Marissa Mayer Quotations

I think it's very comforting for people to put me in a box. 'Oh, she's a fluffy girlie girl who likes clothes and cupcakes. Oh, but wait, she is spending her weekends doing hardware electronics.'

When people think about computer science, they imagine people with pocket protectors and thick glasses who code all night.

Shifting toward management meant greater responsibility and influence, but it also meant giving up programming day-to-day in my role, which was hard because it took me out of my comfort zone.

Geeks are people who love something so much that all the details matter.

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.

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

Really 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.

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.

I really wanted to be a doctor, until my freshman year of college when I realized that while I was good at chemistry and biology, I really wasn't feeling challenged by it.

It's really wonderful to work in an environment with a lot of smart people.

I have a theory that burnout is about resentment. And you beat it by knowing what it is you're giving up that makes you resentful.

Beyond basic mathematical aptitude, the difference between good programmers and great programmers is verbal ability.

I think what's really amazing is that given the scale of the web and getting the compute power we have today, we're starting to see things that appear intelligent but actually aren't semantically intelligent.

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

I think that there is a generational change, where new generations that have grown up always having access to the internet have a somewhat different view in terms of personal information and what needs to be kept private.

I was always good at math and science, and I never realized that that was unusual or somehow undesirable.

I had to think really hard about how to choose between job offers.

What you want, when you want it. As opposed to everything you could ever want, even when you don't.

I like to stay in the rhythm of things.

I love technology, and I don't think it's something that should divide along gender lines.

If I had been more self-conscious about being a woman, it would have stifled me.

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.

I pace myself by taking a week-long vacation every four months.

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.

Employees, especially young people, want more than a paycheck.

I definitely think what drives technology companies is the people; because in a technology company it's always about what are you going to do next.

I could imagine, some number of years from now, starting my own company. But not yet. Not for a while.

I really believe that the virtual world mirrors the physical world.

I don't think that I would consider myself a feminist. I think that I certainly believe in equal rights, I believe that women are just as capable, if not more so in a lot of different dimensions, but I don't, I think have, sort of, the militant drive and the sort of, the chip on the shoulder that sometimes comes with that.

I don't feel overwhelmed with information. I really like it.

Search occupies this wonderful moment in a user's day where it doesn't even really break along demographics, right?

For some people, what really matters to them is sleep.

I think Google should be like a Swiss Army knife: clean, simple, the tool you want to take everywhere.

Walmart is an amazing story of entrepreneurship and, as one of the world's most powerful brands, touches millions of lives every day.

For many people, Google is the most important tool on the Web.

I didn't want to lose my sense of myself in my profession.

I don't believe in balance, not in the classic way.

I like to get myself in over my head.

The utmost thing is the user experience, to have the most useful experience.

Well, I think the social networking is really interesting.

Will the social networking phenomenon lessen? I don't think so.

With data collection, 'the sooner the better' is always the best answer.

The internet creates more of an appetite for media - it doesn't replace physical books, radio or TV.

I had no idea how to eat sensibly.

I think that ultimately over time we really should strive for a place where most information is available online and is searchable.

Well, I have one of the best jobs in the world.

I can imagine an operating system that some day does a better job storing your data, using (a) network.

Our focus is on the user and the product.

Steve Jobs is the best at launching new products. They have to see how he does it.

We started with one of the easiest places to organize, websites. Given our talents and skills, now we're moving to other areas of information, like books, video and photographs.

We believe that we have an index that is three times larger (without counting duplicate pages).

We think this will be a very useful tool, but you will have to give up some of your privacy. For many of us, that trade off will make a lot of sense.

There are items that you don't want to buy far away and have shipped to you.

We are excited to make an investment in AOL's future. It gives us more opportunities with more advertisers, and more kinds of advertising programs.

We want to enhance the utility of the Web for users.

We feel this is going to change the face of finance sites.

Biased results? No way. Providing great search is the core of what we do. Business partnerships will never compromise the integrity or objectivity of our search results. If a partner's page ranks high, it's because they have a good answer to your search, not because of their business relationship with us.

You wait, in a month we'll be selling banners.

You can think of it as a personal web assistant that learns about your habits and interests to identify and present web pages, news stories, and photos that it thinks you will be interested in.

Straight lines don't exist in the human form and are extremely rare in nature, so the human touch in the logo is that all the lines and forms have at least a slight curve.

Find something you're passionate about and just love. Passion is really gender neutralizing.

We were very focused on becoming profitable from a very early time, which was not true of most companies in the bubble

There are amazing opportunities all over the world for women, and I think that there's more good that comes out of positive energy around that than negative energy.

I’ve come to realize that being a mother makes me a better executive, because motherhood forces prioritization. Being a mom gives you so much more clarity on what is important.

This is one of my favorites. People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their way out of that little box: 'We know you said it was impossible, but we're going to do this, this, and that to get us there.'

Vince Lombardi says, you know, in my life there are three things: God, family, and the Green Bay Packers, in that order. For me, it's God, family, and Yahoo, in that order.

For me the core principles of privacy online are transparency, choice and control.

I love Google. I was there for 13 years, and if you told me I'd be as happy anywhere else, I would've probably doubted it. But I am as happy, if not happier, at Yahoo.

To me, the future is personalization .

Search is an unsolved problem.

You have to ruthlessly prioritize.

Good students are good at all things.

I think that for me, it's God, family and Yahoo—in that order.

The Googly thing is to launch products early on Google Labs and then iterate, learning what the market wants - and making it great. The beauty of experimenting in this way is that you never get too far from what the market wants. The market pulls you back.

Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our of approaching it closed... It's simple, it's elegant you can slip it in your pocket, but it's got the great doodad when you need it

That's how we're going to stay innovative. We're going to continue to attract entrepreneurs who say, 'I found an idea, and I can go to Google and have a demo in a month and be launched in six.'

If you took the entire internet and laid it end to end, it would weigh more than the other thing. It would weigh more than it would if it wasn't laid end to end. Like, if it was a ball of rolled up internet it would weigh less. I'm pretty sure. It depends on the size of the scale, I think.

My maternity leave will be a few weeks long, and I'll work throughout it.

Talent is what drives technology companies,

I've always liked simplicity.

Innovation is born from the interaction between constraint and vision.

I refuse to be stereotyped.

I’m not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous.

Today, only about 1% of the World Wide Web is written in Arabic.

The prime reason the Google homepage is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact, it was noted that the SUBMIT button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.

I was Google's first woman engineer.

To me, speed is really about convenience.

I'm a geek, I like to code, I even like to use spreadsheets when I cook.

What is clear is that users own their data and should have control of how their data is used.

Theres no such thing as Flickr Pro because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, theres no such thing, really, as professional photographers when theres everything thats professional photographers. Certainly theres varying levels of skills but we didnt want to have a Flickr Pro anymore. We wanted everyone to have professional quality photo space and sharing.

People are more productive when they're alone, but they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together.

Creativity thrives best when constrained.

People ask me all the time: 'What is it like to be a woman at Google?' I'm not a woman at Google, I'm a geek at Google. And being a geek is just great. I'm a geek, I like to code, I even like to use spreadsheets when I cook.

The mobile phone acts as a cursor to connect the digital and physical.

You can wear ruffles; you can be a jock, and you can still be a great computer scientist, or a great technologist, or a great product designer.

Reality is but a poor excuse for not having an imagination.

I think the most interesting thing is what happens next.

New beginnings – professional, personal, or come what may – are always uncomfortable, but being open to them is the only way to grow. In the end, we are all capable of so much more than we think.

Do something youre not ready to do. In the worst case, youll learn your limitations.

Pick something and make it great.