If I were going to take a very high-profile job as the head of a failing company with the mandate that I fix it, a high probability of failure, constant criticism from the press, the issues around being a woman leader in a major silicon valley company, and low expectation of another similar gig after, you bet your sweet ass I would negotiate a golden parachute.

Did she make some mistakes? Yeah. The weekend redesign of the logo was probably insulting to a lot of people at the company, and it seemed kind of ridiculous to people outside the company.

But the bottom line is that for the rest of her career she's going to be branded as the woman who failed to save Yahoo!. A much more likable Carly Fiorina. Likable, but still a failure.

That's a shit thing to have to live with, but it's a risk she took. Who is going to hire her next? She's way over qualified for most positions in the tech industry, and she will always be perceived as under qualified as a CEO.

You take a risk like that, you deserve the reward she got. Her career is toast for a while unless she starts something up on her own, which she has the money to do.

What kind of package would you trade in exchange for likely never being able to work in your capacity anymore and having your name very publicly and widely shit all over?

I'd take everything I could get if I thought that was going to happen. The board made a deal with her, and she took it. I don't see a problem. Good for her.

Also, considering so many of the comments in this thread about how this has nothing to do with her being a woman--what do you think the HN threads are going to look like when Kalanick gets kicked out of Uber and makes millions?

Guarantee you there won't be any criticism. The narrative will be that he was a smart guy who made a savvy deal.

I didn't mean this as a personal attack on Mayer. I actually quite like her. It's the whole system that has evolved into something bizarre. In general terms, how can a person deserve a salary equivalent to the lifetime earnings of thousands of people when it is not even clear if their performance actually helped or hindered a company and to what extent? Mayer and Kalanick are just a few examples in a long list, but an illustrative one since she actually did explicitly fail (even if the job itself was indeed very difficult from the get-go).

Sexism certainly has an influence on coverage, but it's also a red herring. The real question is the absurd pay packages in general, and the disturbing belief that these are somehow justified. It's not only a recent phenomenon but also a localized one, and CEOs with less gargantuan salaries seem to be incentivized just fine. In Mayer's case, it's hard to frame her decision as some kind of huge sacrifice, in a world where most people have to scrounge for a meager living. I doubt she'll lose much sleep over negative press and feelings that will be forgotten after the next controversy.