Pedigrees and resumes and honors are all well and good. But former colleagues describe her as tenacious, dedicated and tireless, which are three qualities that anyone who wants to tackle Yahoo must possess. When Silicon Alley Insider asked for feedback from the crowd about her, this was one of the responses:

On her first day at Autodesk, she was diagnosed with cancer.  She took 30 days off for aggressive treatment and, as promised, returned to work a month later. She was still very sick and feeling the effects of continuing chemotherapy.  She would arrive early and puke in the parking lot, then go to work.

That might be the way she spends her first few weeks at Yahoo which has, to put it mildly, seen better days.

In a conference call with reporters Bartz declined to say what direction she'd take the company. But she definitely laid down the law about all the speculation that will certainly not subside about what Yahoo needs to do to survive.

"More than anything, let's give this company some friggin' breathing room," Bartz told reporters during a conference call. "It's been too crazy, everybody on the outside deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn't do, what's best for them. That's gonna stop."

Bartz also rejected the notion that she should operate under any sort of time constraints. "Let's not put ourselves on some crazy timeline, let's let this process evolve," she said.

That may not be entirely up to Bartz, but the initial reaction by investors was mildly positive: Yahoo shares rose 3.24 per cent in after hours, to $12.48.

Yang announced two months ago that Yang would be stepping down after a dismal tenure in the corner office he first occupied in October 2007. While not a businessman by training or inclination, Yang's ascension brought with it some hope that the passion of a co-founder could somehow help reignite the fire that had once propelled Yahoo to be one of the pre-eminent internet innovators. Instead, the company that basically invented internet search lost that war to an upstart called Google, some say forever.

Still, the "Chief Yahoo!" stepped up at what was then thought to be a significant turning point for Yahoo, after the doldrums of Terry Semel's tenure and his ill-fated strategic foray into content creation.

Yang's leadership was not particularly inspired, but the wheels really came off in 2008. He orchestrated a forceful rejection of an unsolicited offer by Microsoft to take over the company at $33 or so a share, asserting that this was not a sufficient premium on an enterprise then valued at about $19, only to see the company's value plummet to the low teens.

Yang, as the year came to an end, was reduced to begging Microsoft for a new offer that was not to materialize. In between he was forced to bring onto the board three interlopers, including his most vocal critic—Carl Icahn, who urged his ouster early and often and in no uncertain terms.

The consolation prize of an advertising deal with Google—not a strategic partnership, but a means of generating some new cash flow—also fizzled when the Department of Justice made clear it would litigate to prevent even that level of partnership as anti-competitive, and Google walked away.

Yang himself may have lacked the skills to bring the ship of state safely to port, but he does have the eternal optimism that is a necessary if not sufficient quality. Days before he announced his decision to step down, he told a technical conference in London that these could still be the best of times.

Despite market volatility and a crisis of confidence that seems to have literally frozen portions of the economy, Yang said, this is "a great time for opportunity."

"In many ways, the darkest days bore Yahoo and Google," Yang said. "Somewhere out there, there is a great company being built."

It will take more than luck, but there is still a chance that company can be Yahoo, again. We wish Ms. Bartz all the best. Or as she might say, "Let's get this friggin' show on the road!"