Yahoo Chief is fired over the phone

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SAN FRANCISCO — Carol A. Bartz, Yahoo’s chief executive, was fired Tuesday, ending a rocky two-year tenure in which she tried trying to revitalize the online media and search company.

In an e-mail message to employees titled “Goodbye,” Ms. Bartz wrote “I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s chairman of the board.”

She said, “It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.” But Ms. Bartz has been under pressure from her first day to turn the company around and in recent months the pressure from major investors intensified. The company remains adrift despite management team shuffles, layoffs and the shedding of underperforming services. She had engineered a deal that turned over its search operations to Microsoft, but that too has failed to live up to expectations.

Tim Morse, the company’s chief financial officer, will serve as the interim chief executive.

Ms. Bartz joined Yahoo in January 2009 after investors had become dissatisfied with the stagnant growth and indirection under its previous chief, co-founder Jerry Yang. Her hiring was initially met with optimism by Wall Street, which saw her as a tough-talking savior that could kick the company into shape.

But online advertising revenue remains flat in an ad market that is growing quickly.

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