[crikli]

Mayer is a prime example of what happens when someone whose career should have peaked at COO becomes CEO. You see it all the time in sports when guys who are brilliant technical coordinators get moved to head coach and subsequently flounder.

There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than technical proficiency and strategic capability. There's a mix of requirements that are hard to quantify: human understanding, charm, charisma, empathy...character traits that are as much innate as learned.

I look at Mayer...she has very few of the "head coach" traits. Brilliant operator, excellent technician, all of the things you want in a coordinator. But not someone you want as head coach.

[EDIT] Typos/clarity.

[crikli]

"I was destined to become CEO from CTO but decided COO and second in command is the best position for me."

I have a very good friend made exactly the same call. He just didn't feel he had the people skills to be the head guy...and given his slightly Aspergerish personality, he was right. So he now happily runs the company from the office of COO, as an absolutely brilliant technician, with a CEO who's smart enough to let him do so.

[noir_lord]

Another example of this working well is SpaceX with Elon Musk as CEO and Gwynn Shotwell as COO.

[GlideCleanser]

> There's more to being CEO (and head coach, to continue my analogy) than technical proficiency and strategic capability.

Eh, not that I totally disagree with you, but I dunno that that's really true. There are plenty of head coaches (and CEOs) who are just so technically proficient and/or excellent strategists that their lack of charm/empathy/charisma is a non-issue.

Belichick and Jim Harbaugh (say what you want, but he's successful by any sense of the word) are two examples of very successful head coaches who aren't well-known for being particularly charming or empathetic (one is an emotional brick wall and the other is a screaming psychopath).

There are CEOs who aren't particularly well-known for their people skills, but they're so good at strategy and execution that it really doesn't matter much. Anecdotally (from my tenure there), Bezos never gave/gives the impression of being particularly charismatic or charming. He's just really good at building the juggernaut that is Amazon.

I'm not saying those skills are unimportant and certainly people like Belichick are the exception, but it's entirely possible to just be so good at strategy that the rest doesn't really matter. Mayer just doesn't seem to be quite at that level.

[SeeDave]

I encourage you to read the book 'First Rate Madness' to get an understanding of the link between crisis leaders and mental illness.

Meyer appears to be a peacetime leader, not a crisis leader. Yahoo honestly needs a nutjob the likes of Steve Ballmer to survive.

[WoodenChair]

I would really enjoy seeing Steve Ballmer take a break from his basketball career to be the CEO of Yahoo! Great idea! A part of me thinks he could actually turn the place around, and a part of me just thinks it would be hilarious.

[SeeDave]

I agree that there would be something deeply funny about seeing Steve Ballmer being his glorious and insane self, to then revive a company with so much potential.

It would be a fantastic and endearing final act for a truly larger-than-life character.

[crikli]

Bill Belichick and Jim Harbaugh inspire absolute confidence in their players. The teams buys in 100%. Subsequently you hear a lot of the "run through walls/gates of hell" sentiment from men they coach.

Conversely Marissa has failed to build that type of atmosphere and loyalty, referenced by the slew of departures as well as reports, both on the record and off, about the environment at Yahoo!

This is where the comparison breaks down of course: a football team is 80ish atheletes over which a head coach has personal influence over every member of the team, Yahoo! is a gargantuan corporation where Marissa's personal influence only directly affects a tiny percentage of the "team."

But...even if you don't directly interact with a coach or CEO, you either buy in to them as leaders or you do not. People do not buy in to Marissa, and I believe* that's what's at the core of why she is failing as CEO.

*believe = I can't empirically prove the statement so it's just unsubstantiated opinion and should only be given the value of that other thing that we all have.

[BogusIKnow]

I was destined to become CEO from CTO but decided COO and second in command is the best position for me.