Ah, geek celebrity. While publicly Google is viewed as a meritocracy, working there you quickly realize that it's very much a hierarchy of intimidation and arrogance. You may have great ideas, but if you really want to be successful you need one of the Google engineering celebrities to back your play. These "chosen ones" aren't in their position because they necessarily have the best ideas; in fact, many of the good ideas at Google are never explored because folks with social influence express doubt. Marissa Mayer isn't the only one in engineering, she's just the most famous.
As the company increases in size, the meritocracy of ideas fades and being a good politician becomes more important. While it's not the primary reason I left after five years, it was certainly a consideration.
There's a grain of truth to what you say, but it's misleading to attach it specifically to Google.
Whenever you're doing something for somebody else, they're going to want to see two things from you: 1.) that you understand their problems and concerns and 2.) that you're doing your due diligence to address them. It doesn't matter whether it's Google, some other big corporation, your own startup, or a consultancy. If it's your startup, your customers will want to make sure that you understand their problems and do your due diligence before they fork over their money. If it's your consultancy, your clients will want the same.
I've found that teams that understand this, grok Marissa's way of thinking about the world, and are willing to put in the legwork to iterate on their ideas and make them as good as possible have quite a bit of latitude to do what they want. Those that just spit some <div>s onto the page and come unprepared tend to be the ones that gripe about how Marissa blocks them from getting anything done. Many of the teams I've seen that had problems with Marissa also had terrible UIs, and I'd really hate to inflict them on the user.
In many ways, this is just another way of saying the same thing you did - if you want to be successful, you need one of the decision-makers to back your play. But that's the case anywhere. I've been fond of saying that entrepreneurship is just trading one boss for many bosses - it's great if you hate your boss, not so great if you hate your bosses. Which is a good reason to pick a company or market whose bosses you fundamentally agree with.
Also, speaking as someone who let his startup die because pretty much everyone with social influence over me expressed doubt - if you give up because of what other people think, it'll severely limit your ability to get anything done. If senior executives don't like your project, the best thing to do is listen to them, figure out if they have a point, and if they don't, go do it anyway. The worst thing that happens is that they fire you, and then you're in exactly the same boat as if you quit to found a startup, except that you've been learning about the problem domain while drawing a paycheck the whole time.
Fair enough. I 100% concede that the onus is on you to sell your ideas and rationally respond to criticism, even when the criticism seems irrational.
That said, my point was simply that it's a myth that to be successful at Google is to just have good ideas. You have to play the social game as well, as it's an environment where reputation plays just as much a role as innovation.
For what it's worth, I didn't mean to attach this specifically to Google. It happens at every large company, almost by default. It's just that many folks are surprised to find that Google is so "corporate", especially many Googlers that started straight from graduation.
It's unfair to men that the technical press ignores our sex appeal, bulging crotches and foresting chest-hair, and focuses instead on the tiresome minutia of our work and accomplishments.
Other interesting side note: if you search for [googirl], 3 of the top 4 results are about Marissa. The remaining one is the urban dictionary entry with the snippet "A whore that enjoys and/or loves the taste of cum." Oops.
The beginning of the article was like that, but I thought the rest was pretty good?
At around 11 a.m., Mayer went into the company kitchen for a snack. Peering into the fridge, she sensed she wasn’t alone. She turned around and saw Page standing in a small nook. Startled, she asked what he was doing. “I’m hiding,” he said. “The site is down. It’s all gone horribly awry.”
She made it home that night at around 3 a.m., typical for the hours she would keep. As she climbed into bed, she thought, “It’s not exactly confidence building to see the CEO hiding in the kitchen, saying everything has gone horribly awry.” She gave the company a 2 percent chance of succeeding.
I think they discuss her clothing because it's cool and interesting. I mean, almost every article about Page & Brin mentions their clothing, it just doesn't take as long to communicate "Short-shorts and a t-shirt." Also, the article makes a case that her appearance is relevant:
“Marissa is surprisingly pretty in person,” says Valleywag blogger and editor Owen Thomas. “That in itself is a rarity in Silicon Valley, and you’d have to be naïve to think that doesn’t color people’s views of her.”
Looks are almost always relevant to people's opinion of you. That's true for men and women, but it's only in articles about women that it seems to be pointed out as if to undermine their accomplishments.
I know it's subtle, but I think this article put those quotes from other publications at the beginning in order to shoot them down. Quotes like this:
For gossip websites like Valleywag, Mayer is an easy mark... and (so they say)... uses her looks for publicity.
are followed in the next paragraph by:
Mayer manages 150 product managers, who direct the efforts of nearly 2,000 software engineers; levels criticism and praise with the same cool gaze; and is an arbiter of much of what goes before Page, cofounder Sergey Brin, and CEO Eric Schmidt, who trust her as their gatekeeper. Just about everything that goes on at the Mountain View company, which is more valuable than the U.S.’s three largest traditional media companies combined...
OP seems to be undermining the other publications which were undermining Mayer. The substance of the article refutes the pettiness of Vallywag et al.
People often bring personal appearance up when talking about Larry Ellison, mostly in the context of what a snappy dresser the guy is as compared to the rest of Silicon Valley.
I'm as put off as anyone by all the excess publicity she gets, but your comment doesn't really do her justice.
Marissa is very, very sharp. She can rub many people the wrong way (including myself) because she's almost always completely certain that she's right. However, she is right a good portion of that time, certainly more than most people I've met. And when she's wrong, she'll always listen to data that proves her wrong, and the issue gets dropped. I can respect that.
Jealous, much? I don't know her from Eve, but she would not survive a day in that crowd (Page, Brin, and the other top-level Googlers) if she was "unimpressive".
There is a significant component of "in the right place at the right time" involved with anyone of any notability. But once the wave crest comes along, one has to be able to get standing on the board.
As the company increases in size, the meritocracy of ideas fades and being a good politician becomes more important. While it's not the primary reason I left after five years, it was certainly a consideration.