Marissa Mayer

[9][10] She did not join the newly combined company, now called Yahoo Inc. (formerly Verizon Media and prior to that Oath), and she announced her resignation on June 13, 2017.

[4] She "never had fewer than one after-school activity per day," participating in ballet, ice-skating, piano, swimming, debates, and the Brownies.

[20] After graduating from high school in 1993,[21] Mayer was selected by Tommy Thompson, then the Governor of Wisconsin, as one of the state's two delegates to attend the National Youth Science Camp in West Virginia.

[4] She later switched her concentration to symbolic systems,[24] a major which combined philosophy, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and computer science.

[12] At Stanford, she danced in the university ballet's Nutcracker, was a member of parliamentary debate, volunteered at children's hospitals, and helped bring computer science education to Bermuda's schools.

[4] Mayer went on to graduate with honors from Stanford with a BS in symbolic systems in 1997,[24][25][26] and an MS in computer science in 1999.

For her undergraduate thesis, she built travel-recommendation software that advised users in natural-sounding human language.

[23] In 2009, the Illinois Institute of Technology granted Mayer an honoris causa doctorate degree in recognition of her work in the field of search.

[32][33] She started out writing code and overseeing small teams of engineers, developing and designing Google's search offerings.

[36][37][38] She was also on the three-person team responsible for Google AdWords, which is an advertising platform that allows businesses to show their product to relevant potential customers based on their search terms.

In 2002, Mayer started the Associate Product Manager (APM) program, a Google mentorship initiative to recruit new talents and cultivate them for leadership roles.

Each year, Mayer selected a number of junior employees for the two-year program, where they took on extracurricular assignments and intensive evening classes.

[41] Mayer was the vice president of Google Search Products and User Experience until the end of 2010, when she was asked by then-CEO Eric Schmidt to head the Local, Maps, and Location Services.

While Mayer was working at Google, she taught introductory computer programming at Stanford and mentored students at the East Palo Alto Charter School.

[44][45] At the time of her appointment, Yahoo's numbers had been falling behind those of Google for over a year and the company had been through several top management changes.

To simplify the bureaucratic process and "make the culture the best version of itself", Mayer launched a new online program called PB&J.

's maternity leave policy, lengthening its time allowance and providing a cash bonus to parents.

employee filed a lawsuit against the company claiming that Yahoo's firing practices have violated both California and federal labor laws.

[65] In December 2015, the New York-based hedge fund SpringOwl, a shareholder in Yahoo Inc., released a statement arguing that Mayer be replaced as CEO.

[72] On the day of her resignation, Mayer publicly highlighted many of the company's achievements during her tenure, including: creating $43B in market capitalization, tripling Yahoo stock, growing mobile users to over 650 million, building a $1.5B mobile ad business, and transforming Yahoo's culture.

[73] On November 8, 2017, along with several other present and former corporate CEOs, Mayer testified before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding major security breaches at Yahoo during 2013 and 2014.

He claimed that, prior to his firing, he had received "fully satisfactory" performance reviews since starting at the company in 2011 as head of editorial programming for Yahoo!

[79] An earlier lawsuit was filed by Gregory Anderson, who was fired in 2014, alleging the company’s performance management system was arbitrary and unfair and disguised layoffs as terminations for the purpose of evading state and federal WARN Acts, making it the first WARN Act and gender discrimination lawsuit Yahoo!

[84] As well as sitting on the boards of directors of AT&T Inc.,[87] Nextdoor,[88] Walmart, Maisonette, and Jawbone, Mayer also previously served or sits on several non-profit boards, such as Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

[97] Mayer was named to Fortune magazine's annual list of America's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 with ranks at 50, 44, 42, 38, 14, 8 and 16 respectively.

announced her hiring, in July 2012, Mayer revealed that she was pregnant;[107][108][109] she gave birth to a boy on September 30, 2012.

Marissa Mayer speaking at the Google "Search On" event in 2010
Marissa Mayer at an interview while working for Google
Michael Arrington and Marissa Mayer at TechCrunch Disrupt
Zachary Bogue in 2023