The New York Times Book Review - Sheelah Kolhatkar
As Nicholas Carlson demonstrates in Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!, a vivid account of her vertiginous career climb, Mayer is worth paying attention to for reasons that transcend gender. Carlson presents her as a complex personality who defies most stereotypes…The author brings juicy scenes and new details to Mayer's story…
From the Publisher
The New York Times says the book is "a lot of fun to read" and "an impressive feat."The New York Times also writes, "As Nicholas Carlson demonstrates in MARISSA MAYER AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE YAHOO!, a vivid account of her vertiginous career climb, Mayer is worth paying attention to for reasons that transcend gender. Carlson presents her as a complex personality who defies most stereotypes."
"A corporate thriller [that does] a superb job of bringing to life the dramatic story of Yahoo."—The Financial Times
"A quick, compelling read...[one that] is, without question, a riveting lens from which to study Yahoo: There are ups, there are downs, there are heroes, and there are villains."—Fortune
"Good books about business and its leaders often come in two forms: a book with a message but without a gripping narrative to tell it, or a compelling narrative bereft of a message. In this extraordinary tale, Nick Carlson takes the reader on an amazing roller-coaster ride, traversing Yahoo's ups and downs, and in the end leaving us not just with memories of a thrilling ride but with wisdom. Once, Yahoo was King of the Internet. Over its two decades, Yahoo recruited able leaders who, despite previous successes, stumbled. Sometimes they were at fault. Sometimes they were defeated by forces Hercules could not control. Among the many virtues of this book is that Nick Carlson strives to understand, not punish, the amazing cast of characters in this long-playing drama. Memories will linger long after this roller coaster stops."—Ken Auletta, author and Annals of Communications writer, The New Yorker
"Nicholas Carlson has written the inside story of one of the most fascinating tech leaders of our time, Marissa Mayer, and one of the most frustrating Internet giants of our time, Yahoo. This is a fast-paced, compelling, and detailed account of Mayer's valiant efforts to turn round a company and culture that helped create the Internet as we know it.."—Richard Wolffe, executive editor, MSNBC.com, and author of The Message
"Before there was Google or Facebook or even Amazon, there was Yahoo. It was the Internet to many in the 1990s. But it has been sick for more than a decade. In this fascinating, deeply reported tale, Nicholas Carlson, for the first time, tells us why. It's an astonishing story of mistakes and missed opportunities polluted by a startling lack of vision almost from the beginning. If you want to understand what truly scares big shots running companies in Silicon Valley, read this book. They all worry about becoming Yahoo."—Fred Vogelstein, author of Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution, and contributing editor, Wired magazine
New York Times bestselling author of Three Blind M Ken Auletta
Once, Yahoo was king of the Internet. Over its two decades, Yahoo recruited able leaders who, despite previous successes, stumbled. Sometimes they were at fault. Sometimes they were defeated by forces Hercules could not control. Among the many virtues of this book is that Nick Carlson strives to understand, not punish, the amazing cast of characters in this long-playing drama. Memories will linger long after this roller coaster stops.”
The New Yorker - Ken Auletta
Good books about business and its leaders often come in two forms: a book with a message but without a gripping narrative to tell it, or a compelling narrative bereft of a message. In this extraordinary tale, Nick Carlson takes the reader on an amazing roller-coaster ride, traversing Yahoo's ups and downs, and in the end leaving us not just with memories of a thrilling ride but with wisdom. Once, Yahoo was King of the Internet. Over its two decades, Yahoo recruited able leaders who, despite previous successes, stumbled. Sometimes they were at fault. Sometimes they were defeated by forces Hercules could not control. Among the many virtues of this book is that Nick Carlson strives to understand, not punish, the amazing cast of characters in this long-playing drama. Memories will linger long after this roller coaster stops.
Kirkus Reviews
2014-11-15
The inside story of the cult of personality that surrounds the leadership of Silicon Valley's technology behemoths.Business Insider chief correspondent Carlson's complex study of Yahoo's spectacular rise and turbulent fall is less gossipy than Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires (2009) and more accurate than that book's adaptation, The Social Network, but it does carry that same strange feeling that it's hard to believe these bizarre events transpired in one of the world's largest companies. The first section recaps Yahoo's rise while offering a parallel portrait of a shy 24-year-old engineer who became nearly indispensable to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. There's even a cameo by Mark Zuckerberg, who brazenly demanded $1 billion from Yahoo for Facebook in 2006. There's also a reference to "Project Godfather," an early attempt to wipe out other search firms from the market, and the story of CEO Carole Bartz, who was fired over the phone. The remainder of the book focuses on the aforementioned engineer, Marissa Mayer, who was handed the reins of the multibillion-dollar company at the age of 37, with no practical experience managing finances, human resources or global operations. Operating under the safety of Yahoo's major investment in China's Amazon-like site Alibaba, Mayer transformed from Yahoo's savior to a CEO under siege, criticized by employees suffering under an arcane review system, under pressure from her board to fire thousands of people, and possibly running out of time to turn the company around. "If turning around a company is like building a bridge in the middle of a war zone, with bombs dropping out of the sky every minute, then Marissa Mayer was the lucky army engineer who got to build a bridge from Yahoo's past to Yahoo's future under perfect air cover—air cover provided by Alibaba," writes the author in this page-turning account, which is thankfully light on jargon. A well-researched, up-to-date story about a fight to define one famous company's future.
