6 Fun Facts about Marissa Mayer–And How We (almost) Connected on LinkedIn

Okay, I admit, this post has a double motive. Earlier tonight I was flipping through LinkedIn and was looking at several key businesspeople to follow. One CEO that I admire is Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo! Inc. When I clicked on Marissa’s LinkedIn profile, I noticed that she only had 138 connections. Most CEOs have several thousands of connections, so this was intentional as she is VERY selective about who she adds as a connection.

She’s only three connections away from my network, so statistically, I should somehow connect with her before Kevin Bacon, and I’ve already been on the set of one of his movie shoots. So anyway, inspired to try to become her connection on LinkedIn, I tweeted out a link to this article (before writing this preamble) and an invitation to connect.

I know it is a long shot but dang it, it was either this or watch another episode of Dexter. This seemed more productive.

So to celebrate my attempt to connect with Marissa, I have put together this list of interesting facts by strenuous research (ahem, a Google search…I mean, a Yahoo! search Marissa):

6 Fun Facts about Marissa Mayer

1. She dated Larry Page, Co-founder of Google (source).
2. She suffers from shyness. In an interview with Vogue, she stated that she “has had to discipline herself to deal with the shyness” (source).
3. She is a ballet dancer, and performed in The Nutracker (source).
4. She is quoted as saying: “I helped build Google, but I don’t like to rest on (my) laurels. I think the most interesting thing is what happens next.” It is unconfirmed whether or not connecting with me on LinkedIn is what she was referring to (source).
5. She has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and ran a marathon (source).
6. She lives in a hotel, the penthouse of the Four Seasons in San Francisco (source).

I could have made this list longer, but most of the other “fun facts” have to do with the fact that she is a successful woman (shocker), a mother, and other things that would be more interesting if this weren’t the 21st century.

So there you have it. Now, to see if we connect. I’ll know tomorrow.

Update (Mar 13): It’s been a few days now, and I have not yet received a response from Mrs. Mayer. I am assuming that it is sitting in her LinkedIn inbox while she contemplates it for another day.

Marissa, if you did “accidentally” deny the request, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, I’ll accept 🙂