Marissa Mayer tried to save Yahoo with acquisitions and a campus — and sold it for parts

In 2012, Yahoo hired Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, as CEO to turn around the declining internet pioneer. Mayer was celebrated as a visionary leader, and her appointment was seen as Yahoo's best chance at relevance.

Mayer's strategy focused on acquisitions (Tumblr for $1.1B, and over 50 other companies), talent acquisition ('acqui-hires') and a new, lavish San Jose campus. She also ended Yahoo's remote work policy, requiring employees to work in the office. But the core business — search, display advertising, email — continued to decline as users migrated to Google, Facebook and mobile apps.

In 2017, Yahoo's core business was sold to Verizon for $4.5 billion — a fraction of its peak $125 billion market capitalization. Mayer received a $186 million exit package, which was widely criticized. The case illustrated how a charismatic leader and a series of acquisitions cannot substitute for a coherent strategy, and how a company that has lost its product-market fit cannot be saved by buying other companies.