In Defense of Marissa Mayer

I’ve been meaning to weigh in on Marissa Mayer’s new mandated policy at Yahoo which bans working from home. I’d previously written this post soon after she was announced CEO.

Everything this woman does, it doesn’t matter what it is, people (especially women) are going to hate. Why? Because she makes other women look bad.

She takes the helm as Yahoo’s new CEO. Consider her a bitch.

She’s insanely hard-working and neglects her sleep. She’s a bitch.

She announces she will only take two weeks maternity leave. Who does this bitch think she is?

She reports to work exactly two weeks after giving birth. What a f*ing bitch!

Why, instead of supporting each other and cheering the female advances, do women loathe other powerful women? If any male CEO had announced he had zero tolerance for telecommuting, it wouldn’t be news. We wouldn’t be debating it all over the blogosphere. But as soon as a woman who is charged with fixing a failing company plans on new structural changes, then she is castigated.

This is her job. If she fails, she will be out of a job like all the other Yahoo CEOs who had to step aside. It’s in her best interest to make decisions that she feels are most appropriate for her company. The success of Yahoo falls on her shoulders, not the miserable employees who have to give up their precious work from home privileges. Maybe as CEO she was tired of walking around the company and seeing a bunch of empty cubicles. Maybe she was fed up with going to the cafe and realizing that no one even takes advantage of the free food she mandated because they’re sitting in the sunshine at their local cafe with their dog and flirting with every ho hum telecommuter who walks by. Consider that as CEO maybe she has more information required to make decisions than any of us outsiders can ever know, and that she shouldn’t be beholden to public opinion.

Cmon people. Why do you have to be so nasty?

Let me ask you something. If you started your own company, ABC startup, and you started hiring employees to work for ABC. Are you really going to tell them straight away that you have a flexible commute policy, and they are welcome to work from home. OF COURSE NOT, YOU TURD. You would never say that. Why? Because you have ownership. You care. You want to succeed. That’s exactly what Marissa Mayer wants to do. She wants to succeed. How are you going to succeed when your work force is God knows where, collecting a paycheck. They can be in the Caribbean for all you know, slurping down another cocktail.

It doesn’t matter that Yahoo is no longer a startup. She has ownership and this is her decision. If it doesn’t work, then she will take the fall for it. If there’s a mass exodus, then she will have to own up to the consequences. But apparently, for the first time, people are proud and excited to work for Yahoo.

I’ve worked for companies with generous work from home policies. It doesn’t work. Why? Because there will be a lot of employees who take advantage of the policy with all the personal benefits and no benefit to the company. They’re the people who get up whenever they want, have average work ethic, and are essentially useless. They do what they need to do to get by and collect a paycheck. These people should never get to work from home. They don’t deserve it. Then there are your superstars who work non-stop are super responsive and you know that they’re in front of their laptop working 24/7. They’ve earned the right to work from home. While I applaud what Marissa has done so far for Yahoo, I personally would have tweaked her latest policy. I would have said there’s a ban on telecommuting unless you’ve reached some kind of milestone, whatever that is. A 9 out of 10 on a performance review, however it is scaled. Make it an incentive for people to want to work hard and to prove they’re capable of working from home because they have that focused dedication whether they’re in the office or at home. Don’t let your average Joe work from home. Quite frankly, don’t hire average Joes.

Instacart Startup: Nice Comeback

Instacart PictureThere was a technical glitch with this post, so I am reposting.

Two days ago, I posted about Instacart, a new service that does your grocery shopping (at Trader Joe’s and Safeway) for you. The service is available in SF, Palo Alto, and Mountain View, and charges a surprisingly low flat fee of $3.99 if you schedule your delivery anytime 3 hours later or $9.99 if you want your groceries within the hour.

A byproduct of the startup incubator Y Combinator, Instacart, Inc., last year raised seed funding of $2.3 million from Canaan Partners and Khosla Ventures.

I had read the San Francisco Daily Candy email for Friday January 11th which featured Instacart and I decided to give it a try this past weekend. I had a bad experience which I summarized in a post that has now been retracted.

The following day, the CEO personally emailed me which I sincerely appreciated as it showed that he’s accountable, receptive to feedback, and eager to regain my trust. That evening after work, Instacart seamlessly delivered 3 bags of Trader Joe’s groceries and followed up with several emails from the team to make sure I was taken care of.

Gotta love that. Thanks Instacart. You can count on my business going forward.

Following the 23 Rules of the Office Holiday Party

Did you all read Jason Gay’s 23 rules of the Office Holiday Party in the Wall Street Journal? So hilarious. My favorite is Rule #5: If your company’s holiday party is taking place in a swanky penthouse with piles of lobster, expensive champagne, trapeze artists and Coldplay performing live on stage, immediately run back to the office and clear out your desk, because your company is declaring bankruptcy tomorrow.

Too much fun spells impending layoff! Reminds me my old startup. Haha. Good times, good times.

Dean’s holiday party was last night. Unlike rule #5, the fete was nice. Not over the top, just well-executed and perfect. It was at this new restaurant / lounge called O3 Bistro on Van Ness which was the old California Pizza Kitchen location. It’s nice, but I doubt it’ll remain open for very long. It’s not a highly-trafficked area and it’s set apart from Hayes Valley and all the symphony and ballet action.

Back to the party: open bar, nice big spread of lobster and shrimp, sushi chef, passed appetizers (the bite-sized pork belly was to-die-for), good DJ, and excellent photo booth with the vendor providing all the costumes and props. That’s the way it should be! I highly recommend these guys. I got their card, but I seem to have misplaced it at this moment.

The CEO made a very short speech about the company’s successful trajectory, then went on to thank all the spouses for putting up with the long hours. As I like to say, Dean is the brains in the family and I am merely the trophy wife.

Speaking of wives, the CEO’s wife was phenomenal! She was fluttering around the dance floor gangnam style, showing everyone how to put a ring on it, and telling everyone to call her maybe. I want to be like her when I grow up. So cool, a lot of spunk, and intelligent. Again, why do some people have it all. Not fair.

Check out how much fun we had.



Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

I was listening to an interview of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, who I consider not only smart, but creative and forward-thinking. You know how there are really smart people who are leaders, but can’t seem to see beyond the present day. Those leaders will languish, while the creative ones will really contribute to our future.

The whole interview was a smorgasbord of insight. Check it out here.

The snippet I really appreciated was about how he spent his summers with his grandfather. At the local library, someone had donated a collection of science fiction books and over the course of several years, he read all the books. Anyhow, these futuristic books really opened his mind up to possibilities the average person doesn’t even think about. Love that because I truly believe you have to read a lot to move ahead in life. Not surf the web or read blogs, but read books.

Also, meetings at Amazon start with all the participants reading several pages of a memo. Actual paragraphs and sentences to form a cohesive point. Not bullet points on a PowerPoint presentation. He feels that creating a story and narrative forces the person leading the meeting to fully flesh out the idea. And the meetings all begin with everyone sitting there and reading quietly.

Pretty fascinating stuff. Wish I could afford the stock!

Money Monday: Kaiser: Thriving on Overcharging Patients

I F*ing hate Kaiser. If it weren’t for the quality care I get (most, but not all, of the time) from the doctors and nurses, I would switch my health care plan.

Who is administratively running the place? The CEO and the CFO need to be fired.

I wrote a while back at how befuddled I was to receive a bill close to $500. “This is your FINAL NOTICE. According to our records, this bill is seriously PAST DUE. Please pay the “Amount You Owe” in full or contact us immediately to arrange payment and prevent your PAST DUE balance from being assigned to a collection agency.” Ahh, thank you, Kaiser. I’ve made mental note of your convention to capitalize PAST DUE.

I don’t take writing $500 checks lightly. I will fight, plus I am in a unique position of being related to a Kaiser employee. I was put in direct contact with someone in Patient Financial Services. I was blessed with a team of 2 who poured through my card activity and reconciled it with the Kaiser bill. Now magically, my bill is $250. I’m still confused with a few more questions so this isn’t the end of the conversation.

Can you imagine patients who are truly sick who don’t have time to spreadsheet their account activity and question the charges? Does this make sense that a hospital is overcharging its patients without any recourse. I made multiple phone calls to the bill team; they were useless. I had to go directly to someone who works in corporate to figure this out for me.

When you are considering your health care options, you should consider my experience and go with a different insurance plan. Kaiser sucks.

Flunking: Thoughts on the New Yahoo CEO

You know what strikes me most about Marissa Mayer being named the new CEO of Yahoo? Her age. Yeah, she’s 37 years old and the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I feel like such a LOSER because I’m the same age and nowhere near that level of responsibility. I think, what did I do wrong? Where could I have achieved more? God, I’m so fucking lazy.

And you know what? She deserves it. She’s smart, she’s qualified, she’s OCD.

There will be the naysayers who justify their mediocre existence by saying she had better opportunities, a golden trajectory. But let’s be real. We live in America, where you can rise like the phoenix from a pool of poverty to become anything you want to be. No limits. So yeah, I feel like a bum.

Anyone can go to Stanford, but most of us can’t, because we’re downright not smart enough. I could’ve gone to Google, but I simply wasn’t up to snuff. All these opportunities are afforded to us. Any ho hum person can apply to the Ivy Leagues or the fastest-growing startup in Silicon Valley. There are no restrictions.

Naysayers are failures. Plain and simple. They complain because they’re retards.

Prior to yesterday, the gold standard for people like me was Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook. Or Hillary Clinton or Oprah. But these women are old, or at least older. But now there’s a peer who has achieved more in 37 years than I can only dream of achieving in a lifetime.

This is a huge wake up call.

How Does Steve Jobs Rate on Glass Door?

I was listening to NPR when they interviewed one of the co-founders of GlassDoor.com, the up and coming site that stores anonymous critiques of companies. He said that Steve Jobs’s approval rate is 97% which is rarely attainable. Across all of their hundreds of thousands of companies with reviews, there are only two other CEOs with a higher rate: General Mills and Bain. The Glass Door co-founder made some interesting points. CEOs with extremely high approval rates have usually been with their companies for at least 20 years. The co-founder went on to quote from a few Apple surveys, including someone who said of Steve Jobs, “He is the Thomas Edison of our time.” I’ll write more on Steve tomorrow.

Fashion Friday: Urban Outfitters

I’m one of those investors who likes to buy stock in companies that I actually use their products or services like Target, Waste Management, Yum Brands. Ironically, I went to a top business school because that strategy has not fucking worked for me. Those stocks aside, I am a huge consumer of Urban Outfitters goods. Who doesn’t love all that shit at Anthropologie? Besides being one of their big customers, I was all over the fact that the CEO went to MY business school. Clearly the guy must have brains because he went to Chicago. Well, ever since I heard about their global expansion and Anthropologie stores hitting the Parisian market, the 100 shares of stock I own have been sorely beaten down. I am such an idiot! Make sure I don’t ever manage your stock portfolios. You will die a pauper.

As mad as I am about the stock, I have yet to cash in my shares (at a loss). I’m still holding on and still shopping. I was sniffing around the Urban Outfitters–Union Square store–two Fridays ago after work. You know how sometimes you just feel like shopping? I rarely shop in-person, I like to do most of my stuff online, but that Friday I felt like checking out some stores and trying things on. I found a few items–dresses and tank tops–and headed to the dressing room. In front of me was a blind woman, holding onto her husband. I tried hard not to be one of those people who stares so I said casually, “Excuse me. Are you in line?”

She said no and I continued to wait my turn. Her husband turned around. His face had been completely burned. One of his eyes was a dull glass marble. The husband and wife felt their way around the accessory section, touching the necklaces and sunglasses. My eyes started welling up on the spot. It seems the Urban Outfitters staff felt the same way. They asked how they could help and I could see the young girls running around the store fetching items, bringing them back to the handicapped couple, assisting them with checkout. They all had glum faces as the couple made their way out of the store.

So maybe the company doesn’t make money, but the staff that day had heart. Despite all the bitching and moaning as I watch the stock plummet, I was actually proud to own the stock that day. Go support your local Urban Outfitters store.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...