Yahoo CEO: 'Do I Look Like A Wimp?' (VIDEO)

It's been rough going for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

There have been rumors that AOL may be eyeing Yahoo for a takeover. The company has seen a handful of high-level executives jump ship. Fortune speculated of Bartz, "her days are numbered" and Daily Finance reports she had the dubious honor of being named "most overpaid CEO."

But Bartz says she can handle it.

"If I am being shown the door, I am coming in the door," she said during a recent interview with Fox Business , when asked about the flurry of negative press. She continued, "I'm here to stay. Do I look like a wimp?"

At a press conference in September, Yahoo's Blake Irving struggled to explain what Yahoo is. Bartz offered a pithier description: "Our job is fantastic information for people in fantastically interesting ways [...] We exist in this wonderful place called what you need to find out about your world and the world, you come to Yahoo! right now."

Bartz was also asked about the exodus of several top-level employees. Her response:

You know, when you put in a new coach in there's going to be change. And when you bring a new coach in, the coach has to put a team together. Change actually affects people. It affects them in asking is this a job that I want anymore, is this a job we want them to have anymore, and by the way, here's all these new people lined up to come and say we want to work at Yahoo!. So change just happens with new management and it's actually refreshing for all of us. So 15,000 employees, three people left? That's OK.

WATCH:

Comments

[fisher65]

09:27 AM on 10/25/2010

blake irving struggled to explain what yahoo is, an extention the the extreme tea party.

[lecloche]

05:58 PM on 10/23/2010

You look like Edward Furlong on a bad day. So yeah, you look like a wimp.

[ragtag]

07:52 PM on 10/22/2010

"Do I look like a wimp?"

No, but you do look like a b!tch...

[iamvalid]

01:22 AM on 10/23/2010

And yet my comments are thrown out by moderators. What is this? NPR?

[ragtag]

09:45 AM on 10/23/2010

Maybe it was a Fox Nation moderator?

[JuanGuapo]

05:57 PM on 10/22/2010

the only decent App that Yahoo has put out lately for iOS is the new messenger that uses Facetime. Everything else is mediocre, they haven't done anything substantial for Mail in years.

[CoachJM]

03:03 PM on 10/22/2010

Carol honey,

I'll have to admit, "wimp" is not the first word that comes to mind.

JM

[calgary]

01:56 PM on 10/22/2010

Bartz is a confrontation type of manager and loves to be in a situation where she can go ballistic on somebody to prove how tough she is. Maybe that style works in some areas of the world but seems outdated.

[Half-Alien]

10:57 AM on 10/22/2010

Yahoo has not been relevant since we all had hotmail addresses. Madam CEO, yes you do look like a wimp! You will either be forced out of Yahoo or Yahoo will be bought out! Yahoo's days are numbered and I will raise my glass the day You go out of business and every year after that I will cherish the anniversary!

When one reads the - paid for by the GOP - comments on that site, it is easy to see that your days are numbered, you wimp!

[jo smith456]

09:55 AM on 10/22/2010

yes

[blaising]

07:48 AM on 10/22/2010

Bartz 2012 and stuff.

[zapyourappetite]

06:53 AM on 10/22/2010

Umm, if that's a fist your supposed to be making in that picture, then yes, you look like a wimp. And the superlatives - fantastic this and fantastic that . . . I suspect the folks who jumped ship were put off by the fluff - she sounds like she's in over her head, as PoorRichardsHeartache mentioned earlier.

[David Sepulveda]

04:58 AM on 10/22/2010

i have to agree with many of the comments. yahoo hasn't offered anything since free e-mail and perhaps an ok news page. Now there are countless e-mail and news options (huffington post is killing everyone in the news dept). In her interview she says yahoo is going to do what yahoo does best..."which is what exactly?...She then gives this criptic metaphor being between the world and the world of news or somthing. made no sense. look at success of facebook= simple, iphoine=simple ipad=simple huffingtonpost=simple, google=simple. now look at the front page of yahoo-- its a mess trying to be everything! like a restarant that serves chinese and korean food plus tacos pizza and hot dogs but if you like hamburgers and vegan shakes they can do that too!!! no thanks. simplify!!!!! be good at ONE thing. She doesn't sounfd like she has cutting edge ideas or is courting the best tech artists. How about fox news working in their subtle "how bad did obama screw your health plan" question. they will try to get every ceo to play their song and she fell for it and went along "hopefully we can keep providing for our employees no matter what bad decisions are made by someone else" pathetic and stale thinking. she's NOT a wimp she's irrelevent.... may have to start moving my e-mail from them before its gone and i lose my address book!!!! yikes!

[Valerio della Porta]

09:52 AM on 10/22/2010

Very good recap. Carol Bartz was a good caretaker at Autodesk but she is not the visionary leader that can move Yahoo in a new direction. The best she can do is to break it apart and sell the pieces, which I suspect it's what she was hired for.

[roc-o-rama]

01:54 AM on 10/22/2010

Hate to say it but Yahoo hasn't been anything since 2002. How they are still around is amazing, besides the fact that most free utility software now try's to add Yahoo Search Tool Bar when you install one of these programs tells you they're hurting. I remember when Lyco's was the search engine power house, now they're lost somewhere on the Net in obscurity. With Yahoo having turned down Microsoft's bid last year she would be better off taking that bid from AOL and severance out then wait until there isn't any to take. Yahoo has fallen so behind Google and Bing and the gap just keeps getting wider for them everyday. Some people just love white knuckling that train ride straight into the wall, good luck Ms. Bartz.

[alpinefresh]

08:58 AM on 10/25/2010

Yahoo hasn't been anything since 2002? Net obscurity? What are you talking about?

Yahoo is the 4th most visited site on the Web. That's not exactly obscurity.

http://www.alexa.com/topsites/global

[PoorRichardsHeartache]

01:36 AM on 10/22/2010

You appear and sound like someone who is in way over their head.
Peter Principle at work.
Take your package and graciously move on.

[eric14]

07:55 AM on 10/22/2010

When she talks about what company does she goes Glenn Beck fragmented syntax. Talking of other things she speaks coherently. This means she knows company has got big problems coming up.

[PoorRichardsHeartache]

03:32 PM on 10/22/2010

not so long ago I had a public company that had similar problems. The art of communication, as explained by the attorneys, was to say nothing that could actually get you sued.

[KataVideo]

01:06 AM on 10/22/2010

no, you look like a spittin', fartin' hard-drinking leather-faced ol' salty pile of chafed knuckles and gristle.

well, I mean, since you asked.

[Domingaux1969]

12:48 AM on 10/22/2010

Innovation Innovation and Innovation Carol. Thats the name of Game. Not the old Jerry Yang days, if you fail to keep up, you fail to remain relevant.