What kind of yahoo did they hire at Yahoo?
A dissident shareholder caught Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson in a misrepresentation on his resume, and in Yahoo’s regulatory filings. Click here to read all about it.
Thompson had claimed a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stonehill College, a small school in Easton, Mass.. When New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, whose firm owns 5.8% of Yahoo, challenged that claim, the company admitted it was an exaggeration.
Thompson does have an accounting degree from the school, just not a computer science degree on top of it, as he claimed.
Yahoo confirmed the misrepresentation and issued a statement shamelessly backing Thompson: “This in no way alters that fact that Mr. Thompson is a highly qualified executive with a successful track record leading large consumer technology companies. … Under Mr. Thompson’s leadership, Yahoo is moving forward to grow the company and drive shareholder value.”
This sort of whitewash ignores the fact that the CEO of a publicly traded company misrepresented himself to shareholders and regulators. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small exaggeration. If Thompson exaggerated his academic achievements, what else is he going to exaggerate?
Any time someone is caught in a lie, they lose credibility. We are left to wonder if it was just this one little gaffe we uncovered, or whether there is more to the story telling. We are also left to wonder how a person who spins a yarn in good times is going to react when things turn ugly.
Yahoo dare not fire any low-level employee for misrepresentations on their.resumes. It is setting a horrible example for itself, it’s employees and the rest of corporate America.
And what about those people who actually completed degrees in computer science at Stonehill, spending the necessary, time, energy and money? I’d hate to work so hard for a degree only to realize that any windbag CEO can simply claim one for free.
