Workplace 101: A Profiles Global Business Blog

It seems Marissa Mayer can’t go a week without making headline news.  The youngest woman ever listed in Fortune magazine’s list of America’s 50 Most Powerful Women, Mayer began taking over news headlines everywhere when she was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo in 2012.

For many software developers and engineers, the dream differs from reality. The dream: graduate from college and create an innovative startup. The reality: an increasingly competitive environment, where many ideas fail to take off, leaving financial disarray and shattered confidence. Enter the phenomenon of acqui-hiring – the practice of large companies spending millions to buy startups for talent acquisition, typically engineers or developers. The startup’s products are usually dropped in the deal because the primary goal in acqui-hiring is to obtain human talent.

As the calendar turns to a new year, it is time to reflect on successes and failures of the past year in order to grow and improve in the next. New Year’s resolutions are infamous for being abandoned before the goals are met. They sound good, but are often unrealistic. Some people’s goals are too lofty while others set too many.

7 Lessons for Employers and Employees from Yahoo

It has been fascinating, shocking, and at times uncomfortable to witness the C-level drama coming from Yahoo last week. Just after Labor Day, now-former CEO Carol Bartz was fired over the phone by Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock. Employees are dismissed all the time, but firing executive leaders can be a sticky situation.