Marissa Mayer

[HairOfTheDog]

She doesn't seem like a bad pick, and if she can turn it around her stock soars. If it doesn't work out, it's likely Yahoo takes the blame because their culture is so corrupted.

Mayer has done some pretty impressive things in her career though, so she might be able to turn it around.

Yahoo needs a new kind of thinker, but one with in-depth industry and technological experience, imo. I really don't know if all 4 of the last CEOs were poor choices, or if instead the top level organization was too much of a mess and obstacle course for some of them to make any headway in such a short time. Less than a year is very little time to completely re-organize and affect major improvements throughout an entire company. It's taken me that long to effectively re-organize and save departments of less than a 100 people - and that was moving quickly (some of those 100 were managed remotely in other countries, but that didn't slow things down too much).

I'm wondering if being the 5^th in five years is actually an advantage. If I were in Ms. Mayer's shoes that's exactly how'd I be looking at it. I'd be working like crazy after office hours to review every single change management plan and schedule implemented by my predecessors to see what worked and what failed and who was directing those areas in the "success" column. Then, grab those directors, embrace them and entice them into a re-org advisory team quickly, brainstorm, and make sure as hell not to attempt changes that have essentially already been tried and failed without first adjusting the scenario.

It's easy to unknowingly repeat failures when there's a lot of leadership change and chaos in the environment you inherit; simply because the new leader doesn't have the background, the team he or she will be overseeing is leary of yet another yahoo coming in the joint, and/or the new honcho is trying too hard to make a name for his or herself above all else.

I think Ms. Mayer's relevant experience and historical style, along with the timing, will help her avoid that loop and she may well be a golden goose for Yahoo. She certainly doesn't ever have to worry about working for the money ever again, but people that accomplish what she has by age 37 are usually extremely internally driven.

I'm anxious to see how she does and will follow the business news. If I had any extra money, I'd invest some in Yahoo now.

All just my opinion...