Hiring the pregnant lady

Recently Marissa Mayer, a tech star and big wig at Google, jumped ship and became the CEO of Yahoo. For us nerds this was a sort of surprising move since Yahoo has been burning through top leadership recently. I could have read the story and done a simple, "hmm, good for her" and monitored the situation over the next few months with some level of interest. It wasn't until I read that she was also pregnant that it got reeeeeally interesting. Not only does it bring up the cliched question "can women have it all?" (um no, they can not) but it also got feminists all fired up (mostly in a good way). All the implications aside, what I really connected to was the fact that the Yahoo board hired her knowing she was pregnant. Good for them! I really respect their ability to think long term and not let shortsightedness take over (as it often does). I think she will be a great leader for that company that desperately needs one. I truly hope it works out for her, both professionally and personally. Having gone through a very similar (though not nearly as high-level!) situation a few years ago, I can attest to the fact that a positive, fruitful and long term relationship can come of this initial leap of faith. I will be following the story and silently cheering Marissa on each step of the way.