According to Yahoo’s now ex-CEO Carol Bartz (News - Alert), it ended not with a face-to-face meeting, text message, IM, or posting on a blog, but rather with a phone call. (Remember them?). A brief email to Yahoo employees summed it up:

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

Thus ends a stormy and controversial reign that started in 2009. The Yahoo! Board of Directors appointed current Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Timothy Morse as interim CEO and initiated a search for a permanent replacement. 

A press release on the shakeup thanked Bartz “for her service to Yahoo! during a critical time of transition in the company's history, and against a very challenging macro-economic backdrop.”

Yahoo! also announced the creation of an Executive Leadership Council to help Morse on company day-to-day operations. It will consist of: Michael Callahan, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary; Blake Irving, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer; Ross Levinsohn, Executive Vice President, Americas; Rich Riley, Senior Vice President & MD, EMEA Region; and Rose Tsou, Senior Vice President, APAC Region. The Co-founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, will each continue as Chief Yahoo and will provide counsel to Tim and the Executive Leadership Council.

In the last few weeks it has been widely reported that Bartz was a “lame duck” and that it was only a matter of time before she was shown the exit. The Board apparently finally lost its patience on Bartz’s less than stellar performance on:

• Tactics and Strategy:
  • The search engine’s deal with Mircrosoft that has given both companies a black eyes
  • An inability to broaden the services of the company and emerge as a focal point of an ecosystem
• Execution — the lack of financial results in the core display advertising business which Bartz blamed on the company sales force.  

While it is always dangerous to say never, the amount of lost opportunity during the Bartz regime is palpable. This is especially true on the ecosystem front. Not having a dominant stake in search, social media or even messaging is going to be a problem. Some believe that grabbing Hulu (News - Alert) may be the life preserver the company is looking for, but given the intense competition for that asset and the fickleness of the Hulu owners, that seems problematic at best.

It will be interesting to see how long Yahoo’s Board takes to find a permanent CEO. Yes, in early trading the company’s stock has risen sharply, but that is as much a sigh of relief as a reflection of anything. The reality is, that honeymoon period is likely to be short given the structural problems that need to be addressed by whoever takes over.

This appears to be a case where time is of the essence and our favorite phrase of the day, “GOING BIG” certainly seems to be the order of the day in regards to speed and getting a high profile candidate.

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Peter Bernstein is a technology industry veteran, having worked in multiple capacities with several of the industry's biggest brands, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Telcordia, HP, Siemens (News - Alert), Nortel, France Telecom, and others, and having served on the Advisory Boards of 15 technology startups. To read more of Peter's work, please visit his columnist page.