Carol Bartz Seems Like A Cool Mom
Yesterday, Carol Bartz was fired from Yahoo. Given an opportunity to claim she resigned, instead she emailed all 14,000+ employees from her iPad. Subject line: Goodbye. Body: 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
In a world where people who lose jobs claim that they’re leaving to spend more time with their families, this was awesome. Talk about owning your departure!
But as cool as that was, her interview with Fortune magazine is even better. Pardon the salty language, but here’s how the Fortune article begins:
Here is what Carol Bartz thinks of the Yahoo (YHOO) board that fired her: “These people f*&^ed me over,” she says, in her first interview since her dismissal from the CEO role late Tuesday.
The article explains how Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock fired her by reading a lawyer’s prepared statement over the phone:
“I said, ‘Roy, I think that’s a script,'” adding, “‘Why don’t you have the balls to tell me yourself?'”
The article explains how she slashed costs and improved profit margins but failed to improve revenue growth. Bartz speaks ill of the board a bit before explaining what happened after Bostock read her the statement:
After Tuesday’s call from Bostock, Bartz says, she had two hours to let Yahoo know whether she would resign or allow the board to fire her. She called her husband, Bill, her three children–a son and two daughters””and her longtime assistant, Judy Flores. Learning that Yahoo’s lawyers had gone to the St. Regis hotel to hand her papers, she ditched that hotel and booked herself into another.
She wrote the email that night.
I like that she conferred with her children. Now that I’m at an age where my parents confer with me, I see the benefits of the counsel close family can provide. And it’s inspirational that a successful woman would have that type of relationship with her children.
