Marissa Mayer’s Leadership Qualities?

What kind of leader is Marissa Mayer of Yahoo?   Katie Benner writes:  At the end of the day, all executives have to be honest with themselves about whether or not they’re good leader

What are their weaknesses? What don’t they understand?  Mayer had never run a business before her arrival at Yahoo (and the company declined to comment on her tenure). She was an early member of Google’s leadership team (Employee Number 20) and exercised a lot of influence over the look and feel of the company’s monster search engine as well as other products. But she was eventually demoted at Google when the political winds went against her.

Mayer was a star student throughout her life and her faith in academic prowess is a common trait in Silicon Valley, where companies like Google stock the employee pool with elite grads. Yahoo — a sprawling Web giant that has its hands in many key parts of the Internet — needs a strong, competent manager at the top of the company. It hasn’t had anyone good at the helm in years. And as we’ve seen amid the tenures of Scott Thompson, Carol Bartz and Jerry Yang, there’s no way that Yahoo’s fortunes will improve without strong leadership.

The rookie qualities that have become part of the Mayer story are a reflection of some brew of inexperience, arrogance, insecurity and poor judgment. No company can grow big or move fast if the CEO has to control every widget that leaves the factory. Eventually, top talent will leave for companies where they’re empowered. The place they’re fleeing will, almost always, weaken.

Each achievement was a pointed refutation of one of many criticisms that’s dogged Mayer’s tenure at Yahoo. The turnaround is a nonstarter. She doesn’t have a strategy. Tumblr was a flop. She’s a poor financial steward.

Leadership, and it’s more stolid cousin management, can be fuzzy, malleable terms, but Corporate America adores them nonetheless.  Blackstone’s founder, Steve Schwarzman, was known to be a terrible manager who alternately belittled and terrified employees in his early years. So he eventually brought in a very empowered number two, Tony James, to run day-to-day operations and manage employees. Schwarzman’s private equity firm has thrived as a result. Sandy Weil, on the other hand, famously felt threatened by other strong executives at Citigroup, a flaw he never fully addressed.  The weaker leaders who took over after he left ran the megabank into the ground.

No matter how many board members and how many management coaches work with Mayer, only she can answer the questions about what she does and doesn’t know. Only she can bring in top executives, deputies and team leaders who can challenge her and offset her weaknesses.

Tumblr Tumbled

Leapfrogging to Clean Energy

Norway will give Liberia up to 150 million dollars in aid in exchange for which Liberia will try to stop the rapid destruction of trees. Years ago  Norway made a similar deal with Brazil to halt deforestation.  In 1960 economist Ronold Coase talked about bargaining between parties that could produce a mutual benefit.  James Surwieki in the New Yorker points out that trying to get Liberia to stsop cutting down trees without an incentive is high-handed.  The deal Norway has made makes sense for both parties.

Noone wants more Chinas.  Developing countries suffer most under cimate change regulations. So why not pay them to leap to the future?

Pay to Save Forests?

Getting Girls to Code

Reshma Saujani writes:  The idea for Girls Who Code came about when I was running for office in 2010 in New York City. I’ve always been a policy junky, but when you’re actually on the campaign trail you get to see issues in a much more immediate way. I was visiting schools and talking to teachers and parents across the district and I saw that our kids weren’t learning computer science, and that the gender and socioeconomic divide in tech access was just enormous. With 1.4 million jobs in the computing fields by 2020, I knew we had to do something to close that gap.

At Girls Who Code, we’ve gone from one program teaching 20 girls to reaching 3,000 by the end of 2014 through Summer Immersion Programs and Girls Who Code Clubs. This summer alone we are in NYC, Boston, Miami, Seattle, and all over the Bay Area with programs at Adobe, Amazon, AppNexus, AT&T, eBay, Facebook, GE, Goldman Sachs, Google, IAC, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, Square, Twitter, and Verizon.

The most interesting (and inspiring!) part of championing young women in tech is that they really become our ambassadors in the movement. When they graduate from our summer immersion program, they know they’ve learned something special and they go on and teach other girls and start clubs at their schools and libraries.

As far as challenges, I think people just don’t realize how bad the problem is. Jaws drop when I tell people that in 1984, 37% of CS majors were women, and now that number is 12%.

Girls Who Code

Decline in Venture Capital Confidence in US

Mark v. Cannice writes:   The Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index® (Bloomberg ticker symbol: SVVCCI) is basedon a recurring quarterly survey of San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley venture capitalists. The Indexmeasures and reports the opinions of professional venture capitalists on their estimations of the highgrowthventure entrepreneurial environment in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next 6 – 18 months.1The Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index® for the third quarter of 2014, based on aSeptember 2014 survey of 33 San Francisco Bay Area venture capitalists, registered 3.89 on a 5 pointscale (with 5 indicating high confidence and 1 indicating low confidence). This quarter’s indexmeasurement fell from the previous quarter’s index reading of 4.02.

In summary, confidence declined in the third quarter of 2014, ending an upward trend in sentiment over the previous two years. Worries over inflated valuations and their eventual impact on the venture business model, along with concern on the macro environment, drove the decline in confidence. However, a still strong if moderating exit market for venture-backed businesses, healthy levels of investment and fundraising, rampant disruptive innovation, and the ever present belief in the determination of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs kept sentiment at a relatively high level. Recent public market volatility, though, may slow the exit environment in the near term, with a resulting drag on other aspects of the venture business model. Whether the deceleration in public and private markets acts as a moderating force against over exuberance or is a signal of a longer-term slowdown in the entrepreneurial and broader economic environment remains to be seen.   Venture Capital Confidence

Venture Capital Confidence

 

Uber A New Business Model

Mohamed El_Erian writes:  The more I use Uber, the more I am convinced of the transformational power of recent technology innovations, especially when it is intelligently combined with behavioral science and economic principles. Indeed, it is only a matter of time until this potent mix disrupts an increasing number of industries, including certain segments of finance.

By finding a powerful way to improve the well-being of both passengers and drivers, Uber is transforming a mode of urban transportation that, for a long time, has seen little positive evolution in the provision of service. Passengers get more than a pleasant phone interface to order their rides and monitor their progress. We feel incredibly empowered and enabled. We like that the fare is billed directly to a credit card that the company has on record; and that our feedback is solicited immediately and in a user-friendly manner.

These are just some ways in which Uber has combined technological innovation, mobility and behavioral science to widen and deepen how it acquires and retains clients. And such insights are also being applied to the drivers, who are also empowered and enabled.

Once drivers pass their evaluation, Uber provides them with the needed setup, including the technology for location services, billing and so on.

The number of drivers signing up with Uber is growing markedly, enabling the company to offer its riders an expanding option of vehicles and service levels. Moreover, through the use of the “surge reminder,” which better calibrates fares with demand-supply imbalances, Uber can entice more drivers to come out at busy times. And this is only one way that the company is using basic economic principles to be more responsive in providing services.

In analytical terms, Uber is a growing P2P (peer-to-peer) platform that is dismantling barriers to entry in a comprehensive way — so much so that even the old-style limousine services and taxis are starting to sign up with Uber as a means of supplementing their traditional business.

Elements of this model are slowly being replicated in certain parts of finance, and will probably expand in the years to come — especially in providing more appropriate consumer credit to underserved segments of the population.

By reducing old-style overheads and other outmoded costs, as well as using access to broader sources of loanable funds, P2P models can pass savings on to borrowers through lower interest rates while also providing an attractive return to creditors.

And by using a broader set of data, this new group of financial intermediaries can improve on traditional credit models and better customize the provision of products to borrowers — a process that can be further enhanced with incentives to improve the paydown of debt balances and overcome debt traps.

Uber Business Model

Mexico Moves Forward

Since 2012, three major politial parties in Mexico have joined forces to pass 11 major reforms.  Most striking are:

1.  Civiiliry in politics.  In August a controversial and difficult bill was paased curbing the power of Pemex, the petroleum monopoly and a pride of the country.  A new generation of leaders sees an advantage in curbing old-style infighting.

2.  Better services.  Meixo is one of the world’s most ope economies. It has 44 trade agreements with other countries.  Reforms will help get loans to small businesses and build more roads, railroads and airports.  This may be a good time for entrepreneurs.  And murders are down 29 per cent.

3. Openess and transparency.  Transparency institutes and corruption commissions will watch over awards for oil and gas development and all other matters.

by Fernando Llera

by Fernando Llera

 

 

China and the Rule of Law

Top Party officials began a landmark meeting on Monday focusing on the rule of law. They will deliberate on a draft decision covering “major issues concerning comprehensively advancing the rule of law”, sources close to the meeting said.

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee is meeting in Beijing from Monday to Thursday.

The decisions reached are expected to set the tone for promotion of the rule of law by the Party, and it is the first time a plenary session of the CPC Central Committee has taken the rule of law as its central theme.

The sources said the rule of law – which China wrote into its Constitution in the 1990s – will play a more prominent role in the overall work of the Party and the government.

It is expected to give provincial courts supervisory powers over their county-level peers on funding and appointments, removing the lower courts from the influence of local authorities.

Xu Xin, a legal scholar in Beijing said the plenary session may also introduce measures to curb corruption by requiring newly appointed officials to publicly disclose their personal assets and by setting up an anti-corruption agency.

Lian He Zao Bao, a newspaper based in Singapore, said in a report that setting up an anti-graft system and addressing judicial reform are likely to be key topics at the meeting.

David Fouquet, director of the European Institute for Asian Studies, said China has introduced and adopted legislation in recent years covering competition, labor and employment laws to bring them more in line with international standards.

“We are hopeful and optimistic that the Chinese leadership will achieve all the ambitious objectives raised at recent meetings and in documents,” he said.

“That should go a long way toward making China – its economy, society and political system – fairer for its population.”

The Law in China

 

We Need Jocks and Nerds to Thrive

When change occurs, we often tilt violently in one direction.  Gloria Steinem who spoke for women for so long, did not marry until late in life and never raised children.  WHat did she have to say to mohters and wives?   Her advice was often not helpfull.

With the advent of the age of high tech, nerds who had often been teased and bullied in high school became the go to peoplle.  Noah Smith writes about why the jocks they supposedly replaced as still nevessary to the conduct on business and in fact life in general.  Why We Need Jocks

New Appreciation of Jocks

Impact of Decline of Oil Prices in US

Oil prices plummet in US.  What does this mean.

The tumbling oil price has a real impact on Americans’ lives. The good: prices at the pump are at a historic low, dipping below $3 in some states. The bad: Stock market volatility hurts investors, raises questions about the robustness of the economic recovery and places severe pressure on domestic oil producers.

Prices rebounded on Friday, holding above $80 a barrel. But that did not dull the questions about America’s ability to maintain the pace of the oil boom that has blossomed in recent years.
Critics say that production in the very formations that are most responsible for the U.S. oil boom is endangered by two major factors: a lack of infrastructure at home, which makes the storage and refining of crude more complicated than it should be, and the potential for the oil price to plummet further if the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) doesn’t cut its output.

“The market has gotten oversupplied, and with the potential for domestic prices to fall by another $6-$8, certain unconventional plays are no longer economic to develop,” said James Fallon, director of research and consulting with IHS energy team.

“So producers aren’t going to keep putting money into developing new wells and completing new wells, and so they will just stop drilling and that will slow down production,” Fallon said.

If that were to happen, the critics say, it would be a dismal waste of new technologies that have moved the United States within touching distance of its long-cherished goal of energy independence.

This week, international Brent crude oil fell to its lowest benchmark in four years, hitting $82. The U.S. domestic West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil benchmark also dipped below $80 a barrel for the first time in more than two years.

Analysts attributed the drop to an economic slowdown and reports that OPEC is unlikely to cut production anytime soon. The first point was given added force when the International Energy Agency slashed its forecast for growth in demand for oil.

s next year, or when prices get better. But those decisions aren’t being made today and will probably come in the next couple of weeks.”

Meanwhile, further cause for guarded optimism came when Bank of America Corp. predicted that OPEC would “likely curtail” its production to “lend support to oil prices.” Such a move would, in turn, help U.S. domestic prices recover.

But there is no guarantee it will happen, and OPEC has yet to move in that direction.

“When the flat price of crude begins to fall globally, there is pretty big exposure that domestic price will fall even further than that. And when that domestic price falls far enough, you really will start to see production impacts,” Fallon said.

Such a scenario could in turn create a “pretty big disruption to cash flow” for the small independent producers that make up most of the operations in the Bakken and Permian.

If those independent producers have “financial balance sheet problems” because of the drop in oil prices, Fallon said, “that could be very disruptive to the momentum of the growth of unconventional oil production.”

Impact of Oil Price Decline in US