Marissa Mayer has kept an admirably low profile since running Yahoo! into the ground and then improbably convincing Verizon to spend a comically huge amount on a collection of borderline useless properties. But the true Silicon Valley entrepreneurial animal is not dissuaded by one or two or several dozen failures any more than by an idea that no one asked for or wanted. Nor is she kept on the sidelines by matters of good taste. Mayer’s most significant legacy, such as it is, may be her diehard stance against remote work, one which earned her a pre-presidential plaudit from Donald Trump, who tweeted that her 2013 decision to force employees formerly allowed to work from home back into the office was a sign that she was “doing a great job,” a tweet which like all of the president’s other tweets completely at variance with reality. But, anyway, now that she’s been comprehensively proven wrong about WFH, she’s ready to be proven wrong again, as the woman who once threw open the door to hackers to access 200 million e-mail accounts is here to help you deal with the apparently arduous and time-consuming process of clicking “add contact” on your phone when you get a call or e-mail from someone new.
This week, her startup Sunshine unveiled its first product—an electronic contacts manager—that promises to “make the mundane magical.” The app uses technology to automate everyday tasks, “free up your time, and make it easier to be thoughtful….”
“When your contacts are organized and truly work, they create a flywheel where scheduling, planning, organizing, and being thoughtful about your relationships becomes infinitely easier,” according to Sunshine’s website.
Congratulations to Marissa Mayer on becoming Adam Neumann.