Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer gave birth to a boy late Sunday, adding motherhood to her challenges as she tries to steer the struggling Internet company in a new direction. The birth came a week ahead of the Oct. 7 due date that Mayer shared with the public in July. She announced her pregnancy on her social networking accounts just a few hours after Yahoo hired her as its third full-time CEO in less than a year.
The pregnancy news amplified the buzz about Mayer's defection from Google Inc., where she spent 13 years as a key executive overseeing some of the services that helped to drag down Yahoo.
Yahoo's decision to appoint a soon-to-be mom as its CEO was hailed as a breakthrough for women seeking to prove men aren't the only ones who can balance a high-powered executive lifestyle and early parenthood.
The attention surrounding Mayer's pregnancy and the birth of her child intensifies the pressure as she tries to engineer a long-awaited turnaround at one of the Internet's best-known companies. Although Yahoo's website remains one of the Internet's top destinations, the company's revenue has fallen in recent years. At the same time, it fell behind online search leader Google and online social networking leader Facebook Inc. in the race to build compelling services and sell more advertising.