As she works to reverse the fortunes of a failing Silicon Valley giant, Yahooâs Marissa Mayer has fueled a national debate about the office life, motherhood, and what it takes to be the CEO of the moment.
âI really like even numbers, and I like heavily divisible numbers. Twelve is my lucky numberâI just love how divisible it is. I donât like odd numbers, and I really donât like primes. When I turned 37, I put on a strong face, but I was not looking forward to 37. But 37 turned out to be a pretty amazing year. Especially considering that 36 is divisible by twelve!â
A few things may strike you while listening to Marissa Mayer deliver this riff, prompted by a question about how her life has changed since her son, Macallister, was born last fall. The first is that sheâs not kidding about being a geek. Mayer talks about numbers as if they were people, refers casually to x- and y-axes, and drops terms like stochastic factor (it means a random distribution) in conversation. On business issues, she speaks awkwardly, piling as many likesinto a sentence as Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. But when she gets on to technology, she turns effortlessly articulate.
