Marissa Mayer is blowing millions on ridiculous things like a $7 million Great Gatsby-themed party, says investor Eric Jackson
Marissa Mayer has got to go.
That's the whole point of a 99-page presentation hedge fund manager Eric Jackson just submitted to Yahoo's board. Jackson's turnaround plan includes bringing in an operator to replace Mayer as Yahoo's CEO and chopping the company's 12,000-person headcount down to just 3,000 people.
To help make his point, Jackson goes over everything Mayer has blown money on, from failed acquisitions to lavish parties and sponsorships. He points out that Yahoo employees get some costly, unnecessary perks, like free iPhones and one year, free Jawbone UPs. He estimates that Yahoo's free food for employees has cost the company over $450 million over four years, or roughly $108 million per year.
Mayer also sponsored Davos, a big conference in Switzerland, and flew herself and a few executives there on NetJets for a total cost of $1-2 million, Jackson estimates. She also had Yahoo sponsor the star-studded Met Ball Gala, which Jackson says cost the company $3 million.
Then there's the cost of corporate parties. Jackson claims that a December 2014 party had a photo shoot that cost $70,000 alone, and that the company's Gatsby-themed holiday party this year at Pier 48 in San Francisco cost $7 million.
And if that isn't enough to convince you that Yahoo's money is being spent irresponsibly, Jackson takes a critical look at every startup Mayer has acquired and calls out one of its largest ones, Polyvore in July 2015, as simply illogical. Mayer's team spent roughly $230 million to acquire the e-commerce clothing shop, which Jackson calls a "zombie" company that was known to be the "walking dead" of Silicon Valley, and was bought largely because Mayer was one of the founder's mentors at Google.
Then there are the absurdly high salaries Yahoo's top brass - especially Mayer - receive. Mayer has sold roughly $26 million worth of Yahoo stock options since 2014 and Jackson estimates she'll make $365 million for five years of work at Yahoo if she manages to stick around another year and a half.
Here's Jackson's complete 99-slide argument on how Yahoo has been run into the ground.