Despite what might be said about Mayer, she has some impressive credentials to her name, including a share price that more than tripled during her leadership as Yahoo's chief executive since July 2012.
But in recent weeks, when the 42-year-old's compensation from Yahoo was revealed by the New York Times, her stock went from eye-watering to eye-popping.
It included a $333 million exit package, after a salary that saw Mayer walk away with $1.25m each week.
Yes. Each week.
In total, that's more than a quarter of a billion dollars.
"A generous sum even by Silicon Valley's lofty standards - while presiding over the company's continued decline," wrote Vindu Goel.
Much of Mayer's earnings are credited with the strong stock price she helped build among her time with the company, but, as the Boston Globe put it, "as a young, female CEO in the male-dominated tech sector, Mayer has drawn more attention than most".
Mayer's life of glamour and global domination all the while singing her children a nursery rhyme or three has so intrigued onlookers, her meteoric rise has been chronicled to every well-heeled moment.
Mayer's life of glamour and global domination all the while singing her children a nursery rhyme or three has so intrigued onlookers, her meteoric rise has been chronicled to every well-heeled moment.
Despite most male CEO's flying relatively under the radar, Mayer's hefty pay packet has been criticised and calculated, to the point we now know that you could pay off your Netflix subscription for the next 9386 years with that kind of dough.
On paper, Mayer could be compared to an office tyrant; cutting policy to force remote employees into the office, notoriously late for meetings and a mood that had become "increasingly grim and contentious".
"Yahoo insiders say Mayer's style as a micromanager and the lack of a coherent strategy have prevented the internet company from accomplishing the big comeback that many were hoping for when Mayer was hired three years ago," Business Insider reported in 2015.
"The situation hit a low point in October, when an offsite meeting of Yahoo's top brass in a ritzy San Francisco hotel devolved into a chaotic scene in which a speaker was heckled by colleagues. In a chorus of curses, some VPs apparently attacked their superiors for not listening or understanding."
According to Forbes journalist Miguel Helft, the discontent over at Yahoo had increased over the years, describing the "sad state of affairs" three years after Google's "star" was poached to help the flailing business.
"Mayer inherited a tough situation. The very idea of an internet portal - a Yahoo or an AOL - is a relic of a Web era 15 years ago when advertisers were willing to pay dearly for a massive home page audience that could direct millions on to a plethora of services like Mail, News, Sports, Finance, Autos and Search," Helft wrote.
"That model doesn't compute in the mobile era, where apps and social networks dominate."
Mayer's micromanagement was so damaging to productivity, most senior execs pointed the finger solely at Mayer, noting frustrations that included requiring executives to wait for personal approvals from Mayer before making any moves.
But most notably, the news of the two biggest privacy breaches in history shocked advertisers and customers alike, and it was too hard to recover. Despite cutting staff by nearly half, Yahoo was forced to sell.
But Mayer's tech career has rivalled that of many men in the business, thanks to her career as one of Google's first employees. She's a Stanford-trained computer scientist. She still writes codes for fun while entertaining her three kids.
Despite this, Mayer delivered the worst rating of all public tech company CEOs with a 32.8 rating out of 100 according to business insights website Owler.
The first female CEO to appear in that list is IBM's Virginia Rometty, at 52.9. She sits at #27. Mayer, at 31. The average rating is 69.7
"Everyone acknowledges that it was a difficult situation to come into," Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research who has studied Yahoo for years, told the New York Times.
"But the company was not run well under her tenure."
But not everyone agrees.
When the New York Times compared Yahoo's share price on July 16, 2012, to last Friday's share price, the results were shockingly different. $15.65 to $50.60. For a CEO who was reportedly working for its share holders, you might count that as a win.
But, as Martha Josephson, a senior partner at the recruiting firm Egon Zehnder, who helped Mayer find several of her top executives, told the Times, "as hard as the job was, she didn't get a break. If she were an ugly man, she'd be a hero."
