| >And how would you know that? short answer: By using google long answer: It's pretty well known outside of Google what product groups she lead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer "In 2005 she became Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. Mayer held key roles in Google Search, Google Images, Google News, Google Maps, Google Books, Google Product Search, Google Toolbar, iGoogle, and Gmail" We know she didn't originate any of those things because the folks who started those products are either well known, or they predate her role over them: - Search has a pretty well known history. - Maps was started by Lars and Jens Rasmussen in a different company that
google acquired in 2004. - Books was started by Brin and Page - Images was started because of an analysis of search data under Schmidt - Google News was started by Krishna Bharat - Google Product Search was by Craig Nevill-Manning - Gmail was started by Rajen Sheth and Paul Buchheit - No idea who started toolbar or iGoogle, but I'd bet an American dollar that it also wasn't Mayer. Here's her Linkedin profile if that changes anything for you https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissamayer Let me know if you can think of any she did have founding interest in. This is made extra hard because she's only ever held one job in her career pre-Yahoo! |
A good manager doesn't have to come up with the idea. Most of the great ideas come from the trenches -- or competitors, frankly (Adwords, meet Overture, Keyhole meet Terraserver and so on). A PM's job is to be an advocate and grow the best ones by finding the resources, trying and discarding ideas that don't work.
The PMs that suck are the ones who obsess over pushing their ideas above all others.