In her first interview since being fired as CEO of Yahoo on Tuesday, colorful Carol Bartz didn't hold back when discussing her former employers. "These people fucked me over," she said to CNN. And it only gets better/worse. Here's how Bartz's impersonal firing went down.
On Tuesday, Bartz was in New York, to speak at Citigroup's (C) technology conference the next day, when she was supposed to call [Yahoo chairman Roy] Bostock at 6 p.m. "I called him at 6:06," she recalls. When he got on the line, she says, he started reading a lawyer's prepared statement to dismiss her."I said, 'Roy, I think that's a script,'" adding, "'Why don't you have the balls to tell me yourself?'"
When Bostock finished reading, Bartz didn't argue—"I got it. I got it," she told the Yahoo chairman. "I thought you were classier," she added.
Soon after her dismissal, Bartz got on her iPad and wrote the following email to Yahoo's 14,000 employees:
To all, I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward. Carol
An LA Times reports claims that she could get $10.4-million in severance.
Bartz joined Yahoo after CEO and founder Jerry Wang decided to step down due to a sharp decline in stock prices. Bartz was chief executive at Autodesk for over 14 years. During her tenure at Yahoo, she once famously told TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington to "fuck off." Watch Bartz do what she does best below.
Sigh. We'll miss you, Carol.