12分钟！雅虎CEO闪电投资创业公司

    6月底的一天，玛丽莎•梅耶尔出任雅虎（Yahoo）首席执行官的消息尚未公布，这位37岁的谷歌（Google）副总裁在谷歌硅谷总部接待了另一位年轻的科技新星。

    梅耶尔的访客是梅里迪斯•佩里。之前，这位宾夕法尼亚大学（University of Pennsylvania）的22岁毕业生给素昧平生的梅耶尔发了一封邮件自荐投资机会：她发明的无线充电技术能通过一个即插式设备，以发射超声波方式给手机和其他电子设备充电。“它将成为能源领域的WiFi技术，”佩里在写给梅耶尔的信中这样描述自己的产品uBeam。

    “她竟然给我回复了，我很吃惊，”毫无工程学背景的佩里表示，她在宾夕法尼亚大学学习的是古生物学和宇宙生物学。佩里是通过谷歌和维基百科（Wikipedia）进行搜索和研究，因此能够在谷歌硅谷总部向这位久负盛名的谷歌产品高管演示、推销产品，实在是相当令人振奋。

    两人会面不到15分钟，梅耶尔就承诺向佩里的初创公司投资。

    “大概就12分钟，”梅耶尔本月早些时候在帕洛阿尔托与笔者共进早餐时称。（就在我们吃早餐后的一天，雅虎董事会聘请梅耶尔担任首席执行官——哦，不，我一点也没看出她即将跳槽，也没看出她怀孕了。）

    2010年10月佩里想出了uBeam这个点子，此后，为推广这一设想，她拜访了很多人。“这是我与别人最短的一次会面，”佩里回忆起6月29日拜访梅耶尔的情形说。“我带着自己的iPad ，给她展示了一些图片，解释uBeam产品可能的应用前景。”

    佩里对梅耶尔的评价是：“她非常有效率，能够非常迅速地对机会、概念和问题做出判断和评价”。

    这种管理方式将成为雅虎的宝贵财富，以果断著称的梅耶尔在雅虎必须解决两个问题，1）雅虎到底是什么？2) 上千个其他问题。

    与此同时，天使投资已成为梅耶尔的业余爱好。她投资了（她拒绝透露具体数额）十几家初创公司，其中包括One Kings Lane、Minted、Square、Uber和如今刚投资的uBeam。

    吸引梅耶尔投资的关键是什么？“是想法，”梅耶尔在早餐时说。“这个想法必须能够解决一个现实的用户问题，而且能够简单地解释清楚。”她补充说：“需要找到技术上有能力、且能胜任的人。但我也很注重创始人给人的感觉。”

    至于佩里，她已经证明自己意志坚定且善于应变。她想出了这个能够解决一个真实需求的好主意，通过现成的零件和廉价的工程帮助造出了一台原型机，并从一批赫赫有名的种子投资人处拿到了75万美金。除了梅耶尔，uBeam的投资者还包括安德森-霍罗维茨风险投资公司（Andreessen Horowitz）、Founders Fund和Zappos首席执行官谢家华。

    佩里正式向市场推出“颠覆性技术”产品uBeam前还有很多工作要做，很多怀疑要打消。它的潜在客户包括机场、星巴克（Starbucks) 和巴诺（Barnes & Noble）等零售商店，以及渴望抛弃连接线，实现电子产品无线充电的消费者们。

    译者：早稻米

    One day in late June, before anyone knew that Marissa Mayer would become the new CEO of Yahoo (YHOO), the 37-year-old Google (GOOG) vice president hosted another young tech star at Google's Silicon Valley headquarters.

    Mayer's visitor was Meredith Perry, a 22-year-old University of Pennsylvania grad who had cold-emailed Mayer with an investment opportunity: Perry had discovered a way to wirelessly charge cell phones and other electronic devices by transmitting ultrasound from a plug-in device. "It will be the WiFi of energy," Perry wrote to Mayer about her product, uBeam.

    "I was shocked that she responded," says Perry, who does not have an engineering background (she studied paleobiology and astrobiology at Penn). She had researched her idea via Google and Wikipedia, so it was quite a thrill to pitch to Google's famed product exec at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters.

    And within 15 minutes of the two women meeting, Mayer committed to invest in her startup.

    "It was probably twelve minutes," Mayer told me earlier this month over breakfast in Palo Alto. (Our breakfast happened to be the day before the Yahoo board offered Mayer the CEO job—and no, I had no clue about her impending career change or her pregnancy).

    "It was the shortest meeting I ever had with anyone," recalls Perry about her June 29 visit with Mayer, amidst all her requisite networking since coming up with her idea for uBeam in October 2010. "I went in with my iPad and I showed her some images that explain how the uBeam product might be used."

    Perry's take on Mayer: "She is an extremely efficient person who is able to size up not only opportunities but concepts and problems very quickly."

    That management style will be an asset at Yahoo, where Mayer, who is known for decisiveness, must figure out a.) What is Yahoo? and b.) 1,000 other things.

    Meanwhile, angel investing is emerging as one of Mayer's spare-time passions. She has put her money (she won't say how much) into a dozen or so startups, including One Kings Lane, Minted, Square, Uber, and now uBeam.

    The secret to getting Mayer to buy into your business? "It's about the idea," she said at our breakfast. "The idea has to address a real user problem and be able to be easily explained." She added: "You want someone capable and competent technically. But I also pay a lot of attention to the vibe I get from the founder."

    As for Perry, she has proven herself determined and resourceful. She came up with a big idea that addresses a real need, built a prototype with off-the-shelf parts and cheap engineering help, and raised $750,000 from an impressive lineup of seed investors. Besides Mayer, UBeam's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos (AMZN).

    Now comes lots of work and many skeptics to overcome before Perry delivers her "game-changing technology," as she calls uBeam, to customers--potentially airports, retailers like Starbucks (SBUX) and Barnes & Noble (BN), and consumers who long to cut their cords, so to speak, and charge their gadgets remotely.