Yahoo CEO says she will need more time to steer turnaround, just like Steve Jobs did at Apple

Yahoo CEO indicates turnaround could take years

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says she hopes investors growing impatient for her to turn around the slumping Internet company remember how long it took for Steve Jobs to revive Apple.

In a Tuesday meeting to celebrate Yahoo’s 15th anniversary, Bartz reminded reporters that Apple struggled for the first four years after Jobs returned to that company as CEO in 1997.

It wasn’t until Jobs unveiled the iPod in late 2001 that Apple’s profits and stock price began to soar.

Bartz says the challenges she has faced in her first 14 months as Yahoo’s CEO have been compounded by the worst U.S. recession in 70 years.

Nevertheless, Yahoo is making modest progress. Bartz expects the company’s first quarter to show the first revenue gains since the summer of 2008.