Can Marissa Mayer revive Yahoo?
The tech giant ran through four CEOs in the five years before announcing Mayer's hire to great fanfare in 2012 and has long faced an identity crisis in terms of its role as a digital company.
Mayer recently sat down for an interview with Bloomberg Television to discuss her plans for Yahoo's future.
In her 13-year career at Google, Mayer developed a reputation for product development, so hopes run high that she can transform Yahoo.
In the Bloomberg interview, Mayer discusses the past and future of the Internet. In particular, Mayer is focused on growing Yahoo's mobile strategy. She says that Internet trends come in waves: first was the "directory" wave, which "really was Yahoo itself, you know the directory, there are these pages out there, how do you organize them," she says. Then came the "search" wave and the "social" wave. "Now I think we're on the mobile wave."
Mayer also addressed a big question on many peoples' minds: how can Yahoo compete with other companies if it doesn't have a browser, a social network, a mobile operating system or mobile hardware? Mayer says: "I think that the big piece here is that it really allows us to partner. Yahoo has always been a very friendly company."
Mayer has worked hard to make Yahoo a friendly company by creating a more open and social work environment for employees by implementing changes like weekly all-hands meetings and free food.