Headline April 12, 2015/ ''' GOOGLE-IZING - YAHOO!-ZING '''

''' GOOGLE-IZING - YAHOO!-ZING '''

THE FULL COMMITTEE was not immediately enthusiastic about the idea of Marissa Mayer.

One director, Fred Amoroso, had indicated that he wanted  Levinsohn to have the job. There were other candidates too; Jason Kilar, the highly respected C.E.O of Hulu, and Brian McAndres, who had built eQuantive, which he sold to Microsoft.

One former board member says that Tom McInerney, a former executive at Barry Diller's InterActive Corp, was initially the most opposed to Mayer, because her experience was so narrow.

In the board's view, she had never been responsible for the guts of running a business, like managing a profit-and-loss statement or doing layoffs.

And she had worked only at  Google  where you never had to worry about how much money you spent or whether advertisers like you. Although the board didn't talk much to people at Google  -they were worried about leaks-

They also discussed what some felt were Mayer's odd-insecurities, her desire for attention, and the need for her to learn to give credit to others. ''She was a conundrum,'' says one person. ''She had great strengths, and we asked, ''Can she overcome those weaknesses?''

Then Kilar dropped out, The board interviewed the remaining three candidates on July 10 and 11 of  2012. Levinsohn, who thought to he had the job, presented his plan, which was to steer Yahoo away from technology and toward content, with far fewer employees. 

And then there was Mayer, who had an incredibly detailed , well-researched plan for every piece of the business.

''People were largely blown away,'' says one former board member. ''I've heard many C.E.O's, but this was one of the best interview ever.''

Mayer also took an aptitude test, administered by the headhunting firm Spencer Stuart, which purports to measure management aptitude and ability to lead, and she was off the charts.

She said all the right things to allay the board's concerns about her weaknesses, including that she'd surround herself with strong people and she looked forward to the board's help.

[Mayer first disclosed to the Yahoo board that she was pregnant in late June; no one considered it an issue]

When the news broke on July 16 that Mayer would be Yahoo's fifth C.E.O. in five years, the reaction was ecstatic. ''There was a collective gasp,'' says Eric Jackson of Ironfire Capital, a longtime Yahoo shareholder.

''Yahoo was able to hire her away from  Google?''  LURED FROM GOOGLE, read one headline.

GOOGLE'S FIRST LADY JUMPS SHIP TO YAHOO was another. Inside Yahoo, some one put up posters of Mayer titled  ''Hope'' to the style of Shepard Fairey's famous portrait of President Obama.

Mayer set up a meeting with Levinsohn at the board's behest, because the board hoped he'd stay on. According to one person he confided in, he came at the appointed time to Mayer;s office. He waited and waited some more. And then he said to her  assistant. ''I'm going to wait in my office,'' which was just a short walk from Mayer's.

Mayer's assistant said, ''Oh no, you have to sit right here and wait.'' Levinsohn stormed off. He left Yahoo shortly after that.

Mayer's negotiation about her compensation was slightly odd. The board granted her a rich package, an annual salary of $1 million with a bonus of  as much as $2 million, plus a total of $56 million for restricted stock and options.

Mayer was unwilling to use any of her own money to but more Yahoo stock, even though doing so would have increased her upside dramatically. Says one person, she was obsessed not with reality of her pay but with making sure that what showed up in the filings would lead people to believe that she would earn more than she had at Google.

''Some C.E.O's care bout money, some care about metrics, some care about toys.'' this person says. ''She cares about public perception.''

In her first year Mayer has made believers of some skeptics. She took Yahoo by storm. Another way of thinking about it is the that she Googlized Yahoo. She got rid of the BlackBerrys, replacing them with iPhones and Androids.

She started providing employees with free food, like every other Valley company. She instituted a process to allow employees to complain about bureaucracy. She started holding Friday-afternoon meetings called F.Y.I's in which-

Employees can ask whatever questions they choose of her and other executives. She took the stock price off Yahoo's internal Web site, saying that she didn't want employees to have a short-term focus.

Her first hire at all   -was a P.R. person, and the press about Yahoo has been mostly glowing. ''She has single-handedly transformed the culture and made people proud to work there again,'' says Jackson.

''I didn't always admire her at Google,'' says former Googler. ''I didn't think she was effective. But what she has done at Yahoo is phenomenal.''

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