Carol Bartz quotes:

The most successful company in Silicon Valley is Apple, and they're the most secretive.

Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 - the iPod came out 4 years later. 3 years after that is the first time his market cap grew. It took 7 years.

If I had my way, I wouldn't do annual reviews, if I felt that everybody would be more honest about positive and negative feedback along the way. I think the annual review process is so antiquated.

If you want to run an ad on the iPad, it has to be approved by Apple.

My first day as a manager was at Digital Equipment in Atlanta. I was a sales rep. I was promoted from among my peers, so one day I was a peer, and the next day I was their boss.

My husband doesn't listen because his mother didn't make him listen. What am I going to do, beat him? I mean: firstborn of a southern family? Firstborn boy? Please. I mean, I love him to death, but is he going to take the garbage out? No.

My grandmother raised me. She was a real no-nonsense but very funny lady. I drove tractors, made hay, milked cows, fed the chicken, fed the pigs.

Back when 'social' had a broad definition, you could almost say that Yahoo Finance chat was the first social product.

I hug employees all the time. I'm a huge contact person. Touch is an extremely important part of the human condition.

When trouble strikes, which it always does - bad economy, bad quarter, activists, takeover - when trouble strikes, those board members who don't understand or are not committed are not helpful.

Managing is a tough job. When you're young, you just think it's a natural progression - I'm good at this, so I'm going to be good at that - and it's not that way at all.

Everybody on my team - I couldn't do their jobs. I could not. I really mean that. So I figured out early on that the way you're successful is you hire really successful people.

I manage through a sense of humor. We all work hard, and work has to be a really interesting, fun place. And that has to start at the top.

I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's chairman of the board

It'll take a smart person with passion over someone with years of experience any day. People with intelligence and passion will get the problem solved, no matter what.

I always do my firing in the morning because that's when I'm fresh.

I became a sales manager at Digital Equipment, promoted from within the sales team. My peers were less than excited that I had gotten the job, especially one of my male peers who said he just wasn't going to work for a woman.

The way you manage your company and the way you manage your people has to be totally different.

You need not feel guilty about not being able to keep your life perfectly balanced. Juggling everything is too difficult. All you really need to do is catch it before it hits the floor.

If people really don't want ads, they can go find their information however it is they want. It's a free world on that matter.

I have a belief that life isn't about balance, because balance is perfection Rather, it's about catching the ball before it hits the floor.

If you sit quiet long enough, you find out what people really think.

If you think you can't, you're right.