Yahoo!'s CEO Carol Bartz tells Michael Arrington to F-off (video)

Arrington and Carol Bartz

New York, NY - (Zennie62's trip to TechCrunch is sponsored by Christine Smith Associates, Inc., the Premier Female Contractor in NYC.) Yahoo!'s CEO Carol Bartz is known via Fake Carol Bartz on Twitter for getting off the occasional "F-bomb."

But even with that, one doesn't actually expect a person to live up to a Twitter persona created by someone else. Not the case with Carol Bartz; she did.

Bartz, who's taken a beating from a very critical Michael Arrington in TechCrunch, walked into what TechCrunch Co-Editor Eric Shoenfeld called "the lion's den" and talked with Michael for 25 minutes.

While we have the entire 25 minute interview, this exchange on video was the talk of TechCrunch Disrupt and served to solidify Carol Bartz' combative reputation.



To set the stage, Arrington was pressing Bartz on the idea that the best companies are often "single-revenue-source" producers, and was implying that Yahoo, by getting away from search to his view, was moving away from what could work for the company. While asserting that Yahoo! is still a search company, Bartz disagreed, pointing to successful firms that were conglomerates.

Then Bartz seemed to think that Arrington was saying that because Yahoo! had not created a device they were not innovative and lacked direction. Bartz then focused on his "tiny company," saying that even with a firm as small as his, he didn't always know what direction he was going in. "So don't give me crap about what the fine people of Yahoo! are supposed to do, so F-off."

That brought the house down and it was Bartz open attempt at a knockout punch to Arrington. From all accounts she scored.

But I'm not sure what this is going to do to Yahoo! stock price.

Stay tuned.