????6月底的一天，瑪麗莎?梅耶爾出任雅虎（Yahoo）首席執行官的消息尚未公布，這位37歲的谷歌（Google）副總裁在谷歌硅谷總部接待了另一位年輕的科技新星。

????梅耶爾的訪客是梅里迪斯?佩里。之前，這位賓夕法尼亞大學（University of Pennsylvania）的22歲畢業生給素昧平生的梅耶爾發了一封郵件自薦投資機會：她發明的無線充電技術能通過一個即插式設備，以發射超聲波方式給手機和其他電子設備充電。“它將成為能源領域的WiFi技術，”佩里在寫給梅耶爾的信中這樣描述自己的產品uBeam。

????“她竟然給我回復了，我很吃驚，”毫無工程學背景的佩里表示，她在賓夕法尼亞大學學習的是古生物學和宇宙生物學。佩里是通過谷歌和維基百科（Wikipedia）進行搜索和研究，因此能夠在谷歌硅谷總部向這位久負盛名的谷歌產品高管演示、推銷產品，實在是相當令人振奮。

????兩人會面不到15分鐘，梅耶爾就承諾向佩里的初創公司投資。

????“大概就12分鐘，”梅耶爾本月早些時候在帕洛阿爾托與筆者共進早餐時稱。（就在我們吃早餐后的一天，雅虎董事會聘請梅耶爾擔任首席執行官——哦，不，我一點也沒看出她即將跳槽，也沒看出她懷孕了。）

????2010年10月佩里想出了uBeam這個點子，此后，為推廣這一設想，她拜訪了很多人。“這是我與別人最短的一次會面，”佩里回憶起6月29日拜訪梅耶爾的情形說。“我帶著自己的iPad ，給她展示了一些圖片，解釋uBeam產品可能的應用前景。”

????佩里對梅耶爾的評價是：“她非常有效率，能夠非常迅速地對機會、概念和問題做出判斷和評價”。

????這種管理方式將成為雅虎的寶貴財富，以果斷著稱的梅耶爾在雅虎必須解決兩個問題，1）雅虎到底是什么？2) 上千個其他問題。

????與此同時，天使投資已成為梅耶爾的業余愛好。她投資了（她拒絕透露具體數額）十幾家初創公司，其中包括One Kings Lane、Minted、Square、Uber和如今剛投資的uBeam。

????吸引梅耶爾投資的關鍵是什么？“是想法，”梅耶爾在早餐時說。“這個想法必須能夠解決一個現實的用戶問題，而且能夠簡單地解釋清楚。”她補充說：“需要找到技術上有能力、且能勝任的人。但我也很注重創始人給人的感覺。”

????至于佩里，她已經證明自己意志堅定且善于應變。她想出了這個能夠解決一個真實需求的好主意，通過現成的零件和廉價的工程幫助造出了一臺原型機，并從一批赫赫有名的種子投資人處拿到了75萬美金。除了梅耶爾，uBeam的投資者還包括安德森-霍羅維茨風險投資公司（Andreessen Horowitz）、Founders Fund和Zappos首席執行官謝家華。

????佩里正式向市場推出“顛覆性技術”產品uBeam前還有很多工作要做，很多懷疑要打消。它的潛在客戶包括機場、星巴克（Starbucks) 和巴諾（Barnes & Noble）等零售商店，以及渴望拋棄連接線，實現電子產品無線充電的消費者們。

????譯者：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.