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Yahoo's Ex-CEO: They 'F--ked Me Over'

The Times asks if Carol Bartz is being too blunt

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 8, 2011 1:12 PM CDT

(Newser) – Carol Bartz is not beating around the bushes when it comes to her dismissal from Yahoo. “These people fucked me over,” she told Fortune Tuesday, in her first interview since the ouster. Bartz says that when she made a scheduled call to Chairman Roy Bostock, he began reading her a lawyer-approved statement. “I said, ‘Roy, I think that’s a script. Why don’t you have the balls to tell me yourself?”

But Bostock soldiered on. When he was done, Bartz simply replied, “It got it. I got it. I thought you were classier.” Nonetheless, Bartz intends to stay on Yahoo’s board, out of loyalty to its employees, and anyway, "I have way too many purple clothes." Bartz’s bluntness about her firing is rare from top executives, the New York Times notes. Some experts expect such honesty to become a trend, as executives try to protect their personal brand more than their ex-company’s brand. “The younger generation appreciates this honesty,” one professor says. “You’re authentic, and you’re vulnerable.”

Chief executive officer of Yahoo Carol Bartz speaks at the Mobile World congress in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

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Yahoo's Ex-CEO: They 'F--ked Me Over'

The Times asks if Carol Bartz is being too blunt

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