Yahoo chief: ‘Do I look like a wimp?’

On rumors of a takeover:

“We are doing more than something right. We are doing a lot right. I can’t answer that question. It’s not appropriate for someone in my seat to speculate.”

On her first year as CEO:

“It has been a fun year. But pressure it has been. The positive side is that you are working with such great people to affect change. But I came to Yahoo a year and half ago and I am more excited than the day I walked in the door. 

On her response to the negative headlines:

“Look at what Yahoo is doing. If I am being shown the door, I am coming in the door. Watch what we are doing. Check back in. I’m here to stay. Do I look like a wimp?”

On whether she is looking to hire a second in command:

“I run the company with a team. It’s not the number one running the company, it wouldn’t be the number two running the company. There isn’t a need for a number two. There is a need for great talent up and down the company and that’s what we focus on.”

On which companies she admires:

“I admire Facebook, Google, Intel, Cisco. There’s a lot of different ways to be successful , and success has to be won over a longer period of time than one idea or one concept. We are 15 years old in the internet space that seems very old and we have evolved. Most of the folks who came into the internet with us aren’t here anymore. I admire all of these companies because they have done different things really well. What’s important for all of us is to stick to what we do well.”

On Yahoo’s Partnership with Bing?

“We spent about six to seven months getting that deal together and approval from the government and exactly a year later we have gone live with using Bing as our back end and using our own innovation on the front end. It’s the concept of two airlines flying a Boeing plane, the experience is much different. We are both flying the Boeing plane; the Bing back end results but we are delivering a fantastic new experience. The reason it’s working is because we are investing together to make a great marketplace for the advertisers. We told our shareholders yesterday it is on schedule for profitability. Too early for more numbers but it turned out to be a very important and wise decision for the company.”

On rumors that she is impossible to work with:

“When you bring a new coach in there is going to be change. And when you bring a new coach in, the coach has to put their team together. Change happens when there is new management and its refreshing for all of us. 15,000 employees, three people left. That’s ok.”

On whether apps are a priority for Yahoo:

“Absolutely. The whole idea is we want our users to find us on any size screen.”

On Alibaba:

“The company five years ago had some trouble in China and made such a wise decision to move the business out of China and not operate in China. We partnered up with a fantastic entrepreneur Kac Ma. Five years later everybody is salivating because it was such good decision and such a good investment. So we continue to watch this investment and what’s best for the shareholders.”

On the pressure she faces in her role:

“I have a job that absorbs heat. Sometimes it’s not fun; you get a little more heat than you expect. But we have such confidence in what we are doing that we will not do anything silly because of supposed heat. We are going to do the right thing as a management team and the right thing for the shareholders.”

On analysts critiques that Yahoo’s $1.6 billion in revenue is unimpressive:

“Our profit has gone up 80% year over year. We are back to growing the business; the business hasn’t grown really in about six years and we are turning that around. Most importantly we have a vision. We know what to do for our customers and our advertisers. We are getting our products modern, exciting, we are attracting new users every month.”

On the future of Yahoo:

“We have a breadth and depth of content that is different than a social site and different than a search site. We have to do our job which is fantastic information for people. Yahoo has such a great future. When you serve 600 million people around the globe and they come to look at the wonderful content we have, the wonderful mail system, they vote with their fingertips. They know what we are. I couldn’t be more proud of this company.”

On whether Yahoo is hiring and whether that is impacted by the cost of healthcare:

“Certainly we are hiring and certainly full time with healthcare. We are as troubled as many companies are about what the long term costs will be. At this point it’s very important for us to take care of our Yahoo families and that isn’t changing and I hope it never has to because of bad decisions that someone else might make.”

On Yahoo’s “Ask America” program:

“We are attracting new users every month, ‘What do you think of what’s going on in the elections?’ Vote with us. We have had 7 million votes on the site since we started this.”

-Highlights provided by Fox Business.