“The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did, and we believe more users may connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within five years.”

- from the mega-Morgan Stanley (MS) tech report, released this morning. The 424-page analysis declares that the mobile Internet cycle, the fifth tech cycle in 50 years, is just beginning–and winners in each cycle often create more market capitalization than in the previous cycle. So, what companies might be winners this time around? Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Amazon.com (AMZN), Intel (INTC), Cisco (CSCO), AT&T (ATT), and Fedex (FDX) too are well-positioned, the report says. Mary Meeker and her Internet strategists, who last issued such an ambitious study in 1995 (I remember it well!), add: “Facebook has already become a primary way for millions of people to stay connected, and Facebook’s lead is likely to be extended as more consumers use increasingly powerful mobile devices and the communications options on Facebook continue to rise.” If you actually have time to read the full-blown 424-page analysis(!) or simply want to scan the charts, you can find them all here.

by Jessica Shambora

Watch out, geeks. You’ve got company.

Yes, Best Buy’s (BBY) Geek Squad, whose “agents” drive those Volkswagen Beetles to the homes of customers in technology distress, has competition to contend with: digital troubleshooters who aid consumers via the Internet.

Even as these forces are expanding, it’s hard to detect them. For instance, the “solution engineers” of Support.com (SPRT)’s are almost impossible to spot since they work via remote-access subterfuge. Once a troubled tech user downloads Support.com’s software, an engineer can access the computer via the Internet to diagnose and fix problems.

Ever stealthy, Support.com’s engineers even go undercover as technicians for companies like Staples (SPLS) and Sony. You’ve seen Office Depot (ODP)’s Tech Depot Services? These friendly folks are actually Support.com’s hired guns.

Perhaps you’re lucky enough to never have needed consumer tech support. (If that’s the case, either you don’t own a computer, or you own a Mac). But there’s no escaping that our lives are getting more digital every day. And even as we become more tech-savvy and as tech providers improve design and user interfaces, there will always be bugs, malfunctions, spyware and viruses.

There will be updates and upgrades. New platforms and devices to install. Compatibility issues to iron out. Who ya gonna call?

For hardware problems, you can go to your device manufacturer. But let’s face it, these days it’s all about operating systems, platforms and software: Google’s (GOOG) Chrome and Android, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 7, Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes, Adobe’s (ADBE) AIR.

So while the Geek Squad has been the most visible source of help (and no wonder, given the marketing muscle of Best Buy), it’s not the cheapest option. Nor the most convenient. Rivals are gaining ground as many consumers no longer need a technician to hold their hand–or simply don’t have time to schedule an appointment with a Geek.

Support.com hasn’t done well as a stock, in part because it only recently switched from serving enterprises to targeting consumers. Other options include startups like PlumChoice and iYogi. Meanwhile, phone companies are also getting in the game. Support.com CEO Josh Pickus says that Verizon (VZ), Dell (DELL), AT&T (ATT), and Wal-Mart (WMT) are all “poking around in this space.”

For more about this hot industry, check out my profile of Support.com on Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech site.

Note: Geek Squad offers tech support remotely through a partnership with SupportSpace, which offers services similar to Support.com.

Steve Jobs is Fortune’s “CEO of the Decade.” As my colleague Adam Lashinsky says in the current issue’s cover story, Jobs has created more than $150 billion in shareholder wealth–meanwhile, “transforming movies, telecom, music, and computing, and profoundly influencing the worlds of retail and design.”

I’ve met Jobs just once, three years ago, when he came to Fortune’s offices here in New York. I remember, he walked into our conference room in his uniform–the black turtleneck, the jeans, the sneakers–and sat down beside me. What could be cooler? For 90 minutes, he demoed a sleek little gadget that was weeks away from launch. Even the most jaded journalists were dazzled. It was the iPhone.

To help report the Jobs cover package, I walked over to Avon (AVP) and interviewed Chairman and CEO Andrea Jung. She didn’t know Jobs well until early last year when he asked her to join the Apple (AAPL) board. Now she’s the only female director, with six guys. She’s also on the board of another famous company founded by a famous creative guy: Thomas Edison. That’s General Electric (GE). So Jung has a front-row seat to how power works, and innovation as well.

Here’s Jung’s first-person take on Jobs.–Patricia Sellers

Steve called me one day two years ago and said, “I’m in the city, Can I come up to your office?” He sauntered in, wearing his black turtleneck, jeans and sneakers. He showed me the new shuffle. We had had some conversations before. I was a huge admirer of the company. There isn’t another consumer business like Apple. About six months later, I joined the Apple board.

All of us would like to think that we’re as focused on the consumer and the end-user experience as Steve is—that maniacal passion for the best phone, the best mp3 player, the best PC, the best retail experience.

Steve is singularly passionate about making products that people love and understand. He does it in a very black and white way, while the rest of the world gets caught up in the gray–or caught up in themselves. He is, on the one hand, the most simple and clear thinker. I so often think, ‘It sounds so simple.’ But he’s taking on things that are extraordinarily complex and arguably risky.

He breaks down barriers. If you have that disruptive vision, you don’t look at historical facts to make a new future.

Steve refuses to compromise on integrity or the consumer experience for the sake of commercialism. He’s laser-focused on getting it right. It’s a great lesson in this quarter-to-quarter world. I leave Apple board meetings thinking, ‘I’ve got to do a better job.’

The board is small—seven directors–smaller than most boards, including Avon’s. There is an extraordinary openness in the board room, and it’s incredibly interactive.  Any board member would feel free to challenge an idea or raise a concern.

He’s a real listener and wants your opinion. He’ll call on a Sunday—like one day he called to let me know that they redid the store in Soho and wanted to know what I thought of it. My son will look at my iPhone and say, “Steve Jobs is calling!” Not many CEOs have that effect on 12-year-olds.

I’ve been really impressed by his humility—his willingness to talk about mistakes or things that need to be corrected. Or things they wish they hadn’t done. It’s been not only gratifying, it’s been great. I feel like I’m part of history being made.

“A key Jobs business tool is his mastery of the message. He rehearses over and over every line he and others utter in public about Apple, which authorizes only a small number of executives to speak publicly on a given topic. Key to the Jobs approach is careful consideration of what he and Apple say — and don’t say. “

–Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky on Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs. Lashinsky’s cover story, “Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade,” in the current issue of Fortune, explains how the “showman…salesman…magician…tyrannical perfectionist” redefined not just one industry, but four: movies, music, mobile phones and computing. Check out the video below for more on how Jobs did it. –Jessica Shambora

“There hasn’t been a day in Steve’s life that he doesn’t get up, think about the company he works for, or what he’s going to do next. These are things that drive him.”

–Bill Campbell, Intuit (INTU) chairman and former CEO, about Steve Jobs–Apple’s (AAPL) CEO and Fortune’s “CEO of the Decade,” on the cover of the current issue. Once Apple’s VP of marketing and now on the board, Campbell  claims he’s never seen Jobs be anything but intense. In fact, Campbell says, Jobs is so focused on creating the next groundbreaking product, he doesn’t even stop to think about what it all means. “He wants to create something that has value, that has a legacy. ‘Legacy’ is my word. I’m not sure he ever thinks about legacy. He’s just driven like that.”

More big names in business offer their reflections on Jobs here. –Jessica Shambora

“He’s involved in details you wouldn’t think a CEO would be involved in.”

–Ken Segall, a former Chiat/Day creative director who has worked with Apple (AAPL) on and off for years, talking about Steve Jobs, Fortune’s “CEO of the Decade.” Jobs commissioned the 1997 “Think different” campaign, says Segall, long before any of Apple’s new products were introduced — or even described to the ad team. “He’d say, ‘The third word in the fourth paragraph isn’t right. You might want to think about that one.’”

The new issue of Fortune, featuring a in-depth retrospective on Jobs, hits newsstands today. –Jessica Shambora

Gilt Groupe CEO Susan Lyne has joined the board of AOL–soon to be spun off from Time Warner (TWX).

Does Lyne love trouble, or what? Five years ago, after Martha Stewart began her five-month prison stint in West Virginia, Lyne stepped up from the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) board to be CEO of the company–and worked, eventually hand in hand with Martha, to rebuild the crippled company.

That was a slog (Lyne left last year), and so was her three-year stint on the board of CIT (CITGQ)–which she began in 2006 when it didn’t seem to be a terribly risky move. But it turned out to be. For the past few months, Lyne has had a seat at the table as CIT’s board and CEO Jeff Peek vied to save the company from bankruptcy. Peek failed. Lyne left the CIT board last week–one day before CIT filed Chapter 11.

So now Lyne is turning her attention to another once-mighty company that lost its way. AOL’s new CEO, Tim Armstrong, who joined from Google (GOOG) last March, is preparing for the spinoff from Time Warner by assembling a board that includes Procter & Gamble (PG) ex-global marketing chief Jim Stengel, former FCC chairman Michael Powell, tech investment banker Bill Hambrecht, and Jim Wiatt, who headed William Morris until he got squeezed out in a messy merger with talent agency Endeavor this year.

These people know pressure–and have their work cut out for them at the flagging web pioneer. Time Warner’s earnings report on Wednesday included news that AOL’s sales dropped 23% last quarter, while profits fell by half.

The good news for Lyne is that she has a positive story where, for her at least, it really counts: at Gilt Groupe. She joined the tiny purveyor of luxury goods last year, and it has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the Internet space.

“The threshold for the release of the first product should be, ‘What would Steve Jobs do?’”

– Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and Netscape co-founder, who often evokes Apple (AAPL)’s maestro CEO in his advice to entrepreneurs. Andreessen is quoted in the Fortune cover package, “Steve Jobs: CEO of the decade,” hitting newsstands Friday. Fortune’s retrospective of “all things Steve” includes timelines, online photo galleries, and testimonials from Jobs’ friends and colleagues. For the next week, our Power Points–the quotes we post frequently on Postcards–will be plucked from this coverage of the world-changer whose comeback is the ultimate story of redemption. –Jessica Shambora

Carly Fiorina declared her candidacy for the U.S. Senate–in a bid to replace another well-known woman, incumbent California Democrat Barbara Boxer.

Fiorina, who was No. 1 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list for six years when she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), will be pounding the campaign trail simultaneously with another ex-No. 1 on our list: Meg Whitman. The former eBay (EBAY) CEO, who topped Fortune’s power list in 2004 and ‘05, is running for Governor.

Neither woman, both Republicans, will have an easy time in the left-leaning, financially crippled Golden State. Running on her “I’m a great manager” platform, Whitman has a decent shot at her party’s nomination. But she faces a fierce Democratic rival in Jerry Brown, California’s current Attorney General who once was Governor. Another Democratic rival, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, just dropped out. (For more, check out my recent cover story, “Can Meg Whitman Save California?“)

Fiorina, who yesterday revealed her plans in the Orange County Register, has a personality tailor-made for campaigning: She’s charismatic and commanding. Remember when she was waging that brutal proxy fight to buy Compaq in 2002? She played it like a political candidate–and she won.

But Fiorina, 55, who worked with Whitman on John McCain’s failed Presidential campaign, carries significant baggage into this latest race: She was fired by the H-P board in 2005–as much for her style of leadership as her disappointing execution.

Another battle lately has been a medical one. Fiorina was recently treated for breast cancer. In September, while undergoing daily treatments at Stanford Hospital, she spoke by video-conference, along with Elizabeth Edwards, to participants of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Here’s a clip:

Kudos to Fiorina for speaking out. The fact that she’s running for the U.S. Senate is a sign that her prognosis is good. And she’s as tenacious as ever.

by Jessica Shambora

Are there green shoots of profitability in the land of social networking?

Last week Twitter announced deals with Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) to make its posts available on the Bing and Google search engines–and this could be a reliable source of future revenue. Though as Adam Lashinsky writes in the current issue of Fortune, Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone are still less focused on making money than they are on doubling their user base of 55 million people.

As for Facebook, the other social-networking heavyweight, it now has positive cash flow, management says, along with 300 million users. Still, details have yet to emerge about how Facebook’s advertising buildup is faring.

But hold on, green shoots really are appearing–from companies you might not expect. One of the hottest start-ups: Zynga, a creator of games that run on social networks like Facebook and MySpace (NWSA). The company is forecasting at least $100 million in annual revenues after just two years in business. Management says that Zynga has been profitable since September 2007, just two months after launching.

San Francisco-based Zynga creates games that allow players to interact with friends in their social network. These “social games” are free to play, but users pay to purchase virtual goods. Why spend real money on virtual goods? Because the virtual goods help you advance in the game more quickly.

For instance, in FarmVille, where you tend a virtual farm, Zynga collects money when you buy fuel for your virtual tractor. The virtual tractor enables you to build a bigger farm faster than a player who doesn’t spend to invest. FarmVille happens to be the most popular social game right now. It has more than 61 million monthly users.

These social games are addictive. And while some people contend that this growing addiction is crazy, others say that buying virtual goods isn’t much different from plunking down cash for a game like Microsoft’s Halo 3. Would you spend real money on virtual goods? Let us know–and for more on social games, read my profile of Zynga in the new Fortune.

“Life is long but time is short.”

– Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt, on acting boldly and taking risks. This line—along with points about passion and vision and keeping customers first—is one of 10 lessons that author Ken Auletta says he took away from researching Google for his new book, Googled: the End of the World as We Know It. Auletta’s book is due out next week from Penguin Press.

“We are spending our time trying to create the best technology and product for as many users as possible. That’s where all our value is going to come from.”

–Twitter CEO Evan Williams in “Twitter hits tweenhood” in the new issue of Fortune, on newsstands next week and Fortune.com today. Having attracted more than $150 million in venture capital (and 55 million unique visitors monthly), Twitter has outpaced Google (GOOG) in money-raising…with meaningless revenues to show for it. But for this feat and for quickly building the communications platform into a global phenomenon, Fortune puts Williams and co-founder Biz Stone at No. 5 on its just-released 40 Under 40 list.

“You need to build your career not as a ladder, but as a pyramid,” Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz said in the New York Times yesterday. I wholeheartedly agree: In today’s ever more complex world, you need to build a broad experience base–with peripheral vision and a willingness to make lateral moves. If you’ve been reading Postcards, you know that my favorite image is a jungle gym. That’s kind of like Bartz’s pyramid.

You can read more of Bartz’s career advice in her first-personer, “Just Deal with it.” But it was at last month’s Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit that she spoke about public-company board work as essential to career-building and vented about the “nonsense” of CEOs prohibiting high-potential execs from serving on other companies’ boards. The Yahoo chief is colorful, as usual, as she describes her first board meeting as the new CEO of Autodesk (ADSK) in 1992, the day after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “I didn’t even know what a friggin’ board was,” she says:

During her 14 years running Autodesk, pre-Yahoo, Bartz was on the boards of Cisco (CSCO), Intel (INTC), NetApp (NTAP) and BEA Systems–until it was acquired by Oracle (ORCL). That’s a heavy load that I’d say paid off in prepping her for Yahoo, where she arrived in January. My Fortune colleague Adam Lashinsky and I have sparred on the value of such multiple directorships. We’ll see tomorrow how well Bartz is doing. She’s due to report Yahoo’s quarterly earnings.

by Jessica Shambora

Who’s hiring? Hardly anybody, yet. But as you dream about recovery, you’d better be thinking about how to upgrade your talent. You’ll be hiring again someday. Really.

We talked about hiring at the recent Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, where this year’s theme was “Betting on the Future.” A session called “Building a Standout Start-up” was led by two CEOs who are in major hiring mode. We thought we’d share some of their expertise.

Susan Lyne, who left the helm of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) to run the much-buzzed-about Gilt Groupe, is in a hiring frenzy. When she joined the company a year ago, there were 55 employees. Today Gilt Groupe employs more than 300. That equates to adding 10 employees every week.

When she arrived at Gilt, Lyne inherited a policy: No one can be hired after  being interviewed only by people in their intended department. “They always have to meet with two or three other departments so that there’s a consensus–so there’s a cultural fit,” Lyne says. This can mean six different interviews for some candidates.

It’s worth it. “It’s often hard to articulate exactly what makes a fit,” the Gilt boss explains, “but people tend to know it when they see it. So if you can get someone out to enough people, you tend not to make the same mistakes.”

Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, co-lead the “Standout Start-up” session with Lyne. She launched her company, which helps you build your own customized social-network, with the help of Netscape founder Mark Andreessen. What does she look for in recruits? Exceptional passion and comfort with uncertainty, she says.

Bianchini illustrated her point by telling a story about hiring Ning’s chief technology officer, Diego Doval. She found her Doval by reading his blog. The fellow was getting his PhD at Trinity College in Ireland and, she says, clearly had a passion for “large-scale distributed networks,” which is what Ning is all about. He was from Argentina–which turned out to be quite appealing. “He was telling us in our initial conversation how in one day the price of bread would go from 50 cents to $50,” Bianchini explains. “I was like, ‘You’re hired.’ Because that is truly the reality of a start-up situation.”

Bianchini seeks “people who have been through high highs and low lows,” she says, recalling the dotcom bust in 2001. Back then, she was struck by how many people showed up in her office with “looks of terror.” Many had come from big companies; that’s what everyone was doing then. Although she was much younger than many of these execs, she found herself telling them: ‘You’re going to have to chill out. You’re going to have to just get it together because this is an uncertain situation, but we need to move forward.”

She finds herself saying the same thing today.

All the more reason to hire wisely. And then you have to build the culture. Lyne certainly knows about culture, coming from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Walt Disney (DIS). At Gilt, where so much talent is coming on board so fast, she says she has to communicate more than ever before. So every morning at 10 a.m., Lyne holds an “all hands” meetings for any employees who want a daily update on the company’s doings and direction.

Culture-building also includes events like bowling nights and Halloween dress-up. These are also ways to “democratize perceptions” of Gilt’s leaders, Lyne says. Translation? “I’m not great at karaoke,” she adds.

P.S. We agree that comfort with uncertainty is a must for any leader today. Former Avon (AVP) President Liz Smith, who recently left to become a CEO elsewhere, has talked about it. So has new Xerox (XRX) CEO Ursula Burns, who says that the best managers “make a decision, and when they find out it’s not right, they change and get on with it.” American Express (AXP) CEO Ken Chenault, in this post, noted one of his favorite quotes from Darwin: “It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptive to change.”

Shoppers may have fewer dollars these days, but they still want to make the most of them. That’s the idea behind Gilt Groupe, the members-only shopping site featuring daily deals, or “flash-sales,” on limited quantities of designer goods. (Click here for a post about Gilt CEO Susan Lyne, formerly head of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia).

Now Gilt is bringing the same formula to the luxury travel sphere with a new site called Jetsetter. Before you start thinking this is just another Orbitz/Expedia/Travelocity/Priceline copycat, check out my story on the Fortune Brainstorm Tech site. I explain how Jetsetter departs from the norm, with destinations like the Cotton House on the Isle of Mustique, and the Bauer Hotel, overlooking Venice’s Grand Canal. The list of mass-market travel sites may be long, but according to Jetsetter CEO Drew Patterson, “The luxury travel industry has a lot of white space.” –Jessica Shambora

Xerox’s $6.4 billion deal to buy Affiliated Computer Services–which walloped the stock yesterday–is evidence that new CEO Ursula Burns knows what she wants and won’t waste time getting it. “Top line revenue growth,” Burns replied, at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, when asked what is Xerox’s “unfinished business.”

The Summit interview was the first public sit-down for Burns and Anne Mulcahy since the former took over from the latter in the historic CEO handoff this past July. (It was the first time that a woman succeeded another woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company.) And despite the ease of their transition (Mulcahy, still chairman, called it “startlingly seemless”), Burns hereby IDs herself as a grower vs. a cost-cutter–the latter being Mulcahy’s  identity since she rescued Xerox from near-bankruptcy almost a decade ago.

If the Xerox-ACS deal goes through–which is likely despite early investor angst (Xerox stock is up today)–how big will the new Xerox (XRX) be? It will have more than $22 billion in revenue, vaulting Xerox up the Fortune 500 to the territory of Google (GOOG) and Oracle (ORCL)–though, as tech investors know, Oracle is a ravenous acquirer and sure to leap up the rankings too. Via the ACS (ACS) buyout, though, Xerox will likely climb past Nike (NKE) and giant utility Exelon (EXC) on the Fortune 500.

Quite a rise for Burns, who started at Xerox as an intern in 1980 and hardly imagined she’d rise to the top. (She is also the first black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company.) Click here to read a smart take by my colleague Jon Fortt, who interviewed Burns yesterday. And here is Ann Moore, the CEO of Time Inc. (TWX), Fortune’s parent, interviewing Burns and Mulcahy at the Most Powerful Women Summit two weeks ago.–Patricia Sellers

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz

Ever since she stormed into Yahoo (YHOO) as its new CEO in January, Carol Bartz has been adamant that the company needs to simplify and define itself. What is Yahoo? “We’re not a search company. We’re not just a social media company. We’re not just a content company. We’re really the center of people’s online lives,” she told Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer in an on-stage interview at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit earlier this month. Haunted by Google (GOOG) and handicapped by its failure to do a deal with Microsoft (MSFT) last year, Yahoo has finally gotten some mojo back now that Bartz has struck a search partnership with Microsoft and, just today, launched a $100 million-plus ad campaign. (It’s Y!ou)

Bartz, meanwhile, has never had much problem defining herself. For this year’s Fortune Most Powerful Women issue, the ever-candid and colorful CEO (No. 8 on the MPWomen list) wrote a first-personer explaining what’s made her who she is. We ran an edited version of Bartz’s first-personer in the magazine, but her piece was so good–and so Carol–that we want to share her unedited version in its entirety. After all, as everyone who knows her knows, the best Bartz is the unedited Bartz. So here’s Bartz on Bartz:

I have a lousy track record of starting a new job and then having major surgery. It’s certainly not planned, but people around me have made a lot about me returning to work quickly, which I find fascinating.

I’ve been at Yahoo! since January, and a few months back I had my knee replaced. I scheduled the surgery sooner rather than later, once my doctor identified the need. Why should I wait to feel good? I want to feel good NOW, rather than wait 10 more years. I want to just deal with it. I want to get moving.

I did the same thing with breast cancer surgery, which took place weeks after I became CEO of Autodesk (ADSK). I was back in the office soon after that. It’s not because I wanted to be a martyr. It’s because I had a job to do, and my family knew I’d be much happier if I was back in the saddle. I love to work. I love to run companies. I love to help people I work with. And I don’t let anything get in the way of doing what I love.

Does my childhood have anything to do with this “just deal with it” approach? Possibly. There is something to growing up on a Midwest farm that encourages hard work. The farm won’t wait for a better mood. And neither did my grandmother who raised me. But I encourage everyone – and more and more women – to not take no for an answer if it’s between them and something they care passionately about. What are you waiting for?

Coming to California and Silicon Valley in particular was a blessing for me. I realized soon after arriving here that most people didn’t take a lot of time to ponder, or analyze a decision to death. There just isn’t time. This fit my impatient nature of “doing” very well, and my belief that it’s always worth spending energy on “doing” something better. The technology industry is a great environment for dynamic, innovative optimism.

Moving forward was just what Autodesk seemed to need when I arrived there in 1992. The company was full of brilliant engineers, but no one was making tough decisions and ensuring that projects and performance moved forward. Sometimes even the best of us need a kick in the pants. And making those difficult decisions requires the confidence to stand behind them, especially in a less-than supportive environment. It requires role-modeling the behavior you want your leaders to mimic. It means promoting cooperation, communicating and making sure everyone is responsible for making things happen. Asking everyone to face their fears and get moving!

I like change. Frankly, it’s hard for me to understand why more people don’t embrace it. I’m impatient with people and teams who don’t move forward. “Fail fast-forward” is a favorite motto of mine. It’s about not being afraid to fail, and if you do, identify it quickly and move ahead fast so no momentum is lost. It’s very acceptable to try things that ultimately fail. Just get going again.

Besides, there will always be critics. When I took this job, some said I was too old to run Yahoo! or didn’t understand online media. If I had wasted time worrying about that, or any other time I was criticized for being good at math or a good leader or even for being a woman, where would I be?

I recently took some heat from the media over our agreement with Microsoft and search, but I know it’s a great move for the long-term success of Yahoo!. Making the decision and driving this much change for us was hard but it’s done.  So now we’re moving forward, attacking our future, which is incredibly bright.

Being an optimist is very powerful, and the most successful people I know share this trait. Henry Ford was right: Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you are right.

I’ve never been interested in agonizing over what could have or should have happened. I’ve found it much more useful to look ahead, not be afraid to fail, make the tough decisions – and to just deal with it. As my grandmother always said.

Here’s Andy Serwer’s interview with Bartz at the Summit:

by Jessica Shambora

On the heels of last week’s news that Avon (AVP) president Liz Smith is leaving to pursue a CEO job outside the company, another powerful woman is departing to seek a new C-suite challenge. eBay (EBAY) announced today that Stephanie Tilenius, head of marketplaces for North America, is leaving.

Tilenius, 42, will stay on as an advisor to CEO John Donahoe for the next few months, but her position will not be filled. Instead, Lorrie Norrington, global head of  marketplaces (and No. 40 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list) will assume responsibility for the division–reinforcing Norrington’s rising profile at eBay.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while and it feels like the right time,” Tilenius told Fortune on Monday. “I spent nearly at decade at eBay and I want to look for where I’m going to spend the next decade.”

During her nine years at eBay, Tilenius covered a lot of ground, from leading operations in Korea and Asia-Pacific, to heading  eBay Motors, to building PayPal to $1 billion in revenue — and finally, to helping to revitalize the marketplaces division. That these assignments involved creating or building businesses within eBay is no coincidence. Tilenius’s entrepreneurial roots go back to her first job out of Harvard Business School. Instead of accepting an offer from Goldman Sachs (GS), Tilenius went to work for a startup named Firefly.

“I was probably one of 10 people that joined an Internet company out of Harvard in 1996. It was definitely the path not traveled,” she told Fortune last September.

After Firefly was sold to Microsoft (MSFT), Tilenius went on to co-found PlanetRx.com, which she took public in 1999 (postponing her honeymoon for the company’s road show). But the Internet startup–an online healthcare and e-commerce site–burst with the Internet bubble. Laying off 400 people was one of hardest things Tilenius has ever done, but she made a list of lessons  learned that she still refers to today.

That list–and several others like it that Tilenius has made in the wake of her many leadership experiences at eBay–could come in handy as she prepares for her next job. In a note to employees today, Tilenius wrote, “I am eager to explore new learning curves and other adventures in life such as becoming CEO of a smaller company.”

Lorna Borenstein, a friend and former eBay colleague says she can see Tilenius as either a CEO of a late-stage startup or as head of a large division of a multinational company. “She’s such a great strategist and she loves growing things,” says Borenstein.  “I see her looking for a big meaty opportunity where she can have her fingerprints all over it.”

Tilenius, who enjoys competing in triathlons and open-water swims, says her next gig “has to be something where there’s a big leadership challenge, an opportunity to make an impact and change people’s lives.” Given her background in the hot areas of consumer Internet, e-commerce, and payments, Tilenius may want to take her time deciding and hold out for the highest bidder.

For more on Tilenius, click here to watch a video of her discussing how she defines power at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in San Francisco  last summer. Tilenius was also featured in Pattie’s story on female rising stars in Silicon Valley, “The New Valley Girls“, in last year’s Most Powerful Women issue, and in a related Q&A online.

By Julie Schlosser

Google’s (GOOG) Megan Smith, Vice President of New Business Development, offered up a fresh approach to cost cutting during the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit.  It’s sort of a twofer — improve the bottom line by bringing employees into the conversation.

“Patrick Pichette [Google’s CFO] said we needed to save a half billion dollars,” Smith said. It was shortly after the crisis — the economy was cratering and the company needed to reduce spending. Pichette wanted general cost-cutting ideas from across the company, so he posted the request on Google Moderator, the company’s collaboration tool.

“It’s a form of crowdsourcing,” said Smith, who now oversees Google.org. “It’s a simple tool. You put suggestions in and people can vote. It allows the good ideas to rise up.” Not surprisingly, Googlers responded. “We got hundreds of millions [of dollars worth] of actionable ideas,” added Smith.

By Beth Kowitt

In their first public conversation on their historic CEO handoff, Ursula Burns and Anne Mulcahy of Xerox (XRX) said the intensity and amount of attention it’s received has really surprised them.

In July when Mulcahy, Xerox’s chairman, stepped down as CEO and handed over the reins to Burns, it was the first woman-to-woman CEO succession in Fortune 500 history. Burns is also the first black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company.

“We were like, get over it,” Mulcahy joked at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit.

While Mulcahy was dubbed the “Accidental CEO” in a 2003 Fortune article, Burns is the groomed leader whose succession was well planned and “startlingly seamless,” said Mulcahy.

“The organization was just really comfortable with it,” she added.

Mulcahy, an English major who led Xerox HR, said that her gaps were on the financial side. Burns, No. 9 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list, is the mechanical engineer who came up through the product development side of the business. Mulcahy said that Burns is all about discipline, process, and logic.

“Ursula has an appetite for the tough assignments,” Mulcahy said.

Now in the CEO role, Burns’s focus is top-line revenue growth. The fourth quarter of 2008 wiped out an entire three quarters of progress for the company, she noted. “That’s the unfinished business,” she said.

When Mulcahy took over the company in 2000, Xerox had $17.1 billion in debt and $154 million in cash. The stock had fallen from $63.69 to $4.43, and the company had lost 90% of its market cap.

Mulcahy, who is credited with turning the company around, recounted cold-calling Warren Buffett (who was sitting in the front row of the audience at the summit) in the midst of the turmoil. She flew out to Omaha to meet with him.

“My No. 1 objective was, I was looking for money,” she said.

Buffett told her he wasn’t investing in technology, but he gave her the clarity of focusing on her customers and employees. He told her to get the results first and then tell the Xerox story.

Since Mulcahy stepped into the CEO role, Xerox has had the succession question on the table.

“It seems like it’s so far off,” she said. “I think boards really need to push the discussion as early as possible.”

The preparation has allowed the succession to not become a distraction for the company. So while the outside world might be fixated on the Mulcahy-Burns handoff, the pair said at Xerox it’s business as usual.