Can Marissa Mayer Eclipse Herself?

Earlier this year, Marissa Mayer—signature blond bob, talking a mile a minute—taught a class on how to start your own company. It had been five years since Mayer had become a startup founder herself, and she had prepared a slide deck describing the finer details of entrepreneurship. As she clicked through the presentation, her audience fidgeted in their seats. They were fourth graders.

Mayer had come to her son’s classroom in Silicon Valley for “intersession,” a reprieve from the usual schoolwork when parents teach their own material. The fourth graders had been studying Joseph Campbell's “hero’s journey,” and Mayer seized on the opportunity for metaphor. “Almost every entrepreneur’s journey is a hero’s journey,” she told the children. There is the commitment to the quest, a long road filled with trials and invariably a confrontation with one’s own limitations. She told the story of Steve Jobs, who had been kicked out of his own company before returning to make Apple one of the most legendary businesses of all time.