Business leader, engineer, & computer programmer; Marissa Ann Mayer is a very powerful business woman. Born and raised in Wausau, Wisconsin, Marissa was a scholar and leader all through school. This behavior was excelled as she got older, participating in multiple extracurricular activities, volunteering and many other skills were acquired. She graduated with honors from Stanford University with a BS degree in 1997 and an MS degree in computer science in 1999 specializing in artificial intelligence. Fresh out of grad school, Marissa received 14 job offers right off the back. "Mayer's 14th job offer came from Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who quizzed her on artificial intelligence...Upon accepting an offer to lead Google's user interface and Web server teams, Mayer become the company's 20th employee and its first female engineer" (Mayer, M). Marrisa helped build Google working on and making recognizable products like Google Maps, Earth and Gmail. Most of her work was for the design and look of the websites, overseeing and making sure every little detail is just right. "Known as a fashionista with an eye for design, Mayer is widely credited for the unique look and feel that has come to characterize the Google experience. For example, she was responsible for approving each "doodle" appearing on the Google home page" (Mayer, M). Fast forward to about two years ago, Marissa was appointed president and CEO of Yahoo. "With Mayer as chief executive, Yahoo has been on a shopping spree. The company says it has acquired 17 companies since Mayer arrived. Among them, was the $30 million purchase of Summly..."(Marissa Mayer's top 6 accomplishments). In her first year at Yahoo, Mayer made a big move and purchase on the famous social network blog known as Tumblr. "Mayer's biggest move in her first year came in May when Yahoo doled out $1.1 billion to buy Tumblr, a popular social network. The acquisition was a way to give Yahoo access to a younger audience"(Marissa Mayer's top 6 accomplishments).
References
Marissa Ann Mayer. (2014). The biography.com website. Retrieved November 19th, 2014 from http://www.biography.com/people/marissa-mayer-20902689.
Hi Katana,
ReplyDeleteMarissa Ann Mayer sounds like a strong and amazing person! That's amazing how she was offered a job at Google. Because of the movie Internship, google sounds like a fantastic place to work, especially for someone right out of college. It sounds as if she had done many significant things in google, approving the doodles on google's homepage sounds entertaining. I always found looking at them entertaining. It is surprising how she changed from Google to Yahoo, who is also a big company but not as big as Google. I'm sure she'll make the company grow with her knowledge.
Hey Katana,
ReplyDeleteThis blog post makes Marissa Ann Mayer seem to be one of the most influential business persons out there! Its quite interesting how she has so much input into every single little detail. I would expect a CEO to be to busy to do that! Do you know anything about her personal work attitude? I heard Steve Jobs wasn't the most polite person to work with.
Katana, As soon as I saw the photo, I knew who she was. She has been in a lot of tech magazine covers ever since she took over Yahoo as CEO. I think Marissa Mayer and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg are the two most influential women in technology in the United States. I have been reading all about the radical changes she has been making at Yahoo, but so far, they are all seem to be working out. I did not know she was involved in the design of Google’s doodle, but it does not surprise me, since she changed Yahoo’s logo when she joined the company.
ReplyDeleteHi Katana,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this post. You chose your topic very well because there's probably not a single person in the US who can say that they have never been influenced in some way by google. It's kind of like a force of nature. I was not very familiar with the power players within goggle. It's nice to put another face to the huge faceless corporation. You have provided many interesting details about her work with the organization. She seems to be a very accomplished woman who has made a huge impact in her field. I look forward to reading more about your topic.
What an awesome article Katana! I want to start by saying I really like the format and layout of your blog, very appealing to the reader. Secondly, after reading your blog, I have more of a newfound respect for Google and Marissa Ann Mayer. Google has always been a modern and cutting edge company and they clearly showed that by hiring Mayer. In my opinion, without Mayer, Google would never have become the massive empire of the internet that it is. Because of Marissa and her team we can be blessed with such things as Maps, Gmail, etc. Anyways, overall great job and keeping up the good blogging.
ReplyDeleteHi Katana,
ReplyDeleteWhenever I use a google app such as maps, drive, mail, etc. I always think to myself about how nice it looks! Now that I know that Marissa Ann Mayer is behind the design of those, I know who to credit that work with. Whenever I use other non-google services, I always think to myself "these don't look as nice or as streamlined as google's". Although, I question why she would make the move from google to yahoo (I personally hate yahoo and clunky and cluttered interface); I guess it was something she always wanted to do, or maybe she was paid more there? Either way, she seems like she was an influential person in the design of the popular search engines and I enjoyed reading!
A rather impressive person, you tell she has real drive. I had not realised that she had worked at google from so early on when she became the CEO of Yahoo!. Also didn't know that she had studied in AI which is even more impressive sense the subject can be incredibly hard. I'm rather impressed with the look that Google goes with, to think she was managing it all and even came up with the Doodles. Its going to be interesting to see how Yahoo! changes over time thanks to her influence. Yahoo!'s acquisition of Tumblr was probably a smart move on her part since it has a very large marketing capability, lets just hope it can save Yahoo!.
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