Kitty's Got Claws

The New York Times' profile of Marissa Mayer, Google vice president, employee #20 (read: ridiculously wealthy), and San Francisco society maven has Valleywag's catty mode in full effect. When Times reporter Laura Holson recounted a tale in which Mayer influenced CEO Eric Schmidt to approve a new information-sharing initiative, Valleywag's Owen Thomas declared, "The Times article does not mention a key reason why Mayer has such influence: Early in the company's history, she dated [Google co-founder Larry] Page." Meow!

And it goes downhill from there. "Mayer may be talented," Thomas wrote. "But her personal ties to Google's top management and her exercise of arbitrary power are a betrayal of Google's supposedly meritocratic values—a betrayal obviously tolerated at the very top of the company. That, and not her spending time putting cupcake recipes in spreadsheets, is what exasperates her fellow Googlers."

And when Mayer complained about how the media haven't focused enough on what a jock she is (an admittedly crass remark; does she really think we care that much about her?), Thomas pointed out that she finished last in a recent ski race and near the bottom in the Portland marathon. As for rumors that Mayer might leave the company to try something new, Thomas wrote: "Perhaps she has realized that without Google, she's nothing. Can you blame her for clinging to her job?"

It may well be true that, as Thomas claims, many Google underlings despise her for allegedly abusing her personal relationships with Larry, Sergey, and Eric. And that Google's aesthetic design is dictated by her whims, and that her glam role as Google's public face is annoying. But even considering Valleywag's mission to wallow in nasty gossip, Thomas' post strikes us as a little, um, zealous. Is there something about Mayer that incites such venom? Or something about Thomas that compels him to fling it around?