[amirhhz]

There's a possibility that this publicity changes younger people's perception of Yahoo's. They'll see the BBC headline and a) will now know what Yahoo! is and b) might get motivated to write/learn code and even want to go work for a tech company (even Yahoo itself). Combined with everything else Marissa Mayer is doing, (b) might actually happen, as altruistic-seeming as it might sound.

[csmattryder]

I'm 21, probably out of the definition of 'younger person' by a while, but even I don't get it.

$30m is a lot for what I assume is an application of SRI's technology. Still seems to me like Yahoo! is a place where engineers are handed the purse strings, a la 2005 era.

[ecspike]

I'd say so, Marissa Mayer was an engineer before becoming an executive.

[corresation]

Marissa Mayer was an engineer before becoming an executive.

Was she? Her career essentially started at Google, her rise arguably being one of right place/right time.

For all of the talk about Mayer, I have literally never heard about anything actually interesting that she has done. Instead it's her 90 hour work weeks, n-shades of blue, and abrasive attitudes with others. She sounds like management through and through.

[amirhhz]

> Still seems to me like Yahoo! is a place where engineers are handed the purse strings

Exactly! :) Assuming the above is meant in a positive way, you might not have said/thought that if it wasn't for this, and other, stories recently involving Yahoo and their acquisitions.

[d4nt]

You're assuming an lot of clever forethought on the part of Yahoo. I find it hard to believe their PR team are that cunning. It's more likely that Yahoo are desperate to rejuvenate and buying up the nearest hot startup (at whatever price it takes) is politically easier than forming an internal skunkworks to build something cool, which would be way cheaper.