On September 6th, 2011 the CEO of Yahoo, Carol Bartz was fired over the phone by the Chairman of the Board of Yahoo. Tim Morse, the CFO of the company has been named as the interim CEO and will be assisted by a group of executives in decision making.

Kudos to Bartz for being honest about what happened with the people. CEOs never usually get ‘fired’, either they resign or they have to spend



ime with their families. In an email to her former employees, which was accessed by Reuters, Bartz wrote;

“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

Sent from my iPad”

According to sources in the company, the decision to oust Bartz was taken unanimously by the board. Bartz and co-founder, Jerry Yang, who were also a part of the board, abstained from voting.

Known for her outspoken attitude, Carol has had an audacious career and personal life. Her mother died when she was eight. She supported herself as a cocktail waitress in her college years and battled breast cancer in the same week she became the CEO of AutoDesk. She is surely a ‘woman of substance’.

Living on her on might in a “man’s domain” is very difficult and mentally tumultuous. In 1976, she resigned from the manufacturing conglomerate 3M after her request for transfer to the headquarters was denied on grounds of her being a woman.

Her career at AutoDesk is remarkable as well. She took over as the CEO of AutoDesk in 1992 and is famous for her 3F philosophy, ‘failure fast-forward’. Seems Ms. Bartz hates wasting her time on failures, a quality that is a special characteristic feature of a successful entrepreneur! The revenue of AutoDesk increased substantially during her tenure as the CEO.

Bartz took over as the CEO of Yahoo on 13th January, 2009. On a conference call to analysts she announced her intentions to “get some friggin breathing room” so that the company could “kick some butt”. But




wasting her time on failures, a quality that is a special characteristic feature of a successful entrepreneur! The revenue of AutoDesk increased substantially during her tenure as the CEO.

Bartz took over as the CEO of Yahoo on 13th January, 2009. On a conference call to analysts she announced her intentions to “get some friggin breathing room” so that the company could “kick some butt”. But after she took over, company had been having rifts with its partners in China and Japan.

Bartz who had more than a year left on her 4 year contract with yahoo was scheduled to hold a Q&A session at the Citi Technology Conference at 12:30 p.m. ET in New York. She had reserved a room at the St. Regis hotel in Manhattan for Tuesday but a hotel receptionist reached on telephone said the booking has been cancelled.