Carol Bartz: The Yahoo CEO fired over the phone

Former head of Yahoo Carol Bartz did not take kindly to being fired over the phone. She left the internet giant amid a barrage of expletives that have potentially further damaged Yahoo's public image - was she justified?

Yahoo has been cranking out the corporate drama for the better part of its decade-long slide, says Bloomberg Businessweek. But nothing compares with the sacking of Carol Bartz. It was the company's equivalent of Macbeth: "gruelling, emotional, bloody and riveting". After being summarily fired as chief executive by phone, Bartz, 63, took revenge in customary salty style. Describing the Yahoo board as a losing bunch of "doofuses" who "fucked me over", in an interview with Fortune magazine, she relayed her response to the quaking chairman as he read his legally prepared script down the line. "Why don't you have the balls to tell me yourself?"

"If there were any correlation whatsoever between cursing and profits, Carol Bartz would never have been fired," says Gawker.com. As "potty-mouthed" as she is abrasive, it became a game among journalists to see how quickly they could needle her into a storm of expletives.

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