San Francisco City Hall turned purple earlier this week to celebrate Yahoo’s 20th anniversary, but the company’s best birthday gift might have been the glowing profile by legendary tech journalist Steven Levy.
Levy’s two-part opus published on Monday and Tuesday was full of vivid details about the pioneering Sunnyvale Web company, most of it reflecting the “story of progress” Levy said that CEO Marissa Mayer wanted to tell.
Press-wary Mayer, who recently banned reporters from her keynote speech at a Goldman Sachs tech conference (full disclosure: I attended anyway), gave Levy rare access to Yahoo’s executive suite, including interviews with Mayer and most of her core team. Mayer appeared to appreciate the account, re-tweeting the first part Monday.
Mayer’s commentary included a defense of micromanagement, a trait she called “telescoping” for which she is sometimes — many believe unfairly — criticized.
But the reporting also raised complaints about the type of “access journalism” that allows Silicon Valley executives (as well as politicians and other people of power) to pick who gets to deliver their story. Levy’s “exclusive” account was in sharp contrast to a recent book about Mayer’s tenure by Business Insider writer Nicholas Carlson, who used anonymous sources inside the company for a revealing but less flattering tale and with whom Yahoo refused to cooperate.
Several journalists, including Carlson, saw Levy’s story as a platform for Yahoo to defend itself, albeit indirectly, to the criticism that emerged in the book.
“Nicholas did fantastic work,” tweeted Ryan Tate, deputy editor of The Intercept. “Steven serves … as yet another Silicon Valley corporate lackey. It’s disturbing to see Medium in this role: Funded by tech oligarch, flattering other oligarchs, punching down at real journalism.”
In reality, neither Levy’s nor Carlson’s accounts really contradicted the other, though the tone was different. And both revealed insights, from the upper ranks and somewhere down below, that we didn’t have before.
Tech columnist David Pogue called Levy’s writing a “deeply researched, long-form analysis of Yahoo and its comeback.” Pogue works for Yahoo News, so Mayer is his boss.
Above: Screen shot of Marissa Mayer’s Tumblr post about Yahoo’s 20th anniversary celebration