61–70 of 214 posts
They actually said they used a Google search to find the info. That is quite entertaining.
Is the board responsible here as well?
I have to imagine hiring a new CEO for a public company the background checks must be impeccable.
Sort-of off topic: That guy has nothing on some of the other infamous CEO career lies... take the ex-CEO of Lotus (former makers of 123, Lotus Notes, etc). He lied about being a fighter pilot, having a PhD, and being a black belt in tae kwon do. source: http://www.zdnet.com/news/background-of-lotus-chief-under-fi... I think people get to a point where they start to believe their made-up mythology. Or perhaps they rea…
This is exactly why people lie, because it doesn't matter how well your software works, what matters is that the people buying it feel like you're on the same team. Whether the CEO is a fighter pilot or not should be immaterial to purchasing an MTA.
This opinion is from someone who's been in charge of hiring a few times and will likely do so again: If you can actually do the job described, I don't give a damn about your credentials. I would not fire an employee who I found out fabricated credentials, if they had been working well for a while.
If a CEO has fabricated experience they have questionable integrity - and their ability to lead is impaired.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
by that logic, may be we should hire ex-cons for law enforcement? they'd probably make better cops than 'normal' people?
I think there is a very fine line between a criminal and a cop per say in mentality. Good cops will know what to look for in criminal behavior and good criminals will know how to look out for cops; not all cops - but I would say its a fine line between the best of both worlds. Could be the reason double agents are so valuable.
[1] http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/bizfinance/finance/features/10...
[2] http://www.scribd.com/doc/64278509/YHOO-20110908-SC13D-0
His pay package for yahoo is 27 million dollars, i wonder how much of that he will keep after he gets the pink slip? Probably more than I'll ever earn in 5 of my lifetimes. It doesn't seem fair. But I guess demand for ceo's is high and quality ceo's are scarce.
The issue here is not whether or not he's qualified for the CEO spot. It's whether he has been signing off on SEC filings that he knows contain falsehoods. In particular, there's information in the proxy statements that shareholders are supposed to use as the basis of their voting and their support for executive compensation. If he's lying about this, how are shareholders supposed to trust the rest of the SEC filings…
> If he's lying about this, how are shareholders supposed to trust the rest of the SEC filings he signs off on as CEO? I'm not sure how I feel about statements like this. On the one hand, yes, you probably do not want such a brazen liar leading your company. But on the other hand, we as a society tend to believe in a dangerously inaccurate theory of character. Namely, that people are either inherently moral or they a…
That said, lying on something this simple should be a fire-able offense. It is a misrepresentation of the facts of what investors are paying for. It isn't an promise that was not kept or an area that is grey and up for interpretation.
Perhaps if no one in the history of Yahoo has been fired for lying about credentials, then he could get a pass. Does that sound like a likely reality?
I find this whole thing personally interesting, because I had my own in and out experience with owning some Yahoo shares. I thought long and hard about their CEOs. It was clear to me that Carol Bartz was incompetent. When she left and there was no instant replacement, I realized the board had no idea what they were doing either and I sold all of my shares. At the same time I thought, what type of person would agree to become the CEO of Yahoo? Certainly, all the deep talent capable of working there are smart enough to have a job at Google, Facebook, or any number of very promising start ups. Now I have my answer: a blatant lair.
What's happening here is liar's debt. Early in his career he must have made a decision to lie about his education, when no one was looking and when the chances of someone verifying the claim were low. He reused the lie on every subsequent job and it's stuck with him. It became encoded in the DNA of his professional reputation and he could not disabuse himself of it without making himself look the fool.
Now if the lie is recent and was used to get the head job at Yahoo - well then it's an even stupider lie. Why risk your professional reputation over something so trivial?
The issue here is not whether or not he's qualified for the CEO spot. It's whether he has been signing off on SEC filings that he knows contain falsehoods. In particular, there's information in the proxy statements that shareholders are supposed to use as the basis of their voting and their support for executive compensation. If he's lying about this, how are shareholders supposed to trust the rest of the SEC filings…
> If he's lying about this, how are shareholders supposed to trust the rest of the SEC filings he signs off on as CEO? I'm not sure how I feel about statements like this. On the one hand, yes, you probably do not want such a brazen liar leading your company. But on the other hand, we as a society tend to believe in a dangerously inaccurate theory of character. Namely, that people are either inherently moral or they a…