他她話題:梅爾能否馴服雅虎(上)?

In January 2009, Marissa Mayer – by her own admission – broke the internet.

2009年1月，梅里莎•梅爾(Marissa Mayer)——據她自己承認——"打碎了"互聯網。

As Google's vice-president of search products, Ms Mayer was responsible for what was then the world's most popular website. An errant "/" in a computer code had triggered a chain of events that resulted in the message "This site may harm your computer" popping up alongside every search result.

作爲谷歌(Google)搜索產品副總裁，梅爾負責當時世界最流行的網站。計算機代碼中一個錯誤的"/"符號引發了一連串事件，導致每一項搜索結果中都會彈出這樣的信息"該站點可能損害您的計算機"。

"It was as if the internet was broken," she told Newsweek . "I work well under pressure, but I began to have this horrifying sense of just how many millions of people were looking at their computer screens thinking, what is going on? And how many of them were clicking straight over to Yahoo."

她告訴《新聞週刊》(Newsweek)："好像互聯網破碎了一樣。我在壓力之下也能很好地工作，但我開始產生這樣的恐懼感：會有幾百萬的人盯着他們的電腦屏幕，心裏琢磨着，到底出什麼事了？其中有多少人會直接轉到雅虎(Yahoo)？"

After Ms Mayer hit two phone lines, eight instant-messenger chats and made a video call from a family holiday hotel room, the problem was fixed in just under an hour.

在梅爾從一家家庭假日酒店的房間裏打爆兩條電話線路、在即時通訊工具上進行了八次聊天並打了一通視頻電話以後，這個問題在一個小時內得到修正。

In the end, not many users switched over to Yahoo: Google's dominance in search has continued largely unabated. But three years later, Ms Mayer herself has "gone purple", becoming Yahoo's fifth chief executive in as many years.

最終，沒有多少用戶轉向雅虎：谷歌在搜索領域的主導地位基本上沒有削弱。然後，3年後，梅爾自己"紫袍加身"，成爲雅虎5年來第5任首席執行官。

News of her poaching – and that she has taken the job while six months pregnant – might also have strained the internet a little, so huge was the reaction, particularly in Silicon Valley. At just 37, Ms Mayer was one of Google's longest-serving and best-known executives.

梅爾被雅虎挖走——並且是在懷有6個月身孕的時候接受這項任命——的消息或許也讓互聯網緊張了一下，尤其是在硅谷(Silicon Valley)，反響非常強烈。年僅37歲的梅爾是谷歌任職時間最長、知名度最高的高管之一。

But fixing Yahoo will take a little longer than the broken internet that January morning and despite her many talents, Ms Mayer must prove that she can outlast her combined predecessors to collect more than $100m in potential compensation.

但修補雅虎所需的時間遠比那年1月早晨修補破碎互聯網的時間要長。儘管梅爾多才多藝，她必須證明自己能夠比所有前任合計任職時間在這個位置上坐的更長久，才能拿到總計超過1億美元的潛在薪酬。

Although she has built her reputation over 13 years at Google, one of the world's smartest companies, Ms Mayer's plan to turn round Yahoo by focusing on innovation and product developments comes after years of flatlining revenues. Riding the wave of constant growth at Google may not have adequately prepared her for the difficulties at Yahoo, sceptics say.

梅爾是在谷歌工作13年的期間闖出了名頭，谷歌是世界最聰明的企業之一，而雅虎多年來營收不見增長。她在雅虎的扭虧大計是把重點放在創新和產品開發上。質疑者表示，谷歌一直在不斷增長，梅爾背靠大樹好乘涼，這樣的她不一定有足夠的經驗來應對雅虎的困境。

Nonetheless, she is the closest thing Google has had to a celebrity. One ad agency executive this week grumbled that he had never met her but knew plenty about her from San Francisco society pages, which have documented her penthouse atop the Four Seasons Hotel and hirings of entire cinemas to show friends flicks such as Sex and the City.

不過，在谷歌，梅爾是最接近於明星的人。一家廣告公司高管本週抱怨，雖然他從沒見過梅爾，但從舊金山社會版中早已對她瞭如指掌。從報紙上可以得知，她在四季酒店(Four Seasons)頂層擁有高級住房，她會租借整家電影院，只爲了給朋友們放映電影，比如《慾望都市》(Sex and the City)。

She has been profiled in Vogue, which lauded her as "the most poised and powerful information guru", and drooled over the "snowflake lace" wedding dress Ms Mayer wore when she married entrepreneur Zack Bogue. The pair, whose first child is due in October, reportedly enjoy marathons, cooking and long hikes in the Alps.

她曾登上《Vogue》，該雜誌稱讚她爲"最自信、最有影響力的信息大師"，並對她和創業者扎克•博格(Zack Bogue)結婚時穿的"雪片蕾絲"婚紗讚歎不已。這對夫婦的第一個孩子將於今年10月降生。據報道他們二人喜歡馬拉松、烹飪以及在阿爾卑斯山遠足。

Her investments are among Silicon Valley's hippest: Square, the payment company led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, ex-president of Facebook Sean Parker's new video-chat service Airtime, and high-end ecommerce site One Kings Lane.

她的投資對象也是硅谷最時髦的：Twitter聯合創始人傑克•多爾西(Jack Dorsey)執掌下的支付公司Square，Facebook前總裁肖恩•帕克(Sean Parker)新創立的視頻聊天服務Airtime，以及高端商務網站One Kings Lane。

Ms Mayer has always known the right places to be seen. The granddaughter of a Wisconsin mayor, she grew up in Wausau, a midsized town in the Midwestern state. At high school she managed to make both the debating team and dance group – a combination of brains and blonde that would fare her well as the media-friendly face of Google at a time when few of the search engine's geeky guys were interested in talking to the press.

梅爾始終知道站在哪裏最能引人關注。她是美國中西部地區威斯康星州一名市長的孫女，在該州一箇中型城鎮沃索長大。高中時加入了辯論隊和舞蹈隊，這是智慧與美貌的結合。就是憑藉這一點，她日後在谷歌以"親媒體"的面孔走的順風順水，那時這家搜索引擎的極客們沒有幾個人願意搭理媒體。

But her blossoming profile irked some of her fellow Googlers, particularly when San Francisco magazine dubbed her the "Googirl" in a glowing 2008 interview that was more about her than the company.

不過她光輝的履歷也惹惱了部分谷歌同事，尤其是一家舊金山雜誌在2008年一次熱情洋溢的採訪中讚美她是"谷歌女孩"之後，那次採訪更多是在談論她，而非谷歌這家公司。

"She was clearly the outlier," says one former colleague at Google. "Some of that is curated. When she has her picture taken she makes sure she is dressed to the nines and that the photos come out great."

一名前谷歌同事稱："顯然她是名局外人。有些是刻意安排出來的。她接受拍照時，一定要保證打扮得精緻時髦，出來的照片光彩照人。"

Despite playing to the media's superficialities, in the office Ms Mayer makes decisions based on hard data. That may not be readily accepted by the more political Yahoo, which many Silicon Valley observers like to call a media company, with all the cosier connotations that carries.

儘管她會迎合媒體的膚淺，但在辦公室裏梅爾是依靠實實在在的數據進行決策的。這或許尚無法被更爲政治化的雅虎所接受，硅谷的很多觀察人士傾向於稱雅虎爲一家媒體公司，這種叫法含有更爲親切的意味。

"She has good IQ but not EQ [emotional intelligence]," says one Mayer supporter, who believes doing a better job of relating to people will be critical to succeeding as chief executive of Yahoo.

梅爾的一位支持者表示："她智商高，情商低。"這位支持者認爲，搞好人際關係將是當好雅虎首席執行官的一個關鍵。