THE LEGACYOF MARISSAMAYER
As the seventh CEO of troubled Yahoo, she ‘ took on a challenge thatmay not have been solvable’
At 42 years old, “she’s young; we haven’t seen or heard the last of Marissa.” Greg Sterling, contributing editor, Search Engine Land
The slow demise of Marissa Mayer as Yahoo CEO reached its inexorable end Tuesday.
Nearly five years after she took on the job of turning around the gasping Internet icon, Mayer exited the scene with the completion of Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo. A new business that combines Yahoo and Verizon property AOL, called Oath, will be run by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.
Mayer resigned when the transaction closed. “Verizon wishes Mayer well in her future endeavors,” Oath said in a statement.
In a Tumblr post titled “Nostalgia, Gratitude & Optimism,” Mayer said, “Looking back on my time at Yahoo, we have confronted seemingly insurmountable business challenges, along with many surprise twists and
turns.” She said Yahoo had successfully navigated those hurdles “and mountains in ways that have not only made Yahoo a better company, but also made all of us far stronger.”
Mayer, 42, is expected to land more than $ 186 million in total compensation — far beyond the golden parachute of $ 23 million Yahoo said she would receive— according to securities filings.
Mayer, who all but vanished the past year after a highly visible start at Yahoo, had no further comment.
Her resignation was inevitable, analysts say, once Verizon agreed to buy Yahoo’s digital assets for $ 4.8 billion — since amended to $ 4.48 billion following the disclosure of two large customer- account hacks under her watch — and the remnants of Yahoo was renamed Altaba. “Mayer took on a challenge thatmay not have been solvable,” says Jeff Kagan, an independent tech analyst. “She tried her best, but it wasn’t good enough.”
The legacy of Mayer, once hailed as a Google- trained savior when tapped as Yahoo CEO in July 2012, wasmixed.
UnderMayer, company shares rocketed 254%, from $ 15 to $ 53.12, outpacing the Nasdaq Composite’s 112% gain.
The stock performance was all the more remarkable, tech analysts say, when considering the circumstances under which Mayer joined Yahoo. She was the Silicon Valley company’s seventh CEO, a list that included Scott Thompson, Ross Levinsohn and Terry Semel. And she was inheriting a ship taking on water: Google and Facebook had eviscerated Yahoo’s once- healthy share of online advertising worldwide.
Yahoo’s net ad revenue is projected to decline to $ 3 billion this year from $ 3.32 billion in 2015, according to eMarketer.
“She had a fairly good run but got all the bad breaks,” says Bill Klepper, a management professor at Columbia Graduate School of Business. “How can you stop a Russian hacker? And she got hit twice.”
“She came in with a very, very daunting task,” says Greg Sterling, a contributing editor at Search Engine Land, a site that covers the search industry. “She was asked to revive the ad business when Facebook came along with superior technology and Google made a push into display ads.”
Yahoo’s core business was squeezed by chief rivals Google and Facebook and by upstarts Instagram and Snapchat.
“Every successful company rides the growth wave until it crests and falls,” Kagan says.
While some expect Mayer to lie low, others foresee an eventual comeback as CEO. “She’s young; we haven’t seen or heard the last of Marissa,” Sterling says.