Former CEO of Yahoo, Lumi Labs
Google's Mayer Says Page as CEO Will Bring New Momentum
March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Marissa Mayer, Google Inc.'s vice president of search products, talks about the company's response to the earthquake in Japan including Google Person Finder service, Google's leadership and the outlook for hiring.
Mayer speaks with Emily Chang and Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)
About Marissa Mayer
Marissa Mayer, the former CEO of Yahoo and an early Google employee, is currently the co-founder and CEO of Sunshine, a startup focused on applying artificial intelligence to everyday tasks. In recent appearances, Mayer has discussed Sunshine’s product strategy, which includes apps for managing contacts, birthdays, and photo sharing. She stated that the company’s approach is to use AI for "mundane" problems, such as organizing contacts and simplifying photo sharing among small groups. In December 2024, Sunshine launched a new AI product called Shine, which Mayer described as using generative AI to create event invitations and link them to shared photo streams. She noted that the company uses its own technology as well as APIs from larger AI providers. Mayer has also commented on the broader AI landscape, expressing optimism about the technology's potential while noting challenges such as misinformation. She stated that she believes the outcome of the AI race will depend on how companies manage misinformation and develop novel applications. Regarding OpenAI, she said she was concerned about its governance model but described the new board as "excellent" and "promising." Mayer also reflected on her time at Google, recounting a story about former CEO Eric Schmidt creating a "black market" for hiring tokens to slow down the company's growth, which she said made the company more thoughtful about resource allocation.
Transcript (25 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
Now the future of search is a hot topic at the South by Southwest Conference this year, and many years. And Google, of course, is the leader in the search market. So let's head right back down to Austin. We're joined by Google Vice President Marissa Mayer. Marissa, welcome to Bloomberg.
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Marissa Mayer0:15
Thank you for having me.
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Interviewer0:17
So the news today, the world turns to Google, right? You guys launched People Finder, the crisis response team offering the latest news and info for what's happening in Japan. I'm really curious how you guys organizationally mobilize your team internally to respond to these kinds of events and scramble when they happen. It seems atypical of a tech company, and you guys are right on top of it.
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Marissa Mayer0:43
Well, we actually have a wonderful team at Google, the crisis response team, and they have things ready to go like People Finder so they can deploy it really quickly, also resource pages. But yeah, the team is actually so good that last night, about 45 minutes after the earthquake, they had People Finder up. In fact, it actually took the team longer to pull together the resource page of different resources that were there on the ground because that has to be localized to the area than to get People Finder up. So they just do a phenomenal job, and it's obviously very important work in terms of really helping people find each other, especially when communications can be hindered. So it's much better to be able to post once that you're okay and have your relatives find you.
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Interviewer1:26
Now you've been at Google since pretty much the very beginning, and I'm curious about the DNA at Google. Surely all of us want to do good while we do well, but it seems that at Google it's kind of one of the basic ideas of the company. Can you talk about that a little bit and how that plays out today?
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Marissa Mayer1:46
Well, I think that one of the things we all see is that technology is moving so quickly and it's doing all of these kinds of things that could never be possible before, like finding someone or reassuring all of your loved ones and friends that you're okay. And these are things that are happening really quickly. I think many of us who were there early, it was really important to us that technology be used for good and to really make people's lives better. And I think that one of the things that's been really remarkable about Google over time culturally is that we've had a lot of success continuing to hire people who have that same value and really want to take technology, take these new trends, and use them for good in the world.
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Interviewer2:25
Marissa, I want to ask you a little bit more about you. You took on an expanded role at Google last year. There's a big leadership transition coming up with Larry Page moving into the role of CEO, Eric Schmidt moving into the role of chairman. Tell us about what your role in Google 3.0 will be.
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Marissa Mayer2:43
Sure. Well, for the past decade at Google, I've worked on core search and also some other related projects. And in October, I made a large change moving over to our maps and location projects, and really trying to think about how do Maps work, how does Earth work, Street View, Latitude, a lot of these products that I think about managing, not only on the product side but also on the engineering side. So it's a much larger team, it's a new space for me, but I've really been enjoying learning all about it, getting to know the needs of our users, both our end users as well as small to medium and local businesses. And so it's been really just fun to learn about all of those things. And I really think that maps and mobile are an amazing new trend for the future. I just spoke at South by Southwest, and one of the numbers we released here is that Google Maps is used 40% of the time on a mobile device, which certainly is a first for Google, probably a first across most of the industry, in terms of something that was originally designed for the web being used on the phone. We've actually had two days in history, both Christmas Day and New Year's Day this past year, where Maps was more than 50% of the usage. The majority of our Maps usage is on the phone, so there's something really remarkable happening there.
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Interviewer4:02
From your perspective, how will working for Larry be different than working for Eric?
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Marissa Mayer4:09
Well, I think they're both very talented leaders, and I've been really proud and honored to work for both of them. And I do think, you know, Larry was the CEO for the first three years at the company when I was there, and Eric has been now for the past nine or ten. So they're both really talented leaders. I think they both bring different skills to the table, but I think one of the things that I see happening is whenever there's a change like this, there's new momentum in new directions. And with Larry stepping into this role, we're already feeling some of that momentum on some of these new initiatives, and I think that's great.
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Interviewer4:44
Marissa, should I jam? But tell them to hold your feet down so you don't blow away. I'm a little concerned. There's been like kind of little billows of wind, but I think we're holding it together. We got to make him earn his keep. All right, well, now yesterday I saw that you said that Google will make faster and quicker decisions. How so? How is that going to be different going forward?
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Marissa Mayer5:02
Well, I think that before we had a triumvirate of Eric, Larry, and Sergey who would work together, and while they divided and conquered on some issues, on a lot of the larger issues it really was all three of them making a decision. And so now with this new model of Eric's executive chairman, Sergey going really deep on a few very important projects, and Larry as CEO, in a lot of these decisions Larry is the sole decision maker. And I'm sure he'll consult with Eric and Sergey, but he ultimately is the one who can make the decision. And there are times then which means you can make a decision in a meeting, you can make a decision in the hallway, and it really does help overall the company just move faster.
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Interviewer5:40
So I saw some results about market share changes in the search business, Yahoo gaining market share, Google losing a little bit. I wonder, when you look at Bing, number one, when does it become a really competitive player in terms of market share? What number are you worried about? And have you guys learned anything from Bing?
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Marissa Mayer6:01
Well, I think that with Bing entering the space, there's been a large rise in the competition, and we actually really like competition. We think competition is good for users. We think that it basically means that users have more choice, that puts more pressure on all of us to make our services that much better. And so, you know, it's the philosophy of the rising tide floats all boats. And so when there's increased interest in competition in search, everyone benefits. We benefit because we have better products, our users benefit because the whole landscape gets better. We're always focused on making Google better, but I really do think that the increased competition is very helpful.
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Interviewer6:36
But specifically, have you guys looked at anything and said, 'They're actually doing that pretty good'? Have you made any changes based on what you've seen them do?
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Marissa Mayer6:45
None come to mind. We always, you know, we really, obviously it's our job to be aware of what they're doing, but it's also important to stay very focused on our users, stay very focused on our mission and our priorities, and not get pulled off course by looking at the competitor.
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Interviewer7:05
Google is adding 6,000 jobs this year. YouTube announced it's going to increase its staff by 30%. Where are those other jobs going to be added? What are those new employees going to be doing?
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Marissa Mayer7:17
Well, they're going to be added all across the company. So basically almost every product line, across every division, sales, you know, everyone at Google is hiring. This is going to be a very important growth year for us.
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Interviewer7:31
Are you adding jobs in the location division?
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Marissa Mayer7:33
Yes, absolutely.
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Interviewer7:37
I want to talk a little bit about the search algorithm. You announced a new service yesterday that allows users to block certain sites. You recently updated the algorithm. Why can't the algorithm itself take care of that blocking?
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Marissa Mayer7:52
Well, I think that there certainly are some sites which we think aren't very high quality, and the algorithmic changes that happened last week were about addressing that and removing some of these low-quality sites so they didn't come up for users, because there were sort of a universal preference against, say, a content farm site. There's other sites which may be perfectly good, it's just that some users don't like them, and it's a matter of personal preference as opposed to an overall quality issue. And I think that the change that was released yesterday is very good at addressing that.
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Interviewer8:24
Marissa, what about Latitude? You've launched some new services at South by Southwest. Tell us about that briefly if you would.
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Marissa Mayer8:31
Oh, well, so it's not so much a new service as it is a test. So earlier this month, yesterday, last month, early February, we launched check-ins in Latitude, and we've been looking at how can we get more check-ins and how can we get more people participating, because obviously it's a very social thing. And so one of the ways we looked at this was we wondered whether or not there was a way that we could reward people for checking in. And so we've done a small test here in Austin, about 60 local businesses. Those local businesses are offering what we call loyalty offers. So if you check in, say, one time, five times, 10 times, you get loyalty status of being a regular, a VIP, or a guru. But in the case of those 60 businesses, it also unlocks an offer. It may be, you know, a free drink with a purchase of more than $10, or you know, a free scoop of ice cream if you check in. So we're experimenting with those, but it is an experiment, it is a test to try and understand whether or not this will help incentivize check-ins and really help users.
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Interviewer9:30
Marissa, thanks a lot. Free drink sounds good. It's close to happy hour here in San Francisco, and we're grateful for your time today. Marissa, thanks a lot.