Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Says She Can’t Wait To Use Gmail Again

Image courtesy of Yahoo

Marissa Mayer was one of Google’s earliest employees, and worked there for 13 years before she was hired to be Yahoo’s final CEO. Now that the sale of Yahoo’s internet operations to Verizon has closed, Mayer is out of a job. It’s not all bad, though. Leaving Yahoo means that she can use Gmail again.

Mayer spoke earlier today at the Accelerate-Her Forum in London — a program dedicated to helping women succeed in the tech industry — and according to accounts of people who were in attendance, the now-former Yahoo chief declared, “I look forward to using Gmail again,” and that she’s “always faster when using a tool I designed myself.”

Mayer later noticed that her remark was zipping around the world, and Tweeted that her remarks were taken out of context, and she still has room in her heart for two email services and apps. She looks forward to seeing how Gmail has changed in the last five years, and since its early days.

Indeed, Yahoo Mail was overhauled during Mayer’s tenure, but was also the victim of multiple massive data breaches, which signficantly lowered its purchase price.

Back in 2013, so many Yahoo employees were using third-party messaging services instead of Yahoo Mail that the company had to send out a memo advising staffers to get on-brand.

While she’s now out of a job, there’s no reason to cry for Marissa Mayer: She’ll receive a $23 million severance payment (warning: auto-play video at that link), and has around $260 million in stock options and restricted stock units.

Yahoo’s stock price rose during her tenure, but it wasn’t because of the company’s bold investments in startups like blogging platform Tumblr, as well as fixing up and adding content to its streaming video and mobile apps. Most of the increase was because an insightful predecessor of Mayer’s made an early investment in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, which had an incredibly successful initial public offering during her tenure.

In a move that would have been unthinkable in 1997, what remains of Yahoo will become part of what remains of AOL in a Verizon subsidiary called Oath. Former AOL CEO and conference call enthusiast Tim Armstrong will run the division.

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