Mayer and a Logo and Playground Journalism

A potent mix of
smarts and looks

It's been a while now since a pregnant Marissa Mayer took over at the badly faltering Yahoo! Fourteen months in-fact. A LOT has been written about Marissa since then and a large portion of it has been read by me.

From the vast array of narrative it is possible to read between the lines and get a feel for the sort of boss Marissa is. You do feel she is control obsessed, that she does have very specific ideals within an industry she has proven herself over a number of decades. You certainly get a sense she could be a pain to work for, but then I've never known anyone truly successful who isn't. They have to be a pain. There are of course variations of painful.

Before Marissa left Google she was a mostly beloved figurehead. The largely male orientated tech. hacks tolerated the pretty blond who knew her code much as they might the efficient blond in the office - with a kind of distant reverence. She was largely harmless and they could rest assured the real brains, the driving force behind the company's success, in this case Google's, was down to men.

But now she's the head of a giant tech. company and her drive along with prevailing winds is bringing the behemoth back on course. Except if you read the established tech. press every single step Marissa has made in the last six months, because really; it doesn't do to be outright mean to a woman while she's pregnant, has been derided as a disaster.

Of course journalists have to write about something and recording how swell the Yahoo! world is under her leadership doesn't make for great copy, but for the love of god guys, give the woman a break. The new Yahoo! logo looks great, it's just different.