The Yahoo! stock rose 2% today in support of newly named Chief Executive, Carol Bartz. Bartz comes to Yahoo from a stint as Executive Chairman of the Autodesk Board of Directors, a position she’s held since 1992. It remains to be seen if her experience with Autodesk’s pricey software model will transfer well to managing a company with an advertising-driven revenue stream.
She was widely quoted as answering inquires about her immediate plans with, "Let’s not put ourselves in some crazy timeline. Let’s give this company some frigging breathing room. Everybody on the outside deciding what Yahoo should or shouldn’t do--that’s going to stop."
And when asked about her experience, she answered, "I didn’t know CAD (computer-aided design) when I joined Autodesk, I didn’t know hardware when I joined Sun. I have brain power to understand what it takes."
Bartz gets high marks for her frank, direct approach. She’ll need those attributes to help sort through deals in the works with Microsoft and AOL. She will have a pivotal role in determining Yahoo’s identity. Her feistiness may come in very handy.
For the moment, Bartz is the reigning royalty of the Yahoo empire. So, we salute her with a collection of 20 Yahoo trends. After all, we each have a little Yahooligan in us!