In a move that has come to define the dog-eat-dog business world, Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz was fired this week. Now Bartz is firing back.

"These people f---ed me over," Bartz said in an interview with Fortune magazine, her first since she was fired over the phone by Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock on Tuesday.

Bartz said she received the call from Bostock in New York on Tuesday evening and he read a prepared statement from an attorney.

"I said, 'Roy, I think that's a script'," she told Fortune. "'Why don't you have the balls to tell me yourself?'"

Bartz said that when Bostock concluded reading, she told him: "I thought you were classier than that."

Bartz said Yahoo's board demanded revenue growth "even though they were told that we would not have revenue growth until 2012".

Bartz, a former chief executive of business software company Autodesk, joined Yahoo in early 2009 to bring about a turnaround but was terminated with more than a year remaining on her contract.

Chief Financial Officer Timothy Morse was named interim chief executive while the board of directors searches for a new CEO.

"He's actually a great guy," Bartz said of Morse.

Yahoo shares rose more than 5 per cent on Wall Street on Wednesday following Bartz's firing and amid renewed speculation of a sale of all or part of the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company.

Bartz helped in cutting costs at Yahoo but was faulted by investors and analysts for failing to articulate a clear strategic vision for the company.