As you may know, Yahoo just fired CEO Carol Bartz. She had some choice words for the Board.

“For all the financial woes that forced CEO Carol Bartz to be fired on Tuesday, Yahoo still ranks high in the eyes of consumers, the spokesperson adds. “While the media focuses on Yahoo’s behind the scenes issues — dropping ad revenues, its Asian holdings, the flailing Microsoft search engine partnership — the public’s perception is clearly not fazed.”



”According to YouGov BrandIndex’s Index score tracking — the company’s main brand health indicator averaging measurements such as consumer perception of quality, value, impression, reputation, satisfaction and willingness to recommend — Yahoo has not only remained steady all year, but they are well ahead of Microsoft’s heavily-marketed Bing,” he explains. “While Yahoo’s Index score has been in the 40-41 range, Bing has been hovering around 8.8 to 11.”



By comparison, Google is well ahead in the perception race, clocking in in the upper 50′s score range,” he adds.

It will be quite interesting to see how brand perception continues into the future under the company’s new leadership. Currently, CFO Tim Morse is filling in while the company looks for a new permanent CEO.

You’ve probably already seen the now famous email that Bartz sent to Yahoo employees from her iPad, which read, “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.”

Pattie Sellers has now published an exclusive interview with Bartz in which she had plenty of choice words about it all. Here are a few memorable quotes from the piece:

“These people fucked me over.” – in reference to Yahoo’s board.

“‘Why don’t you have the balls to tell me yourself?’” – in reference to chairman Roy Bostock’s phone call to her, which Bartz said she though was a “script.”

“I thought you were classier.” – also in reference to Bostock’s call.

“Now they’re trying to show that they’re not the doofuses that they are.” – in reference to Yahoo’s board.

Interestingly, a Yahoo stakeholder is calling for Bostock and other Yahoo board members to step-down, according to a report from Nicholas Carlson.

CFO Timothy Morse has assumed the role of interim CEO as the company’s new Executive Leadership Council searches for a new permanent CEO.

Bartz’s approval rating among Yahoo employees was only 33%, according to data from GlassDoor.

The company put out a press release called “Yahoo! Announced Leadership Reorganization” in which it discloses that it has appointed Timothy Morse Interim CEO.

Yahoo also announced the formation of its Executive Leadership Council, which is designed to support Morse and manage Yahoo’s day-to-day operations until a permanent CEO is found.

“The Board sees enormous growth opportunities on which Yahoo! can capitalize, and our primary objective is to leverage the Company’s leadership and current business assets and platforms to execute against these opportunities,” said Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo’s Board. “We have talented teams and tremendous resources behind them and intend to return the Company to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation. We are committed to exploring and evaluating possibilities and opportunities that will put Yahoo! on a trajectory for growth and innovation and deliver value to shareholders.”

“On behalf of the entire Board, I want to thank Carol for her service to Yahoo! during a critical time of transition in the Company’s history, and against a very challenging macro-economic backdrop,” Bostock said. “I would also like to express the Board’s appreciation to Tim and thank him for accepting this important role. We have great confidence in his abilities and in those of the other executives who have been named to the Executive Leadership Council.”

Kara Swisher shared a leaked internal memo from Bartz:

Subject: Goodbye
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

There sure have been a lot of big changes at major tech companies lately. Before this of course, Apple named Tim Cook CEO as Steve Jobs stepped down and earlier this year, Google changed CEOs from Eric Schmidt to Larry Page.

According to GlassDoor, Bartz had a 33% approval rating among Yahoo employees. That compares to 97% for Steve Jobs among Apple employees.

To first cover the fourth quarter: experts believed Yahoo would report $1.50 billion in gross revenue and $1.19 billion in net revenue.  Instead, the company managed to report $1.53 billion and $1.21 billion, respectively.  And Yahoo reported $0.24 in terms of earnings per share, as well, rather than the $0.22 that was expected.

Bartz stated as a result, "We just completed a very encouraging quarter and year for Yahoo!, where we saw our plans to turn around the company gain momentum.  For the year, operating income, margins, EPS, and return on invested capital doubled.  Display advertising grew 17%.  We completed the important North America Search transition to Microsoft on schedule and with high quality.  We introduced new and updated products at a faster pace.  And our content properties – like Yahoo! Sports and Yahoo! Finance – continued to innovate and extend their massive lead."

Unfortunately, 2011 isn’t looking so bright at the moment.  Yahoo thinks it’ll earn between $1.02 billion and $1.08 billion in revenue during the first quarter, while analysts would prefer to see $1.13 billion.  Also, the company’s cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable debt securities fell by almost 20 percent between December 31st of 2009 and December 31st of 2010.

This has caused some shareholders to back away from Yahoo’s stock.  It’s down 2.12 percent in after-hours trading right now, following a loss of 0.44 percent during the normal trading day.

Yahoo says its Contributor Network will bring contributions from more than 400,000 writers, photographers and videographers to media destinations, including Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports and the Yahoo homepage.

"The launch of the Yahoo Contributor Network is a great example of how Yahoo! is executing against its content strategy,” said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo.

“In less than six months since the acquisition of Associated Content, we’ve completely retooled the platform in order to bring the people’s voice to Yahoo."

The new platform is open to all Yahoo users to share their perspectives, and lets Yahoo editors assign and select crowdsourced contributions for all of the company’s media properties.

The Yahoo Contributor Network sets performance payment guidelines for content featured on Yahoo sites, and has dashboard that displays how each contributor’s content performs.

"Associated Content has been known for maintaining the industry’s largest contributor base, and with the launch of the Yahoo Contributor Network, we’ve added scale and reach that sets us apart from any other crowdsourced media platform,” said Luke Beatty, vice president and general manager, Yahoo.

To hit the highest notes first: Yahoo reported earnings per share of $0.29, which is great compared to the $0.13 it reported in the third quarter of 2009 and compared to predictions of $0.15.  (This was possible because the sale of HotJobs contributed $0.13 to the Q3 2010 total.)

Also, Yahoo reported $189 million in operating income, even though analysts only expected to see $178 million.

There were just a couple small problems when it came to net revenue and guidance.  That’s because Yahoo reported $1.12 billion (versus $1.13 billion) this quarter, and thinks it’ll report between $1.125 billion and $1.225 billion (versus $1.26 billion) next quarter.

Still, Carol Bartz was able to state, "We delivered a solid quarter with good display advertising revenue growth, big gains in operating income, and margins that were double what they were last year.  Because we recognize the tremendous value of our assets, we also dramatically stepped up our stock repurchases.  We’ve now bought back more than 7% of the company’s stock this year alone."

And since that returns us to the subject of the stock market, we’ll note that Yahoo’s stock is up 1.29 percent at the moment.

Glass-Lewis, a governance analysis and proxy voting firm, put together the list, and in fairness to Bartz and Yahoo, it’s not like their names were the only ones on it.  Glass-Lewis observed in a statement, "Our research shows that there remains an abundance of bad apples that continue to accept significant financial risk in order to attract and retain executives."

Also, a quick check of the performance of Yahoo’s stock shows that Bartz hasn’t killed the company; the stock’s actually risen almost ten percent in the time she’s been in charge.

The trouble is that most other stocks have done much better, as you can see below.

So Colin Barr was able to write, "Bartz sports the biggest paycheck on the list of 25 overindulged big companies compiled by proxy adviser Glass-Lewis. . . .  She took home $39 million last year, including a $10 million make-whole payment for options relinquished when she left Autodesk, her previous employer."

It should be interesting to see if Yahoo’s third quarter earnings report (which will be delivered on October 19th) makes Bartz’s compensation package seem more or less reasonable.

Bartz started by admitting to David Lieberman that Yahoo hasn’t achieved a lot of success in the field of social media.  In reference to Facebook, she said, "Did we miss the boat on exactly how they do it?  Of course we did.  Everybody did."

Then, responding to a question about the identity of Yahoo’s single biggest competitor, the CEO suggested, "Facebook – not today, but they could be.  If they keep going, they will have the vault of information on everybody in the world, and that’s valuable."

Which is true, of course, and Bartz may get points for recognizing that fact.  Plus, many people are effectively pitting Google and Facebook against each other, so it makes sense for Yahoo to assume a similar position.

The one slight complication is the fact that Eric Schmidt and Steve Ballmer left Facebook out of the equation last month, agreeing that Bing is Google’s chief competitor.

Anyway, in a financial sense, Yahoo appears to be doing well compared to just about every potential rival today, with its stock up 1.69 percent so far.  Google and Microsoft are up just 0.81 percent and 0.05 percent, respectively, and of course Facebook isn’t supposed to go public for quite a while.

Without mincing words, Yahoo’s CEO predicted during an interview with Reuters, "That’s going to fall apart for them."

The Reuters article summing up Bartz’s comments then explained, "She suggested that advertisers will balk on Apple’s efforts to exert full Jobsean control over the ads."

Those opinions are sure to cause some interesting debates between Apple fans and Yahoo supporters (and/or Steve Jobs critics).  Bartz might have a point about Apple’s tendency to implement overly strict rules, after all, yet Yahoo’s recent track record doesn’t give her absolute authority on advertising-related matters.

Two more interesting facts before we wrap things up and let everyone start arguing in the comments section: first, Bartz admitted during the interview with Reuters that iAds are "okay for experimentation."

Second, Apple’s stock is up 0.01 percent at this time, while Yahoo’s stock has already fallen 1.29 percent this morning.

This announcement, which came via an SEC filing, provides an interesting window into the thought process at Yahoo.  Obviously, $3 billion is quite a lot of money, and could be used to hire all sorts of engineers, marketing hotshots, and content creators.  Or it could just be used to acquire a company or ten.

Yet Carol Bartz and Yahoo’s board of directors apparently agreed that a stock repurchase program was a better idea.  (And stock repurchase programs do tend to be popular with investors.)

Which leads us to one other thing that came to light in the SEC filing: how many votes the members of Yahoo’s board did (and didn’t) receive in the most recent election.  Carol Bartz survived and then some, with a votes for-votes against tally of about 1 billion to 6 million.

Roy Bostock and Arthur Kern are then the least popular board members, receiving around 80 million "votes against" each.

Anyway, to return to the subject of the stock buyback, we should note that it isn’t supposed to happen overnight, and it’s quite possible that something less than $3 billion will be involved.  Yahoo said in the SEC filing, "Yahoo! is authorized to repurchase up to $3 billion of its outstanding shares of common stock from time to time over the next three years."