As the saying goes “All rocky things fraught with tension must come to an end”.
Originally reported by Kara Swisher on AllThingsD.com and confirmed by reports on CNN and TechCrunch Carol Bartz, potty-mouthed CEO of Yahoo!, was fired today by Chairman Roy Bostock. She responded by sending the following email to Yahoo! 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
Sent from my iPad
Perhaps that last line is an indication her golden parachute will land her gently in Cupertino.
While running a company as large and diverse as Yahoo! must be unimaginably complex, we cannot help but be a bit pleased Carol has moved on. She is a dynamic and capable leader with an unmistakable candor who has a proven record of success. However, everyone has to get one wrong now and again. Yahoo! was simply not the right fit. The deal with Microsoft has created one issue after the next with their paid search platform – from problems with the billing system running wild maxing out credit cards, to mysterious targeting shifts and a continuously unavailable platform. Frankly we have wondered what took Jerry this long?
For those of us who still speak of floppy discs and remember when the only color font a CRT monitor rendered was “Granny Smith Green”, we recall fondly the days when Yahoo! taught us all there was an “internet” beyond AOL and not all email addresses had to cost money. This is the website where I learned to play pinochle and social networking consisted of arguing with total strangers in far away lands until they prematurely left the game of spades. Before Google. Before Facebook. Yahoo! was the place to be online.
One can only hope the next CEO will be a visionary who understands there is a land beyond mergers & acquisitions or strategic partnerships and can bring Yahoo! back to the forefront of innovation where it belongs. I can confidently speak for those of us who remember when software for non-apple products was referred to as “IBM Compatible” and a “Gig” was such a foreign concept only those who played in a band were concerned about obtaining one when I say “I hope Yahoo! makes a gargantuan comeback” and will be happy to do my part is any way I can.
