Yahoo was dead man walking before Mayer came on. She wasn't the right hire to save it, but she wasn't the hire that killed it.
Fiorina drove HP into the ground hard. It's survived, only barely, but no thanks to her.
And while both are women, I'd keep an eye on both Nadella (Microsoft) and Pichai (Google). Nadella's got a turn-around job. Pichai's starting from a better position, but with a company that's grown fat, lazy, distracted, and manifestly evil. I'd actually say Pichai's got the harder job, and I've not been particularly impressed.
(The fact that I had to look up each of their names to confirm spelling says something about the lack of billing either's getting.)
I'd argue too that Sculley at Apple was quite possibly Worst Hire Ever, in terms of total impact and lost potential. Latter proven by Job's return.
(That said as someone who's not particularly a fan of Apple or Jobs.)
Gil Amelio at SGI did spectacularly bad things rapidly as well.
From a purely outcome-based view, I'd say firing Jobs was the best thing for Apple's long-term success. NeXT software was critical to the turnaround, and Steve apparently learned quite a bit (even some humility) during his time in the wilderness.
Yahoo was dead man walking before Mayer came on. She wasn't the right hire to save it, but she wasn't the hire that killed it.
Fiorina drove HP into the ground hard. It's survived, only barely, but no thanks to her.
And while both are women, I'd keep an eye on both Nadella (Microsoft) and Pichai (Google). Nadella's got a turn-around job. Pichai's starting from a better position, but with a company that's grown fat, lazy, distracted, and manifestly evil. I'd actually say Pichai's got the harder job, and I've not been particularly impressed.
(The fact that I had to look up each of their names to confirm spelling says something about the lack of billing either's getting.)
I'd argue too that Sculley at Apple was quite possibly Worst Hire Ever, in terms of total impact and lost potential. Latter proven by Job's return.
(That said as someone who's not particularly a fan of Apple or Jobs.)
Gil Amelio at SGI did spectacularly bad things rapidly as well.