Some highlights of the Disrupt SF 2013 interview with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer by Michael Arrington:

  • Yahoo recently updated its logo after 18 years of no change.  The design was done in-house, and no external agencies were hired.  Mayer mentioned that whilst she is happy with the logo, the brand is ultimately about having the best product and user experience.
  • They focus on the key areas of people, products, traffic and revenue.  Within this lies a chain reaction. As more people use a broader range of Yahoo’s products, their traffics increases, resulting in more revenue.
  • Yahoo has a global user base of 800M active monthly visitors.
  • 350M monthly active usage comes from mobile.
  • Yahoo’s global audience, excluding Tumblr, has increased by 20% since Marissa Mayer joined the company in July 2012. A large proportion of these new visitors browse using mobiles.
  • Their strategy is to focus on daily habits such as search, mail, homepage, news, sports and finance.
  • Yahoo has done a lot acquisitions, which has brought good talent into the company.
  • When asked what she would like to change, Mayer said that the big piece that she is focusing on is mobile and that Yahoo’s mobile team has grown tenfold since she joined as CEO just over a year ago.
  • Yahoo stock prices have doubled in the past year.
  • When asked about her views on Microsoft, she said that a strong Microsoft is good for the industry overall.