Yahoo's former chief says the board was wrong to fire her, and said she needed more time to turn the ailing web giant around

Carol Bartz didn't waste any time getting the stress of her Yahoo firing off her chest. With characteristic gusto, Bartz spoke to Fortune barely 24 hours after that phone call from chairman Roy Bostock.

"These people fucked me over," she told Patricia Sellers, explaining how she called Bostock for a scheduled chat on Tuesday evening when he started reading a lawyer's prepared statement. "I said 'Roy – I think that's a script. Why haven't you got the balls to tell me yourself? I thought you were classier.'"

Bostock told her she had two hours to decide whether to resign or be fired, and that Yahoo's lawyers were en route to her hotel with the paperwork. She promptly moved hotels.



Photo by Môsieur J. [version 5.9a] on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Bartz defended her record by saying the board was told Yahoo would not see revenue growth until 2012. The deal she negotiated with Microsoft that saw Yahoo pay 12% of its search revenue to have Bing search results across the site – widely reported as unsuccessful for both sides – Bartz claims would help Yahoo in the long term.

She then dismissed the board as "doofuses" who were still spooked by the fallout from the bungled Microsoft acquisition attempt, but said she planned to remain on Yahoo's board.

"I want to make sure that the employees don't believe that I've abandoned them. I would never abandon them. Besides, I have way too many purple clothes."

What will she do next? Sounds like she's still too stuck in a Yahoo brain space to think about that. And when the reporter pointed out that she's 63?

"Fuck you, yeah."

Which will probably be a suitably apt final salvo from her.