Marissa Mayer Reportedly Stuck Out Her Neck To Keep Morale Up At Yahoo

How Marissa Mayer Stuck Out Her Neck To Get Employees To Like Her

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wants her employees to like her, and according to one report, she will fight off investors' demands to ensure that they do.

On Friday, the New York Post reported that activist shareholder Dan Loeb left Yahoo's board of directors on bad terms with Mayer because she refused to go along with his plan to fire 12,000 employees, almost 30 percent of Yahoo's staff.

“She liked being loved,” an anonymous source said of Mayer in the Post. That source, as Salon's Andrew Leonard noted, may have an ax to grind if he or she is associated with Loeb. So we should take those words with a grain of salt.

But in any case, Mayer's strategy has won the hearts and minds of Yahoo employees, by all indications. According to a study by job search site Glassdoor, 84 percent of Yahoo workers approve of Mayer's leadership. This may be because Mayer has made Yahoo relevant after many years of obsolescence, or it might just be the free snacks. Many of Yahoo's employees proclaimed their love of the free food that Mayer brought to the company in Glassdoor's survey.

And of course, Yahoo's stock has risen over 73 percent in the year that Mayer has been in charge. This is good for investors as well as employees, many of whom likely have stock in the company. No one minds getting richer.

Before You Go

1
Advice To Job Hunting Women
"Find something you're passionate about and just love. Passion is really gender-neutralizing," Marissa Mayer said on Martha Stewart's "Women with Vision" television series in 2011.
2
The Pie 'Isn't Big Enough'
"Right now is a great time to be a woman in tech, but there's not enough women in tech," Mayer told a CES2012 panel hosted by CNET. "[I] worry a lot of times the conversation gets really focused on what percentage of the pie is women. And the truth is, the pie isn't big enough. We're not producing enough computer scientist. We're not producing enough product designers. We need a lot more people to keep up with all of these gadgets, all of this technology, all these possibilities."Mayer also commented on the stereotypical culture within the tech world: "There's all kinds of different women who do this. You can wear ruffles, you can be a jock, and you still be a great computer scientist or a great technologist, or a great product designer."
3
Tangible Technology
"There's just huge growth and opportunity. [T]he fact that the technology is now so tangible in our everyday lives, I think, will inspire a lot more women to go into technology -- and I'm really heartened by that," Mayer said for the MAKERS "Women in Tech" interview series in 2012.
4
Internet Empowered
"I consider myself incredibly lucky to be present in a moment in time when this wonderful and powerful medium, the internet, is empowering geeks -- and especially female geeks -- to express and pursue their passions," Meyer said in a 2012 acceptance speech at the Celebrating Change gala. She had just won the International Museum of Women's first-ever Innovator Award.
5
Geekin' Out
"People ask me all the time, 'What is it like to be a woman at Google?' I'm not a women at Google; I'm a geek at Google. And being a geek is just great," she said in an interview for CNN's "Leading Women" series in 2012.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot