Yahoo has been dying for practically longer than any company than AOL. And despite the doom and gloom, it's a long way from dead. Yahoo isn't MySpace or Friendster. It has a lot of users and great products. What it doesn't have is good leadership.
The current state of Yahoo has occasioned plenty of glee over its misfortune. Just take a look at the mocking Bloomberg cover. But hardly a bad word has been said about the disastrous tenure of CEO Marissa Mayer. Mayer was brought in to save Yahoo. Instead she had ugly relations with Yahoo employees and pandered to her own ego by spending a lot of money on Katie Couric and trying to turn Yahoo into some sort of TV network. It was a terrible idea. Like just about everything she did. And yet Mayer is also virtually untouchable. For largely political reasons.
She'll likely go on being untouchable even as she takes her golden parachute leaving behind a train wreck and Katie Couric.
The CEO of the embattled online news site, currently trying to sell itself, is entitled to severance benefits valued at $54.9 million in case she is terminated without cause, according to a regulatory filing after the market closed Friday. The potential payout would also be triggered by a "change of control," which includes the sale of the company, according to the filing.
Translation. Mayer profits from reducing Yahoo to the point that it has to be sold.
But wait. That's just what Mayer gets if she leaves. Mayer was already paid $36 million in 2015 as her regular annual compensation. That total pay package was down nearly 15% from the prior year, but is still well above the median of roughly $12 million paid by executives in the Standard & Poor's 500. Mayer was paid $42.1 million in 2014, making her the most highly paid female CEO in the S&P 500.
Meanwhile, Yahoo shareholders continue to suffer. The value of Yahoo's stock lost roughly a third of its value last year. Shares closed Friday at $36.60. And there's a reason the stock is headed in the wrong direction. Yahoo went from making $7.5 billion in 2014 to losing $4.4 billion in 2015.
There are a handful of pieces like this one asking basic questions about Mayer. For the most part though there are numerous pieces claiming that she was dealt a tough hand and couldn't have done anything else. I suppose anything else except hire on Katie Couric, alienate Yahoo employees and fiddle around being a celebrity CEO.
There were just no other options.
Yes Yahoo has been struggling long before Mayer got there. Hiring her was a desperation move. But that doesn't mean that she bears no responsibility for her actions.