Granted, Yahoo has flirted with a breakout above $16 in recent months, but it could never sustain anything north of that threshold for very long. That could be change with Mayer in charge.
So much of the response to Mayer’s hiring was just sad. I was ashamed to work in the same industry as dozens of folks who decided to trash the move on such flimsy grounds.
Of course, you had the chauvinist hacks who have done nothing but disrespect Mayer because she’s a pregnant CEO.
These self-proclaimed studs never thought to reserve judgment. Maybe Mayer is capable of multitasking. Maybe she’ll schedule a C-section? Maybe her husband lives in the new century and plans to share the child-rearing load. Who knows? Maybe he’ll take the lead? Maybe the happy couple has parents? Maybe they’ll hire a nanny?
What a novelty — thinking before you speak.
Where there wasn’t testosterone-fueled chauvinism, we saw more than a few snarky scribes denounce Mayer before she even set foot in the office for Day One on the job. To his credit, John C. Dvorak held off on the insults until Day One. Over at PCMag, he wrote a pathetic hatchet job discrediting Mayer because she is young, looks young, and is a Yahoo outsider. Then, accompanied by little substance to support his claim, he argued that “100 resentful [Yahoo] executives” will stab Mayer in the back before she has a chance.
He ends his out-of-touch tirade by linking to a tweet he sent Mayer saying: “@marissamayer Congratulations AND good luck. You are going to need it.” He noted that he never heard back from her. John: It never pays to be rude. Plus, it’s not that you’re 60 years old; your attitude makes you sound older. This is not the Silicon Valley you grew up covering.
In 2007, Dvorak, then at MarketWatch, said that, “Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone.” Then, in PCMag circa 2010, in a classic example of making the same mistake twice, he predicted iPad would be a “good for nothing ... flop.”
Just because Yahoo has been a disaster does not mean we should brand Mayer one until she proves otherwise.
A Bold Move Brings New Blood
Quite the contrary, Yahoo becomes a “buy” because the company made the bold move. Other tech companies pass “seasoned executives” back and forth to fill CEO jobs. That will not end well in a world defined by brands of the young, such asGoogle,Facebook, and Apple.
Young, fresh blood represents the future of the tech, Internet, and new-media space, not the tired old status quo that guys who have been covering the beat for decades find routine comfort in.
But it’s not even about the number that represents your age. It’s about how you approach the business. Visionaries like Steve Jobs, who died at age 56, Jeff Bezos, 48, at Amazon.com, Mark Pincus, 46, at Zynga and Tim Westergren, 46, at Pandora Media are ageless.