TrendIn this week: Marissa, Andrew, Bill, Mark and their friends

From Marissa Mayer trying to refocus her troops to Andrew Mason saying an emotional goodbye to his, this was the week of the tech CEO.

Yahoos get back to work

Most talked about on LinkedIn was the Yahoo memo, first revealed by Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, that asked telecommuting employees to get back to their desk. Flexible work arrangements no more under Marissa Mayer's rule: the new CEO argues that physical closeness fosters creativity. HR head Jackie Reses wrote to employees:

To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.

In the tech-savvy, eco-friendly Silicon Valley, demanding that employees follow an Industrial revolution-era work organization responsible for thousands of hours wasted in traffic, countless health issues and tons of CO2 in the atmosphere seems antiquated. Not that the proximity = collaboration = creativity philosophy is fundamentally wrong, but between never encountering a colleague and parking everyone every day in a cubicle, there surely is a reasonable middle. Plus if noise levels in your open space office are anything like mine, some work demands you stay home.

The move could be simply a way for Yahoo! to gently push the less motivated, less productive employees out the door. But in the attempt, the company might also lose its best people – current and prospective. After all, unlike Marissa Mayer, most talented working women parents don't have the position or salary to be able to build a private nursery next door to the office.

Groupon moves on

Speaking of staying home...

I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired today.

That was Groupon founder Andrew Mason, also vying for top trending topic this week. On Friday, Mason announced the board had let him go as CEO of the social couponing company he created. Hardly an unexpected outcome as Groupon hasn't really had a good day since its November 2011 IPO. But Mason redeemed himself with a goodbye letter to his staff as gracious as I have ever seen.

From controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that's hovering around one quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for themselves. As CEO, I am accountable.

You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I'm getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance. (Read in full here.)

Bill, Mark and friends

Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance at TED to present the Google glasses he now wears everywhere. And also to talk you out of spending $16k for them on eBay, if that ever crossed your mind. LinkedIn editor Chip Cutter was there and has this and many other stories of the best talks at TED 2013.

And to round up the list of trending techies, an impressive cast (Microsoft's Bill Gates, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Dropbox's Drew Houston, Valve's Gabe Newell...) starred in a viral video promoting coding lessons in schools and general programing literacy as an essential tool for personal and collective success.

(And if you can't do it in school, step on over to Codecademy.)

Photo credit: JDLasica/Flickr

LinkedIn senior data scientist Viet Ha-Thuc did learn to code. And so he put together the data behind this post. Thanks!