It was literally years ago that I chanced upon a documentary on Google. Marissa Mayer was in it too. She was a vice president then.
I recall how enamored I had become of that endearing voice and the associated innocence of the noble countenance. She was talking about Google as an organization, generally. Her excitement at being a Googler was palpable.
A Knight Comes of Age
If Vint Cerf was the male face of Google, she was its swashbuckling young voice. Some companies never age, their faces and voices sometimes do.
That voice has grown up in the corporate sense. The Marissa I see now isn’t really the same zestful young turk whom I saw and so admired long ago.
That dear little woman now has corporate ambition, in all probability. She’s gone on to become the CEO at Yahoo!, which is badly in need of direction these days, I hear.
I feel as much for Google as I feel for Marissa.
One of life’s noblest tragedies is the ever-transcendent nature of all things fair. You are always, of course, aware of the impermanence of all things human; but when you are faced by a passing of such high nobility, you tend to doubt the value of it all.
So it has been with the passing on of Marissa – from being one of the foremost knights templar in service of Google to ascending the throne itself at Yahoo!
I can still visualize her only as the former.
Marissa’s gone now. She has plenty on her hands. She has an ailing empire to nurture back to health.
I wish Marissa all the very best in all her future trysts.
