"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 took over Yahoo on Tuesday after a year of turmoil in which the company spent much of its time immersed in management upheavals and negotiations with Microsoft and Google. The company's management, especially cofounder and outgoing CEO Jerry Yang, has come under fire for letting opportunities pass by before its stock price plunged along with the wider market in the second half of the year.

Bartz, a former CEO of Autodesk, declined to tell reporters what direction Yahoo should take, saying she needs to first talk with employees, customers and investors to find out more about the company. She wouldn't say how long that would take.

"Let's not put ourselves on some crazy timeline, let's let this process evolve," she said.

Bartz did say Yahoo should focus on being the best company in all its markets, and that it should create new markets, both geographic and vertical.