從今年“最具影響力的商界女性”榜單中消失的名字中，知名度最高的或許要數梅麗莎·梅耶。梅耶從2008年便一直榜上有名，先是作為谷歌（Google）的高管，后來從2012年起，擔任雅虎（Yahoo）總裁兼CEO。

要說現年41歲的梅耶經歷了動蕩的一年，都是保守的說法。2015年，雅虎的收入和利潤損失慘重，梅耶的復興戰略也越來越難以令人信服，因此激進投資者Starboard Value在去年晚些時候，發起了針對梅耶和雅虎董事會的行動，導致她對雅虎的未來計劃徹底破產，公司也四分五裂。

今年一月份公布的雅虎2015年第四季度業績，成為壓死駱駝的最后一根稻草：這家困難重重的公司，在2015年后三個季度的虧損達到令人震驚的44億美元。

公平的說，在2012年，梅耶離開老東家谷歌前往雅虎擔任最高領導人時，她所接手的已經不是一家健康的公司。2012年7月，她在宣布新職位之后，曾對《財富》雜志的帕蒂·塞勒斯表示：“我有許多工作要做?！?/p>

但梅耶的雅虎復興計劃需要大量的資本，這不能讓華爾街滿意。盡管經過多輪裁員，雅虎還是通過收購增加了近3,000名員工，雖然有許多創業者后來都離開了公司。其中價格最高的一筆交易是2013年，雅虎以10億美元的價格收購博客網站Tumblr——今年早些時候，雅虎被迫將該網站減記4.82億美元。雅虎還以超過1.6億美元收購了購物網站Polyvore，許多人批評該筆交易的估值過高。

引發投資者不滿的支出不止這些。雅虎支付了2,000萬美元，購買了美國職業橄欖球聯盟首次僅面向流媒體的比賽直播權，結果被外界視為是一場災難。另有報道稱，雅虎在2014年12月在一場節日聚會上花費了700萬美元，并為贊助名人和時尚界人士的年度聚會Met Ball，投入了300萬美元。梅耶稱某些支出數據都是“厚顏無恥的假話”，但在華爾街眼中，她已經一敗涂地。

7月，梅耶以48.3億美元現金的價格，將雅虎的核心互聯網資產出售給了威瑞（Verizon ）森，這一價格與更高的估算價格相去甚遠。有人估算，雅虎的估值可達到80億美元。雅虎374億美元的市值中，多數來自其持有的中國在線商務公司阿里巴巴（Alibaba）15%的股份，以及日本雅虎（Yahoo Japan）35%的股份，這些股份并未包含在交易當中。目前尚無法確定，2017年初，雅虎與威瑞森的交易完成之后，這些資產將面臨怎樣的命運。

那么，梅耶接下來要怎么做？她曾表示，自己將繼續留在雅虎，直到出售交易結束，但之后她是否會繼續留在威瑞森就不得而知了。她可能會選擇離開，成為一名風險投資人，或者創建自己的公司，雅虎的新東家也有可能決定將她解雇。無論如何，梅耶都會得到一筆非常豐厚的補償金：預計她可以得到約5,500萬美元的巨額補償。但無論如何，可以肯定的是，她未來的路會更不好走。（財富中文網）

譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

Perhaps the most high-profile name to vanish from this year’s Most Powerful Women list is that of Marissa Mayer. Mayer has been a staple of the Fortune list since 2008, first as a Google exec and then, starting in 2012, as president and CEO of Yahoo.

To say that Mayer, now 41, has had a tumultuous year is an understatement. Amid massive revenue and income losses in 2015—and a turnaround strategy that was becoming harder and harder to defend—activist investor Starboard Value launched a campaign against Mayer and Yahoo’s board late last year, pushing to scrap her future plans for Yahoo and disband the company.

The company’s 2015 fourth quarter numbers, reported in January, drove the proverbial nail into Yahoo’s coffin: The struggling company reported a staggering $4.4 billion in losses for the last three months of 2015.

To be fair, Mayer wasn’t handed a healthy company back in 2012 when she left her former employer,Google, for the top spot at Yahoo. As she told Fortune‘s Pattie Sellers after her new job was announced in July 2012, “there’s a lot of work to do.”

But Mayer’s plan for a Yahoo turnaround required capital—a lot of capital—which didn’t please Wall Street. Despite multiple rounds of layoffs, Yahoo added nearly 3,000 workers through acquisitions, though many of these entrepreneurs have since left the company. One of the priciest deals was the acquisition of Tumblr, the blogging site it bought for $1 billion in 2013—$482 million of which Yahoo was forced to write down earlier this year. Yahoo also bought shopping site Polyvore for more than $160 million, a deal many criticized for being overvalued.

And those aren’t the only costs that raised investors’ eyebrows. Yahoo paid $20 million for the rights to the National Football League’s first streaming-only game broadcast, which was deemed a disaster. The companyreportedly spent $7 million on a holiday party in December 2014, and $3 million to sponsor the Met Ball, an annual gathering of celebrities and fashion industry insiders. Mayer called some of these cost figures “blatant falsehoods,” but in Wall Street’s eyes, she was done.

In July, Mayer inked a deal to sell the company’s core internet assets to Verizon for $4.83 billion in cash, a far cry from some of the loftier estimates, which pegged Yahoo’s value at up to $8 billion. Most of Yahoo’s $37.4 billion market value comes from its 15% stake in Chinese online commerce company Alibaba and 35% stake in Yahoo Japan, neither of which are included in the deal. It’s unclear what will happen with these assets once the deal with Verizon closes in early 2017.

So what’s next for Mayer? She has said that she will remain with Yahoo through the end of the sale process, but whether or not she will then stay on at Verizon is an open question. She might choose to leave—perhaps to become a VC or start her own company—or Yahoo’s new owner may decide to send her packing. Either way, Mayer would walk away a very well compensated woman: Her golden parachute has been estimated at roughly $55 million. There are definitely worse ways to go.