AfterDawn: News

Yahoo! f***ed me over, says fired CEO

In an interview with Fortune magazine, fired Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz has let it be known her feelings on the recent move by the company's Board of Directors.

"These people f**ked me over," says Bartz.



Bartz says chairman Roy Boystock called her on her mobile phone and began reading a lawyer-prepared script:

I said, 'Roy, I think that's a script,' why don't you have the balls to tell me yourself?'"

The former CEO concluded with "I thought you were classier," before hanging up.

Bartz, after a successful run at Autodesk, was hired in January 2009 to turnaround the struggling company. She has not, and Yahoo has become somewhat of a laughing stock for its inept management.

Blaming the fact that Yahoo turned down a massive cash offer from Microsoft in 2007 and faced large criticism, Bartz says the directors are now impatient. "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."

Finally, Bartz says: "I want to make sure that the employees don't believe that I've abandoned them. I would never abandon them. Besides, I have way too many purple clothes. I wish the Yahoo people the best...it's a fantastic franchise."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 8 Sep 2011 14:28

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• 13 comments

• A5J4DX

  damn
  

  8.9.2011 16:46 #1

• harhumph

  I'm not here to comment on if she was a good CEO or a terrible CEO, but if this story is true, that board deserves some flack. You do not fire anyone like that, whether it is a janitor all the way up to a CEO. People who have the authority to make decisions need to get some balls to handle those uncomfortable decisions. That is just messed up, but oh well it is hardly an end of the world event, just bad publicity that's all.

  8.9.2011 18:12 #2

• SoTired

  Nothing like a refusal to take responsibility for your failures. After taking millions of dollars for horribly mismanaging a great company, she wants the world to focus on how impolite they were when they fired her. What a winner.

  9.9.2011 01:27 #3

• llongtheD

  Originally posted by SoTired: Nothing like a refusal to take responsibility for your failures. After taking millions of dollars for horribly mismanaging a great company, she wants the world to focus on how impolite they were when they fired her. What a winner. I have to agree, is she pissed that her golden parachute isn't big enough? I'd have to disagree on the way they did it though, if in fact that is true. Firing someone through a phone call is childish at best, and makes me wonder about yahoo's other nutless management.

  9.9.2011 02:10 #4

• xboxdvl2

  Originally posted by llongtheD: Originally posted by SoTired: Nothing like a refusal to take responsibility for your failures. After taking millions of dollars for horribly mismanaging a great company, she wants the world to focus on how impolite they were when they fired her. What a winner. I have to agree, is she pissed that her golden parachute isn't big enough? I'd have to disagree on the way they did it though, if in fact that is true. Firing someone through a phone call is childish at best, and makes me wonder about yahoo's other nutless management. i dont see whats wrong with reading a lawyer prepared scipt down the phone to fire her (hopefully she cant claim unfair dismissal considering the wording was written by a lawyer).I dont see whats wrong with firing someone through a phonecall either.If you run a business you should be able to employ and fire who you want.phonecall is quick and easy and takes 30seconds.had he called her into work and had a 15min conversation resulting in her being fired it would of been a waste of his and her time.
  

  R.I.P. mr 1990 ford falcon.got myself a 1993 toyota corolla seems to run good.computers still going good.

  9.9.2011 07:41 #5

• Scaldari

  Originally posted by llongtheD: Originally posted by SoTired: Nothing like a refusal to take responsibility for your failures. After taking millions of dollars for horribly mismanaging a great company, she wants the world to focus on how impolite they were when they fired her. What a winner. I have to agree, is she pissed that her golden parachute isn't big enough? I'd have to disagree on the way they did it though, if in fact that is true. Firing someone through a phone call is childish at best, and makes me wonder about yahoo's other nutless management. Yahoo was failing before she got hired on. all she failed to do was turn around the boards previous mistakes. And yes, firing over the phone is classless. Its like dumping someone via a text message. I guess its not as bad as getting fired via email while your on assignment in another country as happened to some journalists recently.
  

  9.9.2011 13:14 #6

• SoTired

  For the money she made, Originally posted by Scaldari: Originally posted by llongtheD: Originally posted by SoTired: Nothing like a refusal to take responsibility for your failures. After taking millions of dollars for horribly mismanaging a great company, she wants the world to focus on how impolite they were when they fired her. What a winner. I have to agree, is she pissed that her golden parachute isn't big enough? I'd have to disagree on the way they did it though, if in fact that is true. Firing someone through a phone call is childish at best, and makes me wonder about yahoo's other nutless management. Yahoo was failing before she got hired on. all she failed to do was turn around the boards previous mistakes. And yes, firing over the phone is classless. Its like dumping someone via a text message. I guess its not as bad as getting fired via email while your on assignment in another country as happened to some journalists recently. Turning things around was her job. She failed. She's trying to distract everyone from the real problem. And for the first time in two years, she seems to be succeeding.
  
  Apparently, she has a non-disparagement clause in her contract, and these goofball comments of hers may cost her a $10 million golden parachute. What a moron.

  9.9.2011 13:31 #7

• Scaldari

  the Yahoo was failing comment was meant in response to the "After taking millions of dollars for horribly mismanaging a great company" not saying she didn't fail at her hired purpose. Im just saying Yahoo was not a "Great" company that she ruined, it was a failing company she didn't succeed in saving.
  

  9.9.2011 14:03 #8

• LordRuss

  Fired by phone... Cowards. If I had the balls to hire you face to face, then I have the balls to fire you that way.
  
  This tells me right here that they knew right up front that their reason for letting her go were watered & weak at best. Sure, they could fire her, but really tired & so shallow they couldn't be called a puddle.
  
  As for her comment to being "F'ed over"... Their retort of "we thought you had class.."... Yeah, right... what asshole would perform the shoddy practice we just read? I'll tell you... The same ones that hired this lady thinking with the same sexist attitude that she would indeed fail & then blame her under the same hospices, throw in a bunch more garbage on top of it, probably ruin any chance of her getting any further career advancement and for what?
  
  They don't know, because they're too GD dumb to have thought that far down the road like the rest of the myopic thinkers that were running the country into the ground back since 2000. the grand exception being their dumb asses didn't get out (or cash out) in time... did they?
  

  http://onlyinrussellsworld.blogspot.com

  9.9.2011 14:37 #9

• xtago

  People get fired all the time, it is the whole f'ing around to causes more problems.
  
  Or the won't say a thing for the whole day so wait 2 mins before the end of work to say your fired.
  
  There is no good way to fire someone as no one wants to be fired unless they can't stand the place.
  
  @lordruss
  She tried to sell yahoo, the US gov blocked it because it wouldn't be fair to the other search companies.
  
  It would seem to me that the board wanted someone who'd direct yahoo into making money again or what ever rather than simply sell up and she didn't do that.
  
  And what career advancement would you want her to have you pretty much can't get any higher than running a multi billion dollar company.

  9.9.2011 16:40 #10

• Scaldari

  @xtago
  http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.c...ng_ceo_by_phone
  it says here she took over AFTER the FOUNDER tried to sell Yahoo to Micro$oft. She secured an ad revenue sharing deal with MS instead.
  

  9.9.2011 17:07 #11

• LordRuss

  @ xtago... Absolutely. Never figured a company to 'not' want to turn a profit. I just want to rant from an angle of the popular consensus of the business social atmosphere at the time. Nor am I condoning her ideas as being any good either.
  
  I am saying that some folks are groomed for years to be able to take the reigns of corporations like this so they are capable of making the right decisions to make oodles of money for them & some are dressed in bacon underwear thrown to Kodiak bears starved for 3 months.
  
  Even though we had 'rocks' in the military & had a use for them, it still didn't make it right.
  
  As for her advancement somewhere else in corporate America...? Well, even a lateral move is pretty much out of the question now, much less a more higher profile company which would have been something I have would liked to have striven for. Knowing full well "I" am not even the slightest bit qualified.
  

  http://onlyinrussellsworld.blogspot.com

  9.9.2011 17:15 #12

• phobet

  Originally posted by SoTired: Nothing like a refusal to take responsibility for your failures. After taking millions of dollars for horribly mismanaging a great company, she wants the world to focus on how impolite they were when they fired her. What a winner. I think it's more than that. The board had already showed its ineptitude, in refusing the cash offered by Microsoft. I would imagine that she tried to save the company from itself, but the board only wanted to succeed on their own terms.
  
  The way they let her go shows the amount of backbone they really have. If they cannot fire someone in person, who's performance, in their humble opinion, did not measure up, what makes them think they belong at the rudder of a multi-million dollar company. It's almost indicative of burying their heads in the sand, when the really tough decisions reared their ugly head, and had to be dealt with. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I am getting.

  14.2.2012 21:04 #13