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Marissa Mayer Quotes

20 quotes from Marissa Mayer — Former CEO of Yahoo and employee #20 at Google..

I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that's how you grow. When there's that moment of 'Wow, I'm not really sure I can do this,' and you push through those moments, that's when you have a breakthrough.

Growth

We believe that if we focus on the users, the money will come.

Business

I realized in all the cases where I was happy with the decision I made, there were two common threads: Surround myself with the smartest people who challenge you to think about things in new ways, and do something you are not ready to do so you can learn the most.

Leadership

Our theory is, if you need the user to tell you what you're selling, then you don't know what you're selling, and it's probably not going to be a good experience.

Business

Work for someone who believes in you, because when they believe in you they'll invest in you.

Leadership

I think threats are always opportunities…

Opportunity

In technology, it's about the people. Getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment, and helping to find a way to innovate.

Innovation

If you can find something that you're really passionate about, whether you're a man or a woman comes a lot less into play. Passion is a gender-neutralizing force.

Passion

Product management really is the fusion between technology, what engineers do–and the business side.

Management

You can't have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you.

Life

If you can push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking a risk, really amazing things can happen.

Courage

Creativity loves constraint. Simplicity is king on the small screen.

Creativity

It's pretty hard to overstate her impact. She built the team that designs the products we all use.

Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, 2009

I love hard work and big challenges. When I look at the state of the company, I said it would take three or more years to get the company going in the direction we wanted.

Marissa Mayer, TechCrunch Disrupt, 2013

I never ask someone to do something I wouldn't do myself. And a lot of those values translate regardless of company size.

Marissa Mayer, Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner, 2023

Smart people often overthink an important decision. They start to analyze it as if there's only one great option and all the others are not. And that's just not how life works. Look for the smartest people and do something you feel a little unprepared to do.

Marissa Mayer, Stanford Graduate School of Business

When you take really smart people, and give them really good tools, they build really beautiful amazing things and they do it with a lot of passion and momentum. It's that license to do whatever they want that really ultimately fuels a huge amount of creativity and a huge amount of innovation.

Marissa Mayer, Stanford lecture on Google innovation

I wasn't trying to make a broad statement about work from home policies back then. I was just being blatantly honest. The company was in trouble and had been in trouble for a long time. It was a turnaround.

Marissa Mayer, AP interview, 2024

At Google, we always knew that search would eventually become much more about answers than just relevant links. And I think that this is going to push further in that dimension.

Marissa Mayer, Tech Brew, 2023

You can be good at technology and like fashion and art. You can be good at technology and be a jock. You can be good at technology and be a mom. You can do it your way, on your terms.

Marissa Mayer, CNN, 2012

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