Marissa Mayer

Yahoo’s Latest Earnings Report Basically Confirms That Tumblr Purchase Was a Waste of Money 

Yahoo released its latest earnings report today, and while there were some bright nuggets for the beleaguered company—its reported revenue for the second quarter of this year beat analyst estimates—there was one distinct black mark. Yahoo recorded a total goodwill impairment charge of $482 million related to its purchase of Tumblr. Whoops! A “goodwill impairment…

Here’s What Happened To All 53 of Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo Acquisitions

Yahoo, the once-vaunted internet giant, is in shambles. Its revenue is in decline. Its shareholders are crying foul. Its prized public faces are scrambling for an exit, and the company has laid off 15 percent of its workforce. Its core business—internet search and advertising—is negatively valued. Looming over all of this is a prospective sale…

Good God, What Was Variety Thinking With This Marissa Mayer-as-Jesus Cover?

Late on Monday afternoon, Variety co-editor-in-chief Andrew Wallenstein sent a tweet out into the world. This wouldn’t be a particularly noteworthy action, except that it included an image of what appears to be Variety’s upcoming cover, depicting Marissa Mayer as a Christ-like figure carrying a Y-shaped cross. What? Indeed. Mayer is hanging out in what…

Marissa Mayer Will Dry Her Tears With $55 Million if She Gets Fired From Yahoo

Marissa Mayer may be the captain of Silicon Valley’s version of the Titanic, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to drown with her angry shareholders and discarded Yahoo verticals. Instead, she’ll be rolling around in nearly $55 million worth of cash, stock options, and other assorted benefits. According to a regulatory filing posted on Friday,…

Katie Couric’s Tumblr Is a Sad, Expensive Disaster

In November 2013, Yahoo hired high-profile TV news anchor Katie Couric to be its “global anchor,” a nebulous position that company CEO Marissa Mayer said would involve “being the face of Yahoo News and shooting features for our homepage.” Couric was compensated handsomely for the deal, receiving $6 million per year, until last summer when…

Yahoo Said to Be Exploring Strategic Options

Yahoo is having a midlife crisis. Today, the company announced that it’s seeking strategic alternatives (i.e. – looking to sell some or all of its properties) in an attempt to generate more cash and please shareholders. “The Board also believes that exploring additional strategic alternatives, in parallel to the execution of the management plan, is…

Exclusive Video: Marissa Mayer Riding a Zamboni 

EXTRA—EXTRA! Gizmodo has obtained exclusive footage of Marissa Mayer riding a Zamboni. Mayer was criticized for throwing an absurdly extravagant holiday party in 2015 as Yahoo! struggled, especially since she spent part of the night literally sitting alone on a roped-off throne and making her peons come to her. However, Mayer wasn’t always such a…

CEO of beleaguered Yahoo wastes $33,000 in her baby’s playhouse

Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer has bought her baby boy a $33,000 playhouse that’s probably bigger than your apartment. He isn’t even one year old yet. We hope he gets to play with his mom inside this disgraceful waste of money before Yahoo gets a new CEO. http://valleywag.gawker.com/yahoo-ceos-backyard-play-house-is-bigger-than-your-ap-1183474422

How Flickr’s New Head Plans to Rebuild a Photo Brand Fallen From Grace

In its quest to rebuild Flickr into the premier photo service it once was, Yahoo has swiped Google’s ex-global director of product marketing, Bernardo Hernandez, and given him the ultimate task—taking down Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and a whole host of other services so Flickr can reign supreme. https://gizmodo.com/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-internet-5910223 Our spanish-speaking counterpart, Gizmodo en Español, talked…

Flickr’s Massive Redesign: Full-Res Photos, a Terabyte of Free Storage

Sure, Yahoo just about killed Flickr, but today it’s trying to restore its former glory. Just after the company this morning announced its $1.1 billion dollar acquisition of Tumblr, it showed off a completely redesigned version of Flickr with giant photos and more storage than you probably even need. https://gizmodo.com/flashback-how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-interne-508852335 Here’s what’s up: Flickr’s web…

What’s Yahoo Announcing at Its Event Tonight?

This morning Yahoo announced it bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion, along with a GIF and a promise “not to screw it up.” The Mayer-ship is hosting a “product-related” event in New York City tonight. We’ll be there covering it live. But just what’s the company talking about? Here’s what we’ve heard so far: https://gizmodo.com/its-official-yahoo-is-buying-tumblr-508846808 More…

Flickr’s New Chief Is Actually a Legit Photographer (Thank God)

Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer is in the process of trying to rescue the ailing company, which means lots of hires and fires and business blah blah nobody cares about. But buried within the recent news from the company is a little tidbit that’ll be interesting to anyone who’d like to see Flickr get a…

With Marissa Mayer at the helm, Yahoo is following Google’s lead: it wants to focus on product, not profit. [WSJ]

Lady Gaga Visits Google and Says She Always Wanted to be Searchable

At an hour in length, this Lady Gaga sit-down with Google is hardly worktime viewing. But bookmark it for later, and you can see Google’s Marissa Mayer chatting to her about her rise in fame—and how Google’s helped. I didn’t watch all of it because, well, it’s freakin’ an hour and 18 minutes long, but…

Google’s Biggest Mistakes? Wave, Gmail’s Launch, and DejaNews

Google’s made some grave errors in the past year (Wi-Fi snooping and Buzz to say the least), but VP Marissa Mayer’s picks of their three worst are surprising, to say the least. https://gizmodo.com/google-snooped-on-you-for-three-years-but-is-profound-5539395 In a video interview with Digg Dialogg, she said that “certainly there are things we’ve learnt from that, certain things we would…

The Queen of Google: “I Do Code All Night!”

This is Marissa Mayer, the queen of Google. Every Google thing that you use goes through her. And she’s nerd. So she says, sitting on her red ball in that red dress: “When people think about computer science, they imagine people with pocket protectors and thick glasses who code all night. I do code all…

Google VP Talks About the Future of Search

The illustrious Marissa Mayer, Vice President at Google, was on Charlie Rose last night to talk about (disclaimer: I didn’t watch nearly this entire hour of footage) interesting things, including the future of search. It was interesting for our engineers to see that early index and see how far we’ve come in ten years. But…