The business world would be a lot more fun if every fired CEO responded to the news the way Carol Bartz has. “These people fucked me over,” the former Yahoo chief tells Fortune in a story on the magazine’s website. Bartz says that chairman Roy Bostock dropped the ax in a Tuesday night phone call where he began by reading a statement prepared by a lawyer. “I said, ‘Roy, I think that’s a script,’ ” Bartz said, adding: ”‘Why don’t you have the balls to tell me yourself?’ ” When he was done she said, “I got it … I thought you were classier.” Bostock gave her two hours to decide if she would resign or be formally fired, and Bartz learned that Yahoo had sent lawyers to the St. Regis hotel in New York to seal the deal. She avoided them by moving to another hotel — and disclosed the news via email to Yahoo employees.
Bartz says the board put her in a no-win situation. “They want revenue growth, even though they were told that we would not have revenue growth until 2012.” Hired after Yahoo rejected a 2007 acquisition offer from Microsoft, she says “the board was so spooked by being cast as the worst board in the country. Now they’re trying to show that they’re not the doofuses that they are.” Although she thinks former CFO — and now interim CEO — Tim Morse is “a great guy,” she says she’d still be the best replacement for the long term. “They should bring me in. I knew what to do.” For now, Bartz says that she plans to stay on the Yahoo board. “I want to make sure that the employees don’t believe that I’ve abandoned them. I would never abandon them,” she said. And in a joking reference to the Yahoo logo, she added that ”I have way too many purple clothes.”


Poor girl. I have no sympathy for the pains of these over paid corporate executives, Bartz and Bostock alike.
Let’s think of the millions of Americans who have not been hired for years due to the stagnant economy.
I only ever got to stay at the Westin when I was at Yahoo.
Cry me a river. F’ed over with a multi-million dollar severance package.
Bite me.
Exactly! Bartz has a $10 million severance package. The script that she was read is the same that was read to the THOUSANDS of people whom Bartz laid off.
Bartz is just another corporate executive hypocrite. She cries when she’s treated the same way as every one else.
It must really suck to have a $10 million going away check. Just makes us all feel so bad. I’m sure that the 25% of American children who live below the poverty line must be crying themselves to sleep along with the 14 to 20 million adults who are unemployed.
Whiner!
So Bartz claims that Bostock doesn’t have the balls to fire her himself yet she hops over to a new hotel because she didn’t want to face the lawyers downstairs?
Problem is, Yahoo is no better off, and in most ways FAR worse, now than before bartz took over. It’s one thing to be an incompetent hack. It’s another to be an executive failure
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Corporate America is starting to eat their own…….
She just set hard-working women back a few years by handling this emotionally and not intellectually or gracefully. She put herself before the company and the people that work for it so she could get things off her chest. You’re in an executive position, act like it.
Corporate America could use a some emotional stakes now and certainly a cold splash of hard reality. Her assessment is likely accurate, truth-tellers are just like that.
And turning this into a “woman” issue reveals a) your self-loathing, b) your misogyny. Might I suggest a little less posting and a little more self-scrutiny?
Well said, Cleu.
Give me a break. Equality means that a woman CEO should act as classy or classless as she wants and not have it chalked up to “being a woman”. What if it had been a balding male CEO? Would you whine about how he set other hard-working balding men back a few years by acting emotionally?
For her sake, it would have been better for her to take the high road.
For my sake, I love the entertainment value of this story.
Well. that was classless, from all concerned parties
On the upside, she’s now available to run for CA governor in a couple of years.
KEEP “TRUE BLOOD”, IT HAS BEEN TRUE THE SHOW, CHARACTHERS, STORY LINE. GREAT ENTERTAINMENT,”TAKE ME AWAY MOMENTS”,-_-*. MY COUSIN AND I SHARE THE SAME FEELING ABOUT THE SHOW, AND OTHER HBO PROGRAMS. I CALL HER(CT.)EVERY WEEK, AND “TRUE BLOOD” IS AT THE TOP OF THE LIST. GIVE US WHAT WE WANT AND NEED,GOOD PROGRAMS. THANK YOU ALL. LOVE FROM WATTS,CA. CHICKENLADY
This has all the makings of a hit sitcom. A foul-mouthed female executive gets canned and is forced to stay home and spend time with her family. Soon she’s screaming at soccer referees and terrorizing school bake sales, all the while plotting her comeback to Corporate America. We’ll call it “F’D MOM.”
I like your idea. You should give me a call and come in for a meeting.
Wait! I know! The exec can run for the governor of California! No, she can run for the U.S. senate seat of California! Oh, that’s right Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorino did both…
Got! What if we had all three female former high tech execs for a rock band?
Let’s talk.
Get Roseanne Barr’s agent on the phone!
I love this woman! Having the guts to tell the truth and not give the BS line, “I’ve decided to spend more time with my family” was awesome. It sucks to be fired, and even more when your employer handles it so badly. Good for her for not just fading away.
And to think they could have sold the company to Microsoft for over $40 a share. The price of Yahoo today was $14.44
Great company, great business decisions.
Really, did anyone expect anything remotely resembling class from a company called Yahoo?