Low class? That's sexist bullshit. There's plenty of men that speak exactly the same way -- starting with Larry Ellison, and go read about his behavior sometime -- yet don't get the same opprobrium. It's because she's a woman.
I wouldn't treat a male any differently. It's low class. I don't recall any major CEO's on the front page of tech sites cussing before this. Ever. It shows a poor lack of control. What is said behind doors, not to the press, is something else entirely. That's not even touching on the professionalism of publicly calling out a previous employer. Talk about burning bridges and ruining a reputation.
Talk about burning bridges and ruining a reputation.
Burning bridges isn't always a bad thing. And sometimes doing so enhances your reputation, rather than ruining it.
I'm betting a whole lot of people have more respect for Carol Bartz today, than they had yesterday, exactly because she spoke her mind, and showed some emotion and cut through the "PC" crap. At the very least, I know I do.
You probably should have chosen somebody who wasn't a complete douche bag to make your example. Joe Biden cussing like that makes him look like a complete fool. I am all for cussing when situation is right, but this (and Biden's mockery) is just vulgar for the sake of being vulgar. There is a time and a place for vulgarity, press releases is not one of them. It just makes you look foolish, easily manipulated emotionally, and unprofessional in my eyes.
Googling for Larry Ellison and various swear words seem to doesn't turn up any articles where he swears at an interviewer. Can you provide an example of one?
I've read it somewhere; sorry, I don't have a reference to hand.
You can read about Ellison berating employees and screaming at them in a great book by Charles Ferguson called "High Stakes, No Prisoners". It's a wonderful accounting of building a startup in web 1.0 internet and selling it to MS -- Ferguson started Vermeer which built Frontpage.
See also, for example, Ballmer screaming and throwing chairs.
I don't doubt he's harsh, but berating employees privately is very different from swearing at an interviewer about past wrongs done to you. One makes you a harsh boss; the other makes you seem a little unstable. I don't have anything against swearing, personally. I also don't have anything against drinking wine in a bathrobe with your hair all messed up. But if somebody who wants to be the CEO of a major corporation showed up showed up at a restaurant for an interview in a bathrobe with messy hair chugging Prosecco straight from the bottle, I would find that questionable as well.
(Throwing chairs raises the "probably has issues" flag in any context that is not an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.)