Apple Is the “Gold Standard” in Design – Marissa Mayer [Bloomberg]

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer shares her thoughts on Apple, stating she believes the iPhone maker is the benchmark in design.

Bloomberg recently aired an interview with the CEO at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Mrs. Mayer believes Yahoo! has a really great opportunity to create partnerships.

Yahoo! already has a strong relationship with the Cupertino giant, she said.

“We work with Apple and Google, in terms of the operating system. In terms of the social network we have a strong partnership with Facebook.”

Regarding Facebook (and social networking in general), the Yahoo! CEO said there were a lot of concerns regarding privacy.

However, it’s not just the social networks that benefit from sourcing users’ data, but the users themselves, she said.

“Privacy will always be something that users should consider. But I also think that privacy is a tradeoff. Because when you give up some of your personal information, you get some functionality in return.”

“So it’s really about making those tradeoffs in a very informed way,” said Mrs. Mayer.

The Yahoo! boss also said that the major partners – Apple, Google, Facebook – were really helping Yahoo! itself offer a great set of web services.

“…we’re able to work with all these players that have a lot of strength in order to bolster the user experiences that we offer on the Yahoo! site,” she said.

Weighing in on Apple in particular, Mrs. Mayer said, “I think about design a lot. I think Apple is obviously the gold standard. But I think that Apple’s philosophy really is that the design and the technology itself should fall away.”

Editor’s note:
Einstein famously introduced the mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum called (not surprisingly) “spacetime.” Apple regards tech and design relatively the same. Unify the two and you have what is called a “great product.”