Marissa Mayer is my new role model. First the Yahoo chief executive bans working from home. Now, according to Kara Swisher at Re/code, she has made all her top people solemnly promise that they will stick with the company for three to five years. What’s more, she recently got them all to dress up as Wizard of Oz characters posing for a group fancy dress mug shot that Ms Swisher says cost $70,000.
I know lots of people do not like Ms Mayer. Yahoo shareholders can’t be all that keen on her, given that the share price is down by about a third this year. She has also offended an entire generation of young mothers who deplore her plan to return to work at once after the birth of her twins.
At least on the latter score her detractors are being silly. How much maternity leave a powerful woman takes should be of no interest to the rest of us. If she wants to spend a lot of time tending to her double helping of new life, that’s OK. If she wants to be firing off emails from the delivery room, that’s OK too — so long as she does not force others to do the same.