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Hedge fund found he may have fudged his computer science degree
Scott Thompson, the recently hired CEO of Yahoo!, will presumably be under investigation after hedge fund Third Point’s CEO Daniel Loeb sent a letter to Yahoo! Inc board of directors addressing the fact that Scott Thompson doesn’t hold the college degree he claims to have.
A Scott Thompson biography and Yahoo! filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission both state that Scott Thompson holds two degrees in accounting and computer science. An activist Yahoo! investor wrote a letter to the company’s board yesterday with the allegations.
Loeb wrote, “A rudimentary Google search reveals a Stonehill College alumni announcement stating that Mr. Thompson’s degree is in accounting only. That announcement is consistent with other documents (including filings with SEC) that reflect Mr. Thompson received a degree in accounting, but not computer science.”
Loeb continued, “Upon recognizing this discrepancy, Third Point initially assumed that the documents we had reviewed were incorrect and the representation in Yahoo!’s public filings were accurate. However, we were then informed by Stonehill College that Mr. Thompson did indeed graduate with a degree in accounting only. Furthermore, Stonehill College informed us that it did not begin awarding computer science degrees until 1983—four years after Mr. Thompson graduated.”
Loeb still gave Thompson the benefit of the doubt, assuming he had taken enough courses that would make him competent in computer science, but instead found “that during Mr. Thompson’s tenure at Stonehill only one such course was even offered—Intro To Computer Science”
Third Point is calling to the board to investigate this situation, and if Scott Thompson does not have an explanation, then he should be terminated.
Loeb not only found the forged degree on Scott Thompson, but another Yahoo! employee, Chair of the Search Committee and the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee Patti Hart, claims to hold a Bachelor’s degree in marketing and economics but in reality only holds a degree in Business Administration. This finding came when his company was pondering who could have let this simple background check discrepancy was overlooked.
Yahoo! made a statement regarding Scott Thompson, “[Upon] completion of its review,” they said, the board” will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders.”
