘start page portal site’, kept pushing their really shitty email system, and just rode that wave into irrelevance.
Yahoo HAD some properties that COULD have been immensely valuable, even post-Google, if done right.
Flickr is one that comes to mind. Google had Picasa, and Google was innovating and pushing updates while Flickr (app and website) stagnated. So with no innovation everybody eventually left Flickr. With some vision, Flickr could have become what Tumblr or Google Photos ended up being.
Yahoo Answers was another one. It was a forum sort of like AskReddit where you could post questions on any subject you wanted and others would answer it. Again, stagnated, became irrelevant.
I’ll give you that Mayer came in after much of the value had been lost. But she came into a diamond in the rough, a site that was ready to reinvent itself into something relevant again, and she just didn’t.
Look, this sentence literally blames Mayer for things that happened before her tenure. You acknowledge that this doesn’t make any sense, but you can’t really deny that it’s what you’ve said. Somehow the media that’s covered Mayer has made a lot of people react this way.
As a response to its community’s concerns, Flickr saw a substantial engineering investment from 2014-2015 or so, under Mayer’s tenure. I’m afraid the best summary I’ve found is pretty obvious AI slop, but it’s relating some real events.
Flickr lives, Picasa was killed, Google Photos is now an extremely annoying nagware for backup services. Things could be so much worse for Flickr.
God I hated Yahoo Answers.
Mayer’s attempts to make Yahoo relevant again may not have worked but it’s not responsible or accurate to conclude that she was necessarily inept.
It is my suspicion that if, say, Jack Dorsey had overseen the dismantling of Yahoo, the business press would have told us that he made a great effort but Yahoo’s problems went too deep. Rather than leading us to believe that he was just inept. Or that he failed because he took the wrong amount of paternity leave.