Bartz Quits Yahoo Board with $14 Million, Calls Directors 'Doofuses'

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz resigned as a director, taking a severance package of as much as $14 million after disparaging the other directors as doofuses.

Bartz, 63, was fired as CEO of Yahoo a week ago in a phone call, then granted an interview to Fortune in which she disparaged directors of the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company she had run for nearly four years.

Yahoo advised the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Bartz will receive her severance package for termination without cause, which suggests she and her representatives may have had to deal with Yahoo to secure her package following her remarks.

Her last contract entitled Bartz to $3 million in salary, plus as much as $2 million for 2011 in addition to stock options valued around $5.2 million as of Dec. 31, 2010. The last Yahoo proxy indicated a severance package valued around $10.4 million.

Bartz, who was recruited from Autodesk in late 2008, was also granted options on five million shares at $11.73, which will be in the money if the Yahoo share price reaches $17.60, then $35.19 by the end of 2012, when her contract would have expired.

Yahoo shares closed Friday at $14.48, days after Third Point, a hedge fund controlled by Daniel Loeb, disclosed it had bought a 5.1 percent stake.

Bartz, in her 14 years as Autodesk CEO, previously cashed out options and shares of that design software company. She remains the lead independent director of Cisco Systems, where her annual salary is $105,000. Last year, her total compensation from Cisco was $359,000, including vested shares. She retains options for another 120,000 shares plus options for 10,000 restricted stock units.