valley for a while. what have you learned, not about specific things, but any sense of coming into a certain likeness? what do you wish you had known? what has been a learning experience? marissa: again, what is great, i get to learn every day. and i think that, it has been amazing. i love design and getting to work with the team at yahoo! to design the future, how the future -- how the cup and he works, this has been in a credible spirits. -- and cripple experience. -- incredible experience. think that pacing and time is always important. i think that there are some things that we did too quickly and some things we probably did too slowly. charlie: and not enough. marissa: and not enough. but i think that we learn from that and we are constantly getting better. and when i look at the strategic plan we rolled out, this is the combination of all of that learning credit one thing we should do is get away from declining revenue more quickly and get more focused on areas of

revenue and of the business that can grow really substantially to get us returns. and really, that is another key part, that yahoo!, there are some many things we work on, it is really important for us to be focused. focused on providing the best possible service to users, focused on the product line, where we can do really excellent in each area. and really differentiated. i am feeling good about the strategic plan and how we can achieve that in all the areas. charlie: it had to do with real estate, offices, but it also had to do with people. people you had brought in, hoping that they could create something that would be a vital part of -- of all those, what was the hardest loss for you? for the yahoo! community? marissa: i think along the way, there were all kinds of different things we tried. i am proud of those experiences. we tried to set up a community, digital magazines, i would say

when you look at the successes we have had, and with native advertising, yahoo! gemini is one of the fastest forms of advertising growing on the web. overall, this -- i am proud of that. i would say that some things we learned around digital magazines and the original content, they just live on in a different form. because some of those types of media when they translate online, you need a lot more support in terms of the tools offered. why is yahoo! finance more successful than the magazine, because you have fully owes -- portfolio. where we successful in sports, because you can follow teams, put together your fantasy football lineup. so, i think that having told is -- tools is another key in succeeding.

charlie: someone you know would say, what did you think of nfl's streaming? marissa: we were the first load -- global live stream of the nfl in october, the buffalo bills and the jacksonville jaguars. it started at about 4:30 a.m. i pulled into the parking lot and it was amazing, because there were literally 300 cars at 4:30 a.m. i took a picture of it. it was a great moment for the company. our goal was -- was to try and build a record number of viewers, we saw 33 million views on that stream. all on a sunday morning, which tends to be a sleepy time on the internet. and we did it was unbelievably high death quality -- def quality, very little re-buffering, compared to standards and other streaming providers. i think that we made a case for ourselves in terms of how we

work with quality. and obviously, because of our heritage in sports, this fit in with fantasy football and it was a really proud moment for the company to get to partner with the nfl. charlie: then your time said -- new york times said in december, it is a collection of news, entertainment, and communications, destinations supported by ads. it was hard to build something novel, but it appears like they are building a better yahoo!. what is a different company that marissa mayer could have built? one option, diving into television. she could have bought netflix. was that a possibility for you, did you think about that? because when terry was there, the idea of yahoo! as a powerhouse was given emphasis.

marissa: yes, i think that overall, there are opportunities. that the same time, we have a huge user base. we cannot stop running e-mails, searches, providing the news, so -- and we have $4 billion worth of advertising revenue and advertising messages that we needed to get out on behalf of advertisers. so, i do not think there was a world where we could have done a pivot and walked away from things. there are maybe some things we could have added, but that goes back to the point of focus and distraction and saying, we really want to go back -- i found i really wanted to find the core of yahoo! and figure

out how to use them. charlie: and build on them. you said what you had done in a new plan is a bold action. that sum would look at what has taken place and to say this is not a bold action, she is simply doing this -- a comb this said that comments -- a columnist said, she is just changing yahoo!. they said that the assets could be valued much better than they are today. did you consider that at the time, was that a choice that was decided not to make? marissa: we decided to buy tumbler. that was a big bold move. so we made it big bets. some of them have paid off. i really feel like we don't want to turn our backs on the users we already have. and we have had a lot of opportunity. now on mobile, people are doing something that is completely different than what they had done on desktop. yes, the tolls -- tools are a little different, but it is

still about communication, information, how you entertain yourself and all the things we provided on desktop, they still have a lot of value and they are still the most frequent things people do on their phones. i did not feel like we needed to necessarily change who we work and move into a new area, i felt like optimizing what we had and really making a more suitable for mobile, because we all knew how big mobile could be. it was really probably the better path for us. i felt like we should continue to make big bets in the areas we were already strong in. charlie: how long do you think you have to make this plan work? marissa: this is a multiyear plan, obviously with the reverse spin or the alternative, that will come to conclusion far before that. i hope that we are able to see that plan through, because i do think we can see how it will work and how it will affect the turnaround. charlie: you are not on the

committee that is looking at new acquisitions, is there reason for that? marissa: this is the way it is typically done, for myself and david philo, the founder of yahoo!, we are considered not independent core numbers, we are employees and we are part of the operating system. charlie: you are employees. marissa: yes, there is a committee already formed, but we are working with them each day. charlie: let me go back to -- think out loud about how beyond building the plan, what you hope and believe yahoo! can become. marissa: i think it can become a vital piece of everybody's day on the phone. and i really think that we can add a lot of value, whimsy, and a lot of utility two things people do every day and trying to make lives easier and help them -- somebody wants said, i turned to yahoo! for everything i need to know. and a few things i didn't know i wanted to know.

there is an element of serendipity in it and i think that obviously, there is so many things you can do, but i really hope we can continue immobile to be that guide we have always been. to guide people to information they need and a few serendipitous pieces of information or things to do that maybe they would not have thought of. charlie: is your biggest challenge right now, you do not do many interviews, to condense not only your employees, who i assume are with you, but to convince the community and the people, that this is a plan that will work and will work and will have the power of reducing, of changing the attitude that the investment committee has about these assets? marissa: i think when the business really start to grow,

that type of change in the investment community will happen. the biggest challenge we see is around mobile engagement. we have 600 million users, how do we get them to monthly users and coming every day? how do we build products they need to have every day, so we are looking at that, how we invest in medications, that is the biggest driver, frequency of use. how many times you check e-mail on your phone or text, or message, so this is a great opportunity around communications. also, how do we make the applications of the best applications for news, for search, for sports, for finance and lifestyle. we are working hard on those areas because we think that by creating great tools that can be used on the phone and putting them together in a right way, you can ultimately really build the user base that comes more

frequently and find more utility and value in applications. we are already highly valued, but we want to increase frequency. charlie: and with the investment community. when you look at the companies you compete with today, users and the success of facebook in respect to yahoo! and advertising on mobile, do you see that leveling off? marissa: i think that mobile will continue to grow, mobile advertising will continue to grow. because i think, one of the things you see, search continues to be lucrative. charlie: but you -- marissa: there are so many new formats of advertising, there is native advertising, click to install ads, where people are quickly trying to get those installed on phones.

so many different models, these are the early days in my view of mobile advertising, what is the best way to put that message out and for the advertisers, what is the right parts -- right product? how do you format that product and how do you make sure that messages are received most effectively. charlie: it is clear to see where the cloud, the impact it would have when you took over. in 2016, what is clear in terms of your vision of the future? marissa: one of the interesting things we have seen is video. i think that now and when you look at what is happening with mobile video, this is actually a cross product, so we will be think about video antisocial, but video watching on phones is at an unbelievable level. last year, it was found that more people watch -- there is more video watch on mobile devices than on desktops. which is already in garbled. charlie: people watching wherever they are? marissa: i watched a television show last night at the gym. between phones, tablet, people are watching an incredible amount of video on those.

we are excited to participate with that. nfl nicely ties together the video element, one of the biggest things we needed to do for streaming that game was make sure it worked on every platform, ios, all the different formats. i think that mobile video will surprise everybody. i think it will get even bigger over the next years. we are working on how can we get really deep and use video as an engagement lever on key products like sports and finance. ♪ ♪

charlie: at the end of the day, what you are saying is the biggest asset that yahoo! as this -- is, is the users? marissa: the audience that comes to yahoo!, the following of the brand, the fact people, every day, this is a huge amount. a huge number of people who really rely on us and a huge amount of traffic that ultimately gets distributed to the yahoo! you don't -- yahoo! homepage and through the mail service. the ability to direct that

traffic and attention to the stories that matter, the key information, that is a huge opportunity. charlie: you have had a successful career at google, a wonderful family and you have had all of the money you need for the rest of your life and other lives, but somehow, because this has been such a challenge, with expectations you had maybe not the filled early on -- fulfilled early on, your own determination to do this has magnified today because of the challenges that have presented themselves. marissa: absolutely. i feel like now, i can see it, i can see how yahoo! can win and how we can get there and it makes me even more determined. charlie: why do you think other people have not seen it as clearly as you have? they are questioning yahoo! at this moment? marissa: i get a print row seat. our situation is, could. -- is complicated.

there is a lot of work left to do, but i can see how much progress we have made. charlie: will i have others not seen it? marissa: i can see us in the future. there is a big dichotomy at yahoo!, are you looking at the operating business, are you looking at the asian assets, which are tens of billions of dollars. how do you balance those? i definitely see in our shareholder base, we have people who own yahoo! because of the core business, those who own yahoo! because of the assets and how they are valued. charlie: how would you break that down in terms of people who see yahoo! and see that it is asian investments, versus those who see the core business? marissa: so yes, certainly the value is evaluated on asian

assets. maybe you own the stocks because of the future. where do you really think is going to be the biggest catalyst? charlie: you firmly believe that the value of the core asset can be -- marissa: i think it could be higher than today. charlie: of course. having believed that, you believe the value of assets can match the value of the assets of the japanese investment? marissa: i think that, overall, i think we would need it to achieve growth. growing revenue, we know that, because of declining legacy revenue, we have been weighted down in that. but now that we are moving away from some of the legacy revenue, which is largely from premium banner ads, now we are moving toward global and video and we can see a path that will have

growth in it. and is valued more by the market. charlie: with the growth be easier if you had inherited a better situation and you come our focus on it at the beginning? marissa: i think that overall, we have focused the proper amount. you need to make an immediate decision when you come, you try to build the revenue back up, but that was impossible for us. you try to offset the declining revenue, or do you take that out? i would argue that our revenue base were large enough, the services were large enough, that we cannot walk away.

we needed to stabilize the core business while we added new businesses. and we needed to get those growing really fast and get them to a skill that matters on a $5 billion base of revenue. and we have come so far in that. our mobile video, the revenue being about a third of the total revenue, essentially from zero. so you know, the issue is, our legacy businesses have been declining quickly, despite our best stabilization. if we do not try to stabilize them, it could have been worse. we have been moving about a half $1 billion a year, in terms of legacy revenue. a lot of people said -- i have talked about this like tectonic plate shifting, because if you look at revenue, it has been flat and a stable, but the composition of the revenue is different. you have huge amount of legacy revenue falling away and new revenue coming in in terms of mobile, in particular. charlie: i hear you saying at the end of the day, you talk about plans, how it is going to work, but i hear you say that in terms of your tenure there as ceo, i have done what i had to do because of the legacy business, and needed to

stabilize them. it is not like i'm either on decisions, i made -- the wrong decisions, and had to make the decisions because of the company state it was in. marissa: i think a lot of this comes down to timing and expectations. certainly, the path of success is never linear. i do think that overall, we have done what we needed to do. we have done really well and some things better than we could do. if you look at the mobile growth, that is way faster than i expected. absolutely. things have gotten better. but we are still at that point, and transformation, we have not made turned -- we have not made or turned yahoo! around and got not revenue form -- from it. we have gotten an increase in users and revenue does follow users, but coming from those large revenue assets, they were a benefit because they were so

large, but they are -- it is hard to get that growth quickly. charlie: are you confident that the shareholders will give you the amount of time to make these assets grow? marissa: a lot of this has to do with, how do we find this for the shareholders? the reverse spin, the other alternatives, those are important overall for the company and being able to find the strategic moves that would come from either of those and the value that could come from those, is something that can be beneficial. i will make the sacrifice. i will often say, you cannot have everything you want, but you can have the things that matter. i can have my family, yahoo!, and do a good job at both. admittedly, there may not be time for anything else, but this is how i have approached it. there are some women who want to work, some women who do not want to work. those are both valuable choices. you need to make the choice that will work for you and your family and situation and

circumstance. charlie: he made the choices that were right for me. marissa: yes. everybody at yahoo! took at least a month off, in fact, most took four months off that we offer as part of our maternity leave policy. and many asked, was i setting a bad example, by taking a short leave? i needed to take a short leave. i may have cut off time with my daughter and son, by encouraging people to take their time off. charlie: did they say that you are crazy? marissa: probably. again, everybody does it in their own way. i came back to work really quickly, but i also made a lot of time to spend with my children, you know, in the same context of being back at work. so, you can have a lot of time with the children, while you also find down time, nap times, different moments in the day. yes.

charlie: finally, there is a question in silicon valley, you have often cited as one of the most prominent examples, among others out there, including at companies like google -- is it going to get better? marissa: i think it will get better. technology, especially the internet, and computer science, they are really new. charlie: that is what they loved about you, look, she is it an engineer -- she ends and -- she is an engineer. marissa: yes. charlie: do you still code? marissa: on various side projects. but over all, i think that we need to make, i think we need to make technology and computer science really tangible.

it shows that the issues, in terms of having enough women in technology, they need to start early, middle school, high school. i think as technology becomes more accessible, people are asking, how can i work on that, how can i do that? i am hopeful that that will drive more women into computer science. charlie: a long way to go. finally, i do not talk much about this, but encryption. or you supportive of that -- are you supportive of apple? marissa: we are to we do not have -- we are. we do not support terrorism, but with apple's stands revolves around the fact that what they are being asked to do, it could be abused. there is a very gray area in terms of, if that technology, if a backdoor exists, how will it be used and how will we government -- govern it? charlie: and encryption has gotten better. marissa: yes, and the stance is really on point and it is something that we would support for our users. charlie: it is good to have you.

marissa: thank you. ♪

david: inside the magazine's news room in new york city. a device that tricks your cell phone into revealing its serial number. meet the play boy who will introduce you to marco rubio's sugar daddy. all that and more in this week's issue of "bloomberg businessweek." let's go meet the editor. i'm here with the editor of "bloomberg businessweek." in the global economic section of the magazine this week, a profile of the president of brazil in the midst of this scandalous corruption scandal that's widened and widened and widened even more. guest: that's some talk for months and months that she might be impeached.