Carol Bartz, the recently fired CEO of Yahoo, might have shot herself in the foot on Thursday when she sounded off to Fortune about what she really thinks of Yahoo’s board.
“These people f—ed me over,” Bartz said, according to Fortune‘s Patricia Sellers.
She later quoted Bartz as saying.
“The board was so spooked by being cast as the worst board in the country,” Bartz says. “Now they’re trying to show that they’re not the doofuses that they are.”
It turns out that Bartz’s employment contract contains a “non-disparagement” clause, where she’s prohibited from dissing her employers for five years after she leaves the company. Bloomberg has reported that Bartz’s severance package amounts to $10.4 million.
You can read it yourself in Yahoo’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission :
16. Non-Disparagement. You agree, other than with regard to employees in the good faith performance of your duties with the Company while employed by the Company, both during and for five (5) years after your employment with the Company terminates, not to knowingly disparage the Company or its officers, directors, employees or agents in any manner likely to be harmful to it or them or its or their business, business reputation or personal reputation.
In fairness, in the next paragraph Yahoo also promises to refrain from disparaging Bartz for the same five year period following her employment with the company.
Now Sellers is reporting that a source tells her that Bartz might have to forfeit her severance package as a result of her comments.
Bartz, however, isn’t the only one with an uncharitable view of her former employer. Daniel S. Loeb, the CEO of a $8 billion hedge fund, and owner of a 5.1% stake in the company, sent a letter to Yahoo’s board telling them that they should take a walk too.
“This letter details our principled demands for sweeping changes in both the Board of Directors (the “Board”) and Company leadership, and outlines the hidden value of Yahoo, which has been severely damaged — but not irreparably — by poor management and governance,” Loeb wrote.
Among other things, Loeb’s main complaints are that the board made the wrong hire when they hired Bartz — she had the wrong background for the job, and they should have said yes to Microsoft’s acquisition offer he writes.
Yahoo did not immediately respond for a request for comment on Loeb’s letter, and on the status of Bartz’s severance package.
