Yahoo is hiring longtime Google executive Marissa Mayer to be its next CEO, the fifth in five years. It is a remarkable appointment: Mayer, who starts at Yahoo Inc. on Tuesday, was one of Google’s earliest employees and was most recently responsible for its mapping, local and location services. Mayer, 37, began her career at Google in 1999 after getting her master’s degree at Stanford, the same school that Google’s co-founders attended.
Marissa Mayer is considered an ace engineer (and manager of engineers). In its Lex Column, the Financial Times stated: “The only reason to bring on such a person is to turn Yahoo into a place where hotshots with ideas can come and receive lots of funding for trying those ideas on a huge audience – and get lots of stock options in return. Risky? Expensive? Absolutely. Better than the alternatives? Undoubtedly. Let ’er rip, Ms Mayer.”
Marissa Mayer intends to restore Yahoo’s stature as a technological innovator and will not shy away from tough competition to that end, the former Google executive told the Financial Times as she begins her tenure as the struggling web portal’s latest chief executive.
But this is not all of it! The lady is pregnant with her first child due in October. The decision to change jobs at this juncture must not been an easy one for her and the board. But women usually tend to be tougher than men under such circumstances. The fact that Ms Mayer’s appointment came during her pregnancy is a first for the technology sector and highlights how under-represented women still are in Silicon Valley. Following the bouncing boy in October we could have a bouncing Yahoo thereafter.
