This cartoon is less of a criticism of Marissa Mayer then it is a comment on the outrageous salaries, bonuses and exit packages that are dealt out on a regular basis from corporate America. And especially when the person receiving the package is leaving the company in worse financial shape than they found it.
On the flip side, it was fantastic to see Yahoo hire a woman to lead them out of the doldrums they had found themselves in for close to 10 years. Which goes to my second point - there are few people who could have saved Yahoo at the point Marissa Mayer was hired. By the time she came in Yahoo was already hurling towards their own funeral with little hope in sight.
But all that said, Marissa Mayer could receive an exit package worth about 57 million dollars, which is frankly insane when you fact is she failed to pull Yahoo out of its self-imposed nose dive. Did she try, you bet. I’m sure she worked her tail off and did everything she could, but it still seems to me that a package as excessive as this should be reserved for someone who actually achieved, even partially, the task they were hired to do, which she did not.
God knows, the cards were stacked firmly against Marissa Mayer at every turn, but if the corporate hand slapping for failure is 57 million dollars, in addition the huge salary, what type of precedent is corporate America setting for success?