Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is taking heat for spending millions of dollars on the company’s Christmas party while stock prices continue to fall.
Mayer rented a warehouse on the San Francisco waterfront and — for a reported $7 million price tag — decked it out for a lavish Great Gatsby-style party complete with flappers, chandeliers and a Rolls Royce.
PHOTOS: #Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer criticized for $7 million San Francisco Christmas party. https://t.co/vpOt4rekLjpic.twitter.com/YeRZ1oclHV
— KRON 4 News (@kron4news) December 17, 2015
Yahoo! Christmas Party 2015 pic.twitter.com/fMkFRfdHQl
— Oliver (@0liverleung) December 5, 2015
Mayer herself posed for pictures with party-goers seated on a white throne and dressed in a sequin outfit.
Marissa Mayer behind velvet ropes is Yahoo's Christmas party summed up in one photo https://t.co/fFwZ7mFUfDpic.twitter.com/Vu5w0SopA5
— The Next Web (@TheNextWeb) December 16, 2015
But the party isn’t the only perk that Yahoo employees receive. Employees at the company’s Sunnyvale headquarters also receive free food (three meals a day, which some reports have estimated as costing up to $150 million a year), and company transport to and from home.
The Christmas party seems to mirror Yahoo’s spending habits since the former Google executive took over the company in 2012 — lots spent for little return. According to a shareholder presentation obtained by Business Insider, Yahoo has spent $3 billion on mergers and acquisitions to which they have added no value to over the last three years.
Though the presentation has been criticized inside Yahoo as being inaccurate, it doesn’t change the fact that the company’s stock price has plummeted nearly 20 points in just over a year.
Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.
