I was also at Google when the AOL deal was signed and remember the decision and outcome quite differently. It was definitely a high risk deal, deliberately so, but in no way was it only "the best-case scenario had us breaking even". Nor was it the case that "all of our models were wrong". The product manager in charge of ads at the time had a clear understanding of exactly how the deal could be hugely profitable for Google because of the value of extra advertisers attracted to the Google platform thanks to the added AOL inventory. It was by no means a sure thing, but it was a likely outcome. Fortunately the decision makers believed him, they took the risk, and it paid off enormously.
That's what I've heard from other early Googlers who were there at the time. It was a calculated risk. If the deal went badly, it would bankrupt the company, but the best estimates from existing revenue numbers and likely ad inventory increases had it being hugely profitable for Google. Their internal numbers supported that but few people outside the company believed it, hence the need for a guaranteed revenue clause. It certainly wasn't a shot-in-the-dark, though.
Can you speak at all to what sort of modeling work is done around this sort of major partnership? I'm really curious how many people are involved in that sort of exercise at that level and how clean the data is, what sorts of data are used, etc.
Marissa described possibly the most thorough and analytical job search process I've heard from anyone, when she was talking about how she joined Google. I really liked her reflection on this in hindsight on how being overly analytical is dangerous and it's something I try to remind myself of when I'm in danger of overthinking a decision:
"I think this is a common thing that very analytical people trip themselves up with. They look at things as if there’s a right answer and a wrong answer when, the truth is, there’s often just good choices, and maybe a great choice in there."
Too much focus on utility functions, not enough focus on novelty functions, even though it's been proven that utility functions decline in usefulness as a search space expands. Given an infinite search space, a utility function can only find local optima, there is no global optima. In such situations, a novelty function that finds a path from one happy local optima to another happy local optima is a better bet than using a utility function.
The above paragraph is rational, and yet people who consider themselves hyper rational often ignore the truth of this. And the irony is that some of them do this for an emotional reason: they want the security that comes from believing that there is an absolute right answer. They are irrationally rational.
As someone who feels they're from the outside looking in (left college to work, still ended up in the technology but without a traditional college education) one of the most frustrating things is watch folks who I perceive as traditionally trained CS and similar folks ... is their desire to go hyper analytical ... and then REALLY commit to the result as the best choice above all others because of whatever analysis they made.
Now granted there are time to hunker down and commit but sometimes all that data doesn't really tell you anything and you're still facing an unknown no matter how much work you do, and it might be worth thinking about it after taking a few steps down that road / experience. It's not uncommon to come across a variable(s) that plays a far stronger role than any other, only AFTER you tried doing something.
For hyper analytical folks the data on hand is the hammer for every nail it seems sometimes.
> "I think this is a common thing that very analytical people trip themselves up with. They look at things as if there’s a right answer and a wrong answer when, the truth is, there’s often just good choices, and maybe a great choice in there."
This absolutely drives me crazy in design/engineering decisions. Very commonly there are a lot of good solutions and one great one, and the good ones are good enough. Yet all the brilliant intellectuals want to find the VERY BEST METHOD EVER instead of just getting stuff done.
Sheryl Sandberg described a similarly thorough weighing of her decision to join Google.
Mayer: "I had a long analytical evening with a friend of mine where we looked at all the job offers I had received. We created a giant matrix with one row per job offer and one column per value. We compared everything from the basics like cash and stock to where I'd be living, happiness factor, and trajectory factor—all of these different elements. And so we went to work analyzing this problem."
Sandberg: "After a while I had a few offers and I had to make a decision, so what did I do? I am MBA trained, so I made a spreadsheet. I listed my jobs in the columns and my criteria in the rows, and compared the companies and the missions and the roles."
It's a fun bit of trivia that Sandberg put the criteria in the rows, which enables sorting the criteria - a nice way to see the upsides and downsides of each choice.
Agreed. I think for most people here the risk is the indecision rather than the wrong decision. For a lot of people there's a deathly fear of ending up under a bridge, and while that's undoubtably true for many people unfortunately, I'd wager most people here have a lot more runway than they'd think even.
It's funny, this is the nugget of wisdom that stood out to me as well. I waste so much time in my daily life trying to make the "perfect" decision, when choosing something good and moving on would be a much better use of my time.
I've said something similar when mentoring engineering managers about how to let go of certain decision making. 90% of the decisions a team makes will have very little impact on the success of the project, but the other 10% do. You only learn from experience which decisions are the 90% and which decisions are the 10%.
It's how leaders need to operate to survive if they want to avoid micromanaging, honestly.
Yes, I agree - it was nice to hear her iterate that. I have learnt the exact same thing in my two decades as an adult: it doesn't matter really in the end what decision you make, it's how you make it work (and you do have to work at it).
Seem like one of those in group type biases. Where the more similar something is the more we obsesses over the differences. Presumably because we can relate to a lot more of the information.
Somewhat ironically being irrational can actually be a good way to make unknown, but largely equal, decisions. Because at least you picked something with conviction, rather than having analyzed the situation incorrectly.
Of course for a lot of us good choices aren't the problem so much as the downside. I remember someone made a calculator online for how many time one would most likely see their parents before they died.
"I realized that, while I had a very deep understanding of artificial intelligence, I did not yet have some of the basics down. I knew how a database worked. I knew how an operating system worked. I knew how a compiler worked. But I hadn't taken classes on those topics, so I went back for my master's and took the rest of the AI offerings as well as a lot of programming basics. That way, I could actually go and market myself as a software engineer and say, “I've written a compiler. I've written an operating system. I've written a database. I know how they work"
I am confused. Is she talking about foundation CS courses like OS & database systems OR AI courses?
Keep in mind that she is a queen of self promotion. When she was talking about 140 hour work weeks she conveniently left out the fact she was paying someone else to do her domestic work [0]. Or that most of her days involved meetings, lunches and dinners.
I am reminded of the story of Henry IV who stood barefoot in the snow for three days. And through the grace of God not getting frost bite. We have come so far when we no longer believe you need God for acts like this.
As I understand it, foundational CS classes are not a requirement for that degree. Although I do know people who majored in Symbolic Systems and completed such courses in undergrad, I assume they were electives rather than requirements.
> I've written a compiler. I've written an operating system. I've written a database.
Yeah... I did both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in CS, and I've never written a complete working compiler, OS or database - I've written and tested "toy" versions of such, but that claim seems to be a bit hyperbolic. Maybe she did do all of those things, but none of those were coursework.
Considering how Mayer absolutely cratered Yahoo I'd take her advice with a grain of salt. Quarterly operating profit dropped by more than 50% during her tenure and she was the driving force behind the acquisition of dozens of worthless companies leading to the write-off of billions of dollars in goodwill value.
"When management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." -- Warren Buffett.
Did Marissa Mayer have any accomplishments at either Google or Yahoo? It looks like she just /was/ there, but she didn't make any significant decisions which can be undoubtedly attributed to her.
"Our final question: Why isn't everyone happy all the time?
I don't know. Overall, I'm a pretty happy person, and one of my theories in life is that people fundamentally want to be happy. So, if you ever find a moment when you aren't happy, you should just wait. Something is likely to change in the scenario. Someone else will change what they're doing, or you'll get motivated to change what you're doing, so the situation will change overall for the better."
Sort of in a slump and I don't have anything smart to say but this made me feel a little better. I feel like I have far more ability than my company utilizes but I cannot quit because I need this job. I don't have the balls to start a company because I don't have a great idea. I just write code. So I will wait. Something will give eventually.
You will wait forever dude. Don't take advice from someone who won the lottery. Try taking action if you can and put yourself in areas (or companies) where the chance to encounter good ideas and possibly build upon them yourself is greater. It is incrediblely different to work with motivated people who love what they do vs folks who just clock in and clock out.
I would say being patient is what she is talking about here, but are there other jobs that would be more fulfilling for you? Happy to chat and help. It gets better!
Was it really necessary to put in the phrase - "..bought with my babysitting money" ? Does she mean her job as a babysitter or is it just an adjective ? How much did babysitting pay that you could afford a computer with that stuff ?
Marissa Mayer was an accomplished engineer and then a senior executive at Google through its transition from startup to behemoth, then took on the impossible task of rescuing Yahoo when no comparably experienced man wanted to step up to the plate, and facilitated a solid outcome for shareholders [1].
Reasonable people can debate the merits of her performance and impact at both companies, but these kinds of one-line dismissals of her entire career from armchair quarterbacks are disgraceful.
Yeah pretty much, I don't see much going on with many of these high status women (and men) other than their network. Especially when their actual performance doesn't speak volumes.
I'm always irked by hns attitude towards women leaders. There so many comments trying to discredit her or trying to shame her for self promotion. In general, there's always a sexist undertone, and I feel like the anonymity of hn brings the sexism of the tech community to the surface.
In regards to Marissa, I personally believe that the Glass Cliff is real. It's inspiring that she was integral in creating one of the most valuable company in the valley. Likewise, I find it impressive that she was able to climb the political ladder of a generally sexist industry.
> I'm always irked by hns attitude towards women leaders. There so many comments trying to discredit her or trying to shame her for self promotion.
HN demonstrably shows the same attitude towards male leaders as well. Elon Musk is the poster child of this.
This has nothing to do with the gender of the leader, but rather an aversion to self-promotion, hyping, or any other exaggeration of the self or one's accomplishments.
>In regards to Marissa, I personally believe that the Glass Cliff is real
The glass cliff didn't make her buy Tumblr for 1.1 billion dollars only for it to be essentially worthless a few years later.
I also think people are a bit harsh on what situation Yahoo was in. They were still profitable, had a ton of users, and plenty of cash in the bank. Sure, it was being left behind but there was plenty of juice there to do something to become relevant again. In the five years she was CEO there's not really anything you can point to as a success. It raises the question of how important she was to the string of successful products that she headed at Google.
This has nothing to do with her being a woman (other that that's the only notable thing about her hence she gets a lot of press over it). When was the last time you saw HN say something nice about Terry Semel? She was the final failed CEO of a failing tech company and she executed some really awful policies along the way. That matched with her outsized support from the press explains 100% of the ire toward her you see here.
I don't think I've ever seen anything but glowing praise for Lisa Su on hacker news.
Then again, HN seems to discuss her less than Marissa Mayer. Why is that? She's far more successful. When I think great women leaders in tech, she's the first I think of. Anti-hardware bias maybe? Or maybe it's a valley bias. After all, she came out of MIT rather than Stanford and lives in Austin rather than San Francisco. I don't know, what do you think?
At one point she was seen from the outside as the 3rd most powerful/influential person at Google, after the two founders and even ahead of Schmidt, I remember articles praising her decision of leaving the Google front-page almost empty with only two buttons on it (I think this was around 2008-2010). Then she went to Yahoo and drove it into the ground and as such I'm surprised that people still take her business-related pieces of advice that seriously.
Wholeheartedly agree, and I think it comes down to "signalling by association". For sure she is a workaholic and that gets you far, but to me it seems like she is filling the gap of providing confirmation to insecure overachievers after she - being one herself - made mistakes and reflected on them. Mistakes that could have been avoided had you taken out the ego in the first place.
In contrast to my hypothesis: If you like her, feel free to share your thoughts or prove me wrong. What is special about her?
> The cult of personality ~~around Marissa~~ is just confusing ~~to me~~.
Lest we forget Elizabeth Holmes, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and for those old enough to remember Bill Gates in the 90s.
If you're lucky you die before you start making terrible decisions. A quote from Napoleon that he supposedly said while in exile "Had I been hit by a canon ball on my entry into Moscow I would have been remembered as the greatest statesman and general the world had ever seen".
Yahoo was already dying when she joined. Fundamentally the ‘portal’ model was already doomed and there was little she could do to fix it other than buy a social network like tumblr.
Yahoo and aol both had levels of technical debt that are hard to imagine from outside of the company.
Tumblr wasn't a bad acquisition. I would also challenge that she ruined Yahoo. Yahoo was already on a downward trajectory with an existential identity crisis. At worst, she couldn't change the direction.
According to some conspiracy theorists her job was to destroy Yahoo! She did that well. I don't know if it's true or not, but they sure sound convincing.
This is fairly subjective, since we do not know what would have happened without them. It’s easy to speculate, but if you find a way to accurately benchmark C-level performance, there is a whole lot of investors that want to talk with you.
NelsonMinar|6 years ago
nostrademons|6 years ago
mathattack|6 years ago
shostack|6 years ago
kayhi|6 years ago
AOL had ad inventory and Google had to get enough eye balls?
Harj|6 years ago
"I think this is a common thing that very analytical people trip themselves up with. They look at things as if there’s a right answer and a wrong answer when, the truth is, there’s often just good choices, and maybe a great choice in there."
lkrubner|6 years ago
The above paragraph is rational, and yet people who consider themselves hyper rational often ignore the truth of this. And the irony is that some of them do this for an emotional reason: they want the security that comes from believing that there is an absolute right answer. They are irrationally rational.
duxup|6 years ago
Now granted there are time to hunker down and commit but sometimes all that data doesn't really tell you anything and you're still facing an unknown no matter how much work you do, and it might be worth thinking about it after taking a few steps down that road / experience. It's not uncommon to come across a variable(s) that plays a far stronger role than any other, only AFTER you tried doing something.
For hyper analytical folks the data on hand is the hammer for every nail it seems sometimes.
erobbins|6 years ago
This absolutely drives me crazy in design/engineering decisions. Very commonly there are a lot of good solutions and one great one, and the good ones are good enough. Yet all the brilliant intellectuals want to find the VERY BEST METHOD EVER instead of just getting stuff done.
jkaptur|6 years ago
Mayer: "I had a long analytical evening with a friend of mine where we looked at all the job offers I had received. We created a giant matrix with one row per job offer and one column per value. We compared everything from the basics like cash and stock to where I'd be living, happiness factor, and trajectory factor—all of these different elements. And so we went to work analyzing this problem."
Sandberg: "After a while I had a few offers and I had to make a decision, so what did I do? I am MBA trained, so I made a spreadsheet. I listed my jobs in the columns and my criteria in the rows, and compared the companies and the missions and the roles."
It's a fun bit of trivia that Sandberg put the criteria in the rows, which enables sorting the criteria - a nice way to see the upsides and downsides of each choice.
seem_2211|6 years ago
minderasure|6 years ago
madrox|6 years ago
It's how leaders need to operate to survive if they want to avoid micromanaging, honestly.
brianpgordon|6 years ago
https://putanumonit.com/2017/03/12/goddess-spreadsheet/
telesilla|6 years ago
njepa|6 years ago
Somewhat ironically being irrational can actually be a good way to make unknown, but largely equal, decisions. Because at least you picked something with conviction, rather than having analyzed the situation incorrectly.
Of course for a lot of us good choices aren't the problem so much as the downside. I remember someone made a calculator online for how many time one would most likely see their parents before they died.
rajeshp1986|6 years ago
I am confused. Is she talking about foundation CS courses like OS & database systems OR AI courses?
antt|6 years ago
I am reminded of the story of Henry IV who stood barefoot in the snow for three days. And through the grace of God not getting frost bite. We have come so far when we no longer believe you need God for acts like this.
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-who-just-ba...
rrdharan|6 years ago
As I understand it, foundational CS classes are not a requirement for that degree. Although I do know people who majored in Symbolic Systems and completed such courses in undergrad, I assume they were electives rather than requirements.
thundergolfer|6 years ago
In Masters she got to cover those off. I think her majoring in Symbolic Systems not CS meant she missed out on compilers, DBs, etc..
thomasjudge|6 years ago
jrochkind1|6 years ago
commandlinefan|6 years ago
Yeah... I did both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in CS, and I've never written a complete working compiler, OS or database - I've written and tested "toy" versions of such, but that claim seems to be a bit hyperbolic. Maybe she did do all of those things, but none of those were coursework.
digitaltrees|6 years ago
Hope that helps.
Causality1|6 years ago
nostrademons|6 years ago
alexeiz|6 years ago
ArcMex|6 years ago
Sort of in a slump and I don't have anything smart to say but this made me feel a little better. I feel like I have far more ability than my company utilizes but I cannot quit because I need this job. I don't have the balls to start a company because I don't have a great idea. I just write code. So I will wait. Something will give eventually.
strikelaserclaw|6 years ago
frankdenbow|6 years ago
thecleaner|6 years ago
musicale|6 years ago
cirkut|6 years ago
hwj|6 years ago
> And one of the reasons I was a good product manager was because I had been an engineer.
dustindiamond|6 years ago
tomhoward|6 years ago
Marissa Mayer was an accomplished engineer and then a senior executive at Google through its transition from startup to behemoth, then took on the impossible task of rescuing Yahoo when no comparably experienced man wanted to step up to the plate, and facilitated a solid outcome for shareholders [1].
Reasonable people can debate the merits of her performance and impact at both companies, but these kinds of one-line dismissals of her entire career from armchair quarterbacks are disgraceful.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-market-cap-over-time-2...
devoply|6 years ago
omot|6 years ago
In regards to Marissa, I personally believe that the Glass Cliff is real. It's inspiring that she was integral in creating one of the most valuable company in the valley. Likewise, I find it impressive that she was able to climb the political ladder of a generally sexist industry.
ckastner|6 years ago
HN demonstrably shows the same attitude towards male leaders as well. Elon Musk is the poster child of this.
This has nothing to do with the gender of the leader, but rather an aversion to self-promotion, hyping, or any other exaggeration of the self or one's accomplishments.
treis|6 years ago
The glass cliff didn't make her buy Tumblr for 1.1 billion dollars only for it to be essentially worthless a few years later.
I also think people are a bit harsh on what situation Yahoo was in. They were still profitable, had a ton of users, and plenty of cash in the bank. Sure, it was being left behind but there was plenty of juice there to do something to become relevant again. In the five years she was CEO there's not really anything you can point to as a success. It raises the question of how important she was to the string of successful products that she headed at Google.
malvosenior|6 years ago
darkpuma|6 years ago
Then again, HN seems to discuss her less than Marissa Mayer. Why is that? She's far more successful. When I think great women leaders in tech, she's the first I think of. Anti-hardware bias maybe? Or maybe it's a valley bias. After all, she came out of MIT rather than Stanford and lives in Austin rather than San Francisco. I don't know, what do you think?
Proven|6 years ago
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tardo99|6 years ago
paganel|6 years ago
thenaturalist|6 years ago
In contrast to my hypothesis: If you like her, feel free to share your thoughts or prove me wrong. What is special about her?
antt|6 years ago
Lest we forget Elizabeth Holmes, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and for those old enough to remember Bill Gates in the 90s.
If you're lucky you die before you start making terrible decisions. A quote from Napoleon that he supposedly said while in exile "Had I been hit by a canon ball on my entry into Moscow I would have been remembered as the greatest statesman and general the world had ever seen".
hlurhhh|6 years ago
Running companies and being featured in Vogue? Iconic.
node-bayarea|6 years ago
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dopamean|6 years ago
empath75|6 years ago
Yahoo and aol both had levels of technical debt that are hard to imagine from outside of the company.
macspoofing|6 years ago
devoply|6 years ago
kaikai|6 years ago
guatepeor1|6 years ago
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stingraycharles|6 years ago
shaki-dora|6 years ago
subjectHarold|6 years ago
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jarym|6 years ago
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