It’s 2023 and everyone is talking about artificial intelligence. 

Marissa Mayer, on the other hand, has been thinking about AI since the 90s. She was one of the first employees at Google and helped build Google Search, Maps, and Gmail, among many other things. 

On World of DaaS, she shares some amazing insights on what AI and machine learning could mean for software development, and for the business models of the biggest tech companies. 

Marissa also has deep experience with 2023’s other hot topic: operational efficiency. When she was hired as a turnaround CEO at Yahoo in 2012 (the seventh CEO in 61 months), she set out to refocus the company by cutting red tape and empowering innovators.  

On the podcast, we discuss Marissa’s theory of how companies get dragged down by process, and what better management looks like. She breaks down how to empower employees to make better decisions without bureaucratic processes and how to reorient an organization to be more agile.  

In addition to great stories from Yahoo, Marissa also shares some amazing anecdotes from the early days at Google. Marissa is the founder of Google’s legendary APM program and one of the most insightful people out there when it comes to hiring vs developing talent.

Marissa was able to hire incredible people for the APM program out of a pool of recent college grads with no resumes or experience, and she shares some of the interview questions she used to find the most promising hires with so little data. 

We post videos twice a week on all things tech, data, and venture capital, so make sure you subscribe: 

World of DaaS is brought to you by Flex Capital. For more episodes, visit World of DaaS on YouTube.

You can find me (Auren Hoffman, CEO of SafeGraph) on Twitter at @auren and Marissa Mayer on Twitter at @marissamayer

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