Issue of the week: Can Mayer remake Yahoo?

last updated 8 January 2015

Even in Silicon Valley, Marissa Mayer’s résumé makes for intimidating reading, said Rana Foroohar in Time. “Stanford artificial-intelligence degree, employee No. 20 at Google, developer of [its] iconic white search page, user-experience guru, stunning blond designer-clothes-wearing mother-to-be.” Since Mayer was named CEO of Yahoo last month, there’s been lots of debate over her pregnancy and whether working moms can really “have it all.” But what investors really want to know is whether she has what it takes to revamp the long-suffering Yahoo. Four CEOs in the past five years have left the company adrift, said Brad Stone in Bloomberg Businessweek. Declining revenues, a disillusioned workforce, and a reputation for lackluster products are just a few of Mayer’s new challenges. It’s a “bit like the mayor of Palo Alto being asked to run the city of Detroit,” said one tech analyst. But Yahoo’s board, which reportedly gave Mayer a five-year, $100 million–plus pay package, is clearly hoping she can be the company’s savior.

The biggest item on Mayer’s to-do list is fixing Yahoo’s identity crisis, said David Carr in The New York Times. Past CEOs have been “baffled” when asked whether they were running a media company, an advertising company, or a technology company. But Mayer isn’t starting from scratch. “Despite its tattered reputation,” Yahoo still boasts 700 million monthly users; it is the world’s second-most-popular email service and the Internet’s No. 1 destination for news, sports, and finance. It’s a “stagnating company, but it is not a collapsing one.” Making a big push for a stronger mobile profile could be just what Yahoo needs, said Brian Womack in Bloomberg.com. Mayer was hired to be a products-focused CEO; at Google, she helped develop wildly successful features like the search engine, Google News, and maps. She was relentless in putting the consumer’s experience first and emphasizing ease of use. Applying that expertise to the mobile market could make Yahoo relevant again.

But simply improving Yahoo’s products “won’t be enough to get wind behind the sails,” said Dan Farber in CNET.com. Sure, there’s a clear opportunity to build up a few of Yahoo’s hidden gems, like its Flickr photo-sharing service or its excellent sports coverage, but the company could fall further behind if it takes on too much in a quest to be the next Google. Mayer needs to inspire her downtrodden troops with a single, grand mission. She can be sure of one thing: “Everyone will be watching.”