Breaking News 2009

Bartz of 100 Days: Tough Talk to Microsoft Talks

Here’s an interesting irony–Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will have her 99th day in office on the very one that the Internet giant will announce its first-quarter earnings: April 21, 2009 at 2 p.m. PST.
Technically, it will mean that she has been running Yahoo (YHOO) for 100 days, a time when most administrations get their first evaluation.
Thus, if it’s good enough for President Obama, it’s good enough for Bartz!
While most expect the results for the quarter to be weak, due to the econalypse, the overall verdict from BoomTown’s needling of Yahoos to give me info on their new leader recently: Love, love, love Bartz’s innate decisiveness, and wanting more of the same.
“She has an opinion and she is not afraid to use it,” joked one high-ranking Yahoo. “That is a big deal for a lot of people here who have wanted a CEO who is very forceful.”
And the only substantive negative: Some remain worried about her lack of Internet savvy, although most of those admit she has been a quick learner as the 100-day mark comes to a close.
In Yahoo’s case, 100 days has a special meaning–when he got his job in late 2007, former Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang declared that he was going to give the troubled company a 100-day evaluation with “no sacred cows.”
The Yang-farmed bovines, as it turned out, just got fatter.
Under Bartz, more have been under the knife, as the hard-charging exec has started to really put her imprint on the company.
She has certainly talked tough since the meet-the-press conference on her very first day on Jan. 13.
Some memorable Bartz quotes were about Yahoo’s immediate needs, in her estimation: “some friggin’ breathing room” and “frankly, [the company] could use a little management.”