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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Four months on job, Yahoo boss crashing
Shareholder exposes bogus credential
Paul Sakuma / The Associated Press archives Controversy swirling around its CEO is the latest tempest to strike Yahoo. (CP)
SAN FRANCISCO -- Scott Thompson's reign as Yahoo's CEO is in jeopardy after just four months because he allowed an inaccuracy about his academic credentials to recur for years.
A major Yahoo shareholder who exposed the fabrication is leading the charge to oust Thompson for unethical conduct. In a letter Friday, activist hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb demanded the board of the struggling Internet company fire Thompson by noon EDT Monday or face possible legal action.
"CEO's have been terminated for less at other companies," wrote Loeb, who controls a 5.8 per cent stake in Yahoo through his hedge fund, Third Point LLC.
Yahoo reiterated Friday "the board is reviewing this matter and, upon completion of its review, will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders."
Thompson's troubles revolve around an exaggeration about his education at Stonehill College, a Catholic school near Boston where he graduated in 1979.
Since announcing Thompson's hiring in January, Yahoo had included two bachelor's degrees -- one for accounting and the other for computer science -- on the executive's biography. The dual degrees appeared on Yahoo's own website and in an April 27 legal document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
After being confronted Thursday by Loeb, Yahoo confirmed Thompson received only an accounting degree from Stonehill. Yahoo has since removed references to Thompson's education from his bio on its website. The company hadn't amended its SEC filing with the inaccuracy as of late Friday.
It's unclear whether the inaccuracy about the computer science degree originated with Thompson or someone else at Yahoo.
But Thompson's bio with dual degrees periodically cropped up before he joined Yahoo. He was listed with a computer degree on a website touting his appearance at the Web 2.0 technology conference in 2010 while he was running eBay Inc.'s PayPal payment service. The computer science degree also has appeared in Thompson's bio in connection with his 2008 appointment to a Silicon Valley startup, Zuora.
EBay listed only Thompson's accounting degree in its SEC filings while he was working at PayPal.
Even if Thompson didn't personally write his biography, he almost certainly reviewed the information at some point and should be held accountable for the distortion, said Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.
Elson believes Yahoo's board needs to dump Thompson or "it will face questions about its own effectiveness."
Yahoo blamed an "inadvertent error." After that excuse was ridiculed on the Internet, Yahoo issued another statement late Thursday about the board's intent to look into what happened. The company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., didn't give a deadline.
The uproar over Thompson's qualifications is the latest tempest at Yahoo, which has been reeling since it rejected a chance to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $33 per share four years ago. The company has been losing ground to rivals Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. ever since.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 5, 2012 B8
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