Why did Marissa Mayer leave Google?

Our illustrious executive editor is on holiday; this week’s Dylan’s Desk op-ed column is written by VentureBeat’s own Jolie O’Dell.

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In the end, Google simply didn’t have room for Marissa Mayer.

Monday, the ambitious executive shocked the tech world by leaving Google to become Yahoo’s new CEO, a role she officially started Tuesday.

As we published news of Mayer’s move, we were bombarded with criticisms of her decision. The Internet in general lambasted the executive’s choice, claiming that Yahoo was an inferior company and Mayer was making a fool’s bargain to choose Yahoo over Google.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, as promising as Mayer’s career was just one year ago, we say she’d have made a fool’s bargain to stay at Google any longer than she did.

In considering Mayer’s career — and, indeed, her life — we are struck by the string of blazing successes. Academically brilliant in high school and at university, she chose to work at the brand-new Google at the tender age of 24, unwittingly sealing her financial future in a dotcom gamble. She has an estimated net worth of $300 million. Financially, she has not needed to work for some time; she continues to do so because she’s motivated by more than money.

She led the development of some of her company’s most successful products, influencing the minimalist and user-friendly interfaces of Google web search and Gmail. This product leadership, in addition to her poise and beauty, made her an obvious choice as one of Google’s go-to public faces for speaking opportunities and press events. Particularly in the first five or six years after Google went public, it seemed like Mayer was everywhere.

The success doesn’t stop with her professional life, either. Mayer married well in 2009, settling down with Clark Kent lookalike and San Francisco investor and philanthropist Zachary Bogue. Instantly, the duo was hailed as a power couple; they hosted President Barack Obama at a fundraising dinner at Mayer’s Palo Alto home just two months before their wedding. She announced Monday she and Bogue are expecting their first child, a boy, in October.

Family life aside, Mayer is widely hailed as a fashion plate and was extensively profiled in Vogue in 2009, the writer gushing about Mayer’s designer footwear and trademark blonde bob haircut. And somehow, in spite of being pretty, in spite of being a “girl,” Mayer continued to be one of the most respected, well-liked figures in Silicon Valley.

Money, beauty, love, and a fabulous career — is there anything Mayer doesn’t have?

The one thing she lacked is the sole reason she’s now at Yahoo: Power.

At Google, Mayer had become a bit of a figurehead. While we’re sure she continued to work maniacally hard on her projects (she is known for pulling 130-hour work weeks and trading sleep for a few more hours in front of a laptop), she was passed up for an important promotion in the spring of 2011. Google had put Mayer in charge of local products in 2010, but the company tapped Jeff Huber to head up local products and commerce as a senior vice president the following year.