• Bloomberg, Friday, January 8, 2010 2:28 PM

Call it sheer honesty, insanity, or a brazen sense of job security, but Carol Bartz gave herself a B-minus for her first year as chief executive officer of Yahoo. For starters, Bartz admits she could have moved faster to reorganize the struggling company, and strike a Web-search deal with Microsoft. "It was a little tougher internally than I think I had anticipated," Bartz tells Bloomberg. "I did move fast, but this is a big job."

Since becoming CEO, Bartz has cut her staff by 5%, shuttered underperforming businesses such as the GeoCities Web-hosting site, installed her own management team, and, in July, struck a deal with Microsoft to collaborate in Web search and advertising. Going forward, Bartz is bent on keeping Yahoo relevant in an era of Twitter and Facebook, and turning around sales, which have now fallen for four straight quarters. She also plans to do more acquisitions this year, probably for less than $1 billion apiece. Potential targets include overseas companies and data-analytics businesses that help advertisers assess their results, Bartz says.

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