Marissa Mayer wants to be a CEO again, but she says she isn't in talks with Uber (VZ)

Marissa Mayer

Now that Yahoo is safely in the hands of its new owner, Verizon, its famous CEO Marissa Mayer is looking for her next CEO gig.

And she definitely wants another CEO role again and does not want to become a full-time investor, she told Business Insider.

As for the obvious vacant CEO job, Uber, she wouldn't comment on whether or not she would want to tackle a challenge like that. But so far, Uber has not reached out to inquire, Mayer said during a conversation on the sidelines of the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado on Tuesday.

It's not impossible that Uber and Mayer may still find their way to each other, if they ever do call her. She's publicly defended ousted Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick, telling the San Francisco Chronicle last month, “I count Travis as one of my friends. I think he’s a phenomenal leader; Uber is ridiculously interesting.”

Kalanick stepped down from the CEO role after Uber suffered from a long series of well-publicized missteps. These included allegations of sexual harassment inside the company that led to the firing of 20 people, some shady projects that seemingly intended to skirt the law and a widely circulated video of Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver.

The allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic work culture at Uber have reverberated throughout Silicon Valley and left a cloud over the company. It will be a tall order for the next CEO to get the company's culture back on track. One big issue is making Uber a place where top talented engineers want to work again. Talented engineers have their choice of jobs in the Valley, and as we previously reported, some developers have been pressuring their friends to leave the company, or turn down jobs offers at Uber.

Mayer would come with her own baggage, after a five-year stint at the helm of Yahoo that failed to revive the company's stalled business and ultimately resulted in Verizon's acquisition of the iconic internet company last month.

Despite the rocky years at Yahoo, Mayer still has star power in the Valley and is admired and respected by a lot of people. One of her claims to fame at Google was the development of a leadership training program known as Associate Product Manager (APM). So she could be just the right fit to solve Uber's reputation as a place to work.

Meanwhile, Kalanick still owns the majority of the company, so any CEO that takes this job will have to able to navigate a good working relationship with him.

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