When Marissa Mayer was wooed away from Google to become chief executive of Yahoo! last year, it’s a fair bet that she never imagined that she was signing up to be Mommy-in-Chief to a nation of weary women as well.
But that’s what it has come to a mere eight months into her tenure, as the vitriol toward the Sunnyvale, Calif., CEO has gone positively viral in the past few days, with Facebook “feminists” leading the charge.
While stay-at-home mom Michelle Obama was beaming herself into the Oscar ceremonies to great reviews, Mayer was being pilloried for giving Yahoo! employees a three-month notice that their telecommuting days would be coming to an end.
Face-to-face interaction is important when trying to revitalize a company. Never mind that the trend of working at home peaked in 2008, or that more men work in their PJs than women do.
Word that Mayer used her own money to build a nursery for her newborn at Yahoo! headquarters fanned the emotions of those who think it is hypocritical to ban the cloud while embracing the cradle.
The trouble is, Mayer is the CEO of a $26 billion company. By Silicon Valley standards, Yahoo! is a dinosaur — 18 years ago Friday was the IPO.
At CNN, another ailing media giant, former NBC honcho Jeff Zucker has arrived with a mission similar to Mayer’s. During Zucker’s two-month tenure, heads have rolled as he tries to steady the ship. Is there a media uproar?
No. Zucker is making the long-overdue changes that are needed to bring CNN back to life, but no one is talking about how he is juggling his big job along with the task of raising his family.
But when it comes to Mayer, the blogosphere is abuzz with every detail of her pregnancy, super-short maternity leave and the nursery for her baby boy Macallister.
“I hate Marissa Mayer” is a commonly Googled phrase. The criticism of her is as excessive as it is distasteful. The fact that much of it is coming from other women dims the hopes of every college-age girl in America who had hoped to take the Marissa Mayer track and make it to the corner office. Sadly, Marissa Mayer, CEO, would probably have had an easier time of it in 1983 than she has in 2013.
Ideally, the brilliant Mayer will prove her critics wrong, and Yahoo! will thrive. Already the stock is up more than 35 percent since her arrival last summer, a metric far more important than the length of her maternity leave.
If she succeeds, Yahoo!’s 14,000 employees will win as well. If she doesn’t, they won’t have to worry so much about balancing their work and home lives.