Marissa Mayer : Life Story of Google's First Lady Employee to CEO of Yahoo

Marissa Mayer is an American computer scientist cum commercial executive who works as the present CEO and president of Yahoo Inc. In the big boom dot com company Yahoo, Mayer has been in this position ever since 2012. Before that, she was a key person in Google management. She held the 8th position of most powerful woman in the world, 2013 (Fortune Magazine) and 55th most powerful woman in the world, 2016 (Forbes).

Marissa Mayer’s Childhood

Marissa Mayer with brother and parents

Marissa Mayer (formerly Marissa Ann Mayer) was born in Wausau, Wisconsin as the daughter of Margaret Mayer and Michael Mayer on May 30th, 1975. Her father used to work as an environmental engineer for water companies while her mother was an art teacher. She also has a younger brother, Mason Mayer.

Marissa was extremely shy and did not attend any after-school activities.However, she acquired confidence during middle and high school as she started taking piano and ballet classes.

Mayer’s Education Portfolio

Mayer High School life

Marissa attended Wausau West High School where she outshined in chemistry, biology, calculus, and physics. Unlike in childhood, she started taking part in extracurricular activities and held the president position of high school’s Spanish club. She was also the treasurer of Key Club along with being the captain of the debate team and pom-pom squad. She graduated high school in 1993.

Mayer attended Stanford University in the field of computer science with AI specialisation and graduated with BSc in 1997 and MSc in 1999.

Mayer’s Career

After graduation from Stanford, Mayer received quite a lot job offers as she graduated in Artificial Intelligence specialisation. She was picked by Google at kindling age of 24 in 1999 tagged as employee number 20 and the first female engineer.

Career in Google

Marissa Mayer Career in Google

Marissa was promoted to product manager as she was known for  her special attention to details. Later, she held the Director position at Consumer Web Products. She is the one who supervised Google’s search layout and a part of Google AdWords algorithm.

Mayer started APM (Associate Product Manager) program aimed to recruit new talents within the company. Mayer was demoted to Location Services in 2011 by former CEO Eric Schmidt from the position of Vice-President of Google Product Search. She helped to secure Zagat acquisition in 2011. While working at Google, she also used to teach computer programming at Stanford University and East Palo Alto Charter School.

Career in Yahoo

Marissa Mayer left Google on July 16th, 2012, as she was appointed as CEO of Yahoo Inc along with being the member of the board of directors. Mayer launched online program PB&J with a new concept to simplify bureaucratic company rules. This program was designed to investigate problems with 50 votes or more.

Marissa Mayer Career in Yahoo

To increase employees she came up with the idea of maternity leave along with extending cash bonus and allowance which ironically was very similar to Google employee benefits. This step caught a vast attention from the media worldwide with CNN and The New York Times criticising the step as plagiarism from her previous company.

In 2013 November, Marissa instituted a system that was developed to analyse performance review of employees. Employees were not so used to such system and one of them filed a lawsuit too.

In 2014, Marissa was deeply criticised for her management decisions due to fall of Yahoo’s stock value in the market with a shareholder releasing an argument against Marissa to be replaced as CEO.

By 2016 January, the company’s core business because worth zero. Marissa confirmed that Yahoo is considering to sell its core business. The company is being bought by Verizon in $4.83 billion; and if she is terminated without cause after Yahoo’s sales within a year, she would be paid off $55 million.

Marissa’s Affairs and Marriage

Marissa Mayer and Zachary Bogue

Marissa Mayer dated Larry Page, CEO of Google (now Alphabet Inc.) in 2000. However, she married to Zachary Bogue, an investor, and lawyer on 12th December 2009. Zachary and Marissa both love skiing and travelling. On the day when she announced hiring process, she also revealed about being pregnant.

Marissa’s Family

Marissa and Zachary have three children. Marissa Mayer gave birth to a child, a boy on 30th September 2012. The boy is named Macallister and interestingly she took on to social media asking for suggestions for a name. She gave birth to identical twin girls in 10th December 2015.

Mayer’s Net Worth

Marissa Mayer House

Although Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo Inc. is rich, she lives a simple life. Mayer’s net worth is $430 million according to Forbes. She received $36.6 million after  her six month tenure in Yahoo. Being rich does not mean to show off is definitely the policy in her life.

Marissa Mayer BMW Car

Marissa Mayer owns a house in Palo Alto while she lives in her penthouse in San Francisco. The house she bought costs around $30 million. Marissa likes all expensive things, except for her house and car. Marissa prefers BMW car than others.  She drives 95 BMW 3 Series to work.