Former Yahoo CEO and early Google executive Marissa Mayer describes the recruiting challenges Google faced when attempting to hire a systems and UI engineer in 1999.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mayer bet she could train new grads faster than hiring senior PMs
“I want to bet that I can hire new people right out of school and train them to be great product managers at Google faster than you can hire the people you prefer who are more experienced and senior.”
What-if
Mayer: Yahoo's core business turnaround would have succeeded with one more year
“Cause I do think if we had with that team, with that base of revenue, with our plan, I really think we would have, if we had had another year, And we'd had 10 quarters of beating plan, and we really could have gotten there.”
What-if
Mayer: Yahoo should have pursued the Alibaba spin-off instead of selling
“In hindsight, I, you know, and again, hindsight is twenty-twenty, I think it would have been helpful to continue to pursue the spin. I'm optimistic that it would have been ultimately tax-free, though it may have caused an overhang. You know, that said, at that…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mayer: Yahoo beat street expectations and internal plan for six straight quarters
“I mean, it's a little known fact, but for the last six quarters of Yahoo's existence prior to the sale, not only did we beat the street, we beat plan.”
Insight
Mayer: Internal PM rotations offer multi-company breadth without switching employers
“Google's a really unique place because you can try three or four different formats of product management in one place. You can do nascent products, you can do mature products, you can do, you know, mobile, right? There were all these different types of product…”
Insight
Mayer: Executive leadership is defense and clearing roadblocks for teams
“Ultimately, as Eric Schmidt will always say, you know, leadership is defense. You know, he's like, look, unfortunately, as an executive, like, you don't get to write code, you don't get to design things anymore. Your job is point the team in a direction and th…”