Marissa Mayer is a big deal.
She’s Google employee 20, the first woman engineer, and the highest ranking woman there. Well, she was. As of yesterday, she’s a Xoogler. Mayer quit Google in order to become Yahoo’s new CEO. As if that weren’t enough, the same day she made the announcement, she tweeted that she and her husband were expecting a baby boy in October. That’s right, Yahoo hired her with a visible baby bump.
While Mayer certainly had a long and lucrative career at Google, her promotion possibilities had narrowed. She was the most senior female engineer, but there were still two levels of management above her, and one of those layers was added after Larry Page took over duties as Google’s CEO. While I’m not sure anyone can rescue Yahoo out of its current mess, Marissa Mayer is ready for the challenge. I hope she has some Miracle Max magic.
Back in January of this year, I saw Mayer, Padmasree Warrior, and Caterina Fake give a panel presentation at CES on the field of women in technology. They spoke about the problem that not only are women less likely to enter a tech career, they’re more likely to give it up to start a family. All the women touched on the idea that women shouldn’t shrink from responsibility and power when starting a family. Instead, women should try to grab more power.
Why? When you have enough power, you dictate the rules. Bring your baby to work. Turn that meeting into a teleconference from home. Set up a daycare on campus. Flex your schedule around that pediatrician appointment.
It’s certainly advice that Mayer, who may have just found out she was pregnant around that time, was taking to heart. Rather than taking it easy, she plans on having only a few weeks of maternity leave and continuing to work.
