Remember Yahoo?
If the answer is no, you’re not alone. As of late, the search engine and social media giant has been overshadowed by Google and Facebook, and things were looking grim.
Former CEO Scott Thompson resigned after it was discovered he blatantly lied on his resume. Yahoo posted a whopping 1 percent revenue increase in the first quarter of 2012 from the previous year.
Basically, Yahoo has been slowly dying for the last several years.
But behold – a stallion is on the horizon.
Marissa Mayer, one of Google’s top executives and its first female engineer, was named the new CEO of Yahoo on Monday.
The announcement came as a shock – most believed interim CEO Ross Levinsohn would be the obvious choice. But Yahoo’s selection of Mayer is the best decision the company has made in a long, long time.
Mayer is a well-known, highly respected individual in the tech world. And she’s responsible for much of the look of Google’s core services like Gmail, Google News and Google Images.
Imagine a Yahoo that didn’t look like crap. It’s hard to do, isn’t it? But Mayer could change all of that. She’s got a BS in Symbolic Systems and an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Unlike Hewlett-Packard, which hired Leo Apotheker, a man who managed to launch and destroy an entire line of webOS products during his 10-month tenure as CEO, Mayer has a deep connection with quality products, code and the company she is now in charge of.
She also has the opportunity to completely rebuild a once formidable brand into something meaningful again. Let’s face it – there aren’t many Google alternatives. Bing sucks and Yahoo has 700 million users to throw around. With the right leader (Mayer), who knows what Yahoo could become in the future?
But more importantly, this is a great personal move for Mayer. She was one of Google’s top executives, but likely wasn’t going to move higher than her most recent position. Now, she heads her own company. She’s at the steering wheel. In the captain’s chair. You get my point. Yahoo doesn’t have to be the punchline of Silicon Valley’s jokes anymore.
Google will miss Mayer dearly. CEO Larry Page released a statement saying, “Marissa has been a tireless champion of our users. She contributed to the development of our Search, Geo and Local products as well as many other product areas. We will miss her talents at Google.”
I fully expect Yahoo under Mayer to be a return to form – a coup d’état of the current system that has failed for many years, and the beginning of a new era for the once glorious company.
Contact Taylor Balkom at [email protected].