Another Reason Carol Bartz Joined Yahoo: $$$

When I talked the other day with Bill Coleman, CEO of Cassatt and a former colleague of new Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz at Sun Microsystems (JAVA), he said he was initially surprised she would take on such a demanding job. After all, she stepped back from being CEO of Autodesk (ADSK) to be executive chairman, seeming to head toward relative retirement. “I thought, why does Carol need that at this time of her life?” But he thinks she was ready to get back to full-time work. “I think she misses that energy.”

I’m sure he’s right. But there’s another reason, too: money. According to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing, she will be paid a base salary of $1 million plus up to a $3 million annual bonus, plus an annual equity grant worth $8 million in 2009, plus a $10 million equity grant this year to make up for forfeiting Autodesk grants and medical coverage. Nice.

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