Yahoo CEO Blames Exec Search Firm for His False Credientials

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson
(photo from CNN)

The Yahoo CEO story is a gift that keeps on giving. I noted in a blog post earlier this week how a Yahoo board member has significant ties to Las Vegas gaming interests. The latest Yahoo installment involves Scott Thompson, the embattled Yahoo boss, and his false academic credentials. Thompson's background information, filed with the SEC and signed by Thompson, stated he had earned a computer science degree. In fact, Thompson does not, and never had had, a computer science degree.

This story has overtones of Tom Cruise's character in the movie Magnolia (Frank T.J. Mackey) portraying his dodgy academic background. However, Scott Thompson's tale gets even better than anything movie director P.T. Anderson dreamed up. The San Jose Mercury News' Pete Carey reported that Thompson is now claiming an executive search firm "wrongly included a computer science degree in his background data years ago." (The executive search firm's stance on Thompson's assertion was not noted in Carey's article.)

One can infer that either Thompson did not read material the search firm prepared or he is prevaricating. Also, noboby, including former employers such as Pay Pal, took time to fully vett Thompson's credentials. At least Pay Pal apparently asked for a resume. According to Carey's story, Yahoo didn't even bother to do that. Given these facts, do you wonder what other skeletons are in the closets of America's supposedly best and brightest?