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CEO Questionably Used Pseudonym to Post Online
jpallas writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that court filings by the FTC about Whole Foods' plan to acquire Wild Oats reveal an unusual detail: The CEO of Whole Foods regularly posted to a Yahoo! stock bulletin board under a pseudonym. His alter ego was feisty, to say the least, and regularly disparaged the company that he later decided to acquire. A former SEC chairman called the behavior 'bizarre and ill-advised, even if it isn't illegal.' This certainly raises questions about online rights to free speech and anonymity, especially when the line between free speech and regulated speech depends on who is speaking as much as what they are saying."
Yeah, yeah, freedom is a bitch.
Unfortunately freedom of speech can't be selective, or else it will eventually select wrongly.
It's a bitch, but it's freedom, dude, freedom of speech.
Let it regulate itself.
If you're not willing to take a stand for what you say, why are you even bothering to say it?
Posting anonymously under a pseudonym, bah. Gill Bates.
He generally pays people to do that or to be Apple switchers, outraged voters and Slashdot posters. At the same time, you have to wonder how much of his "email time" is actually ... Slashdot time.
Liberate your code, Bill.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
A CEO (actually any C_O) is differentiated because they have insider information - I.E. information not available (legally) to the general public and the average investor.
That sure sounds impressive. How much did he cut it, and how prescisely did the employess benefit thereby?
What I want to know is how did the FTC find out it was him? People are saying he is lame and has to much time on his hands, but look at the FTC. I mean trying to stop this merger is silly as its a small niche market in a large industry where they barely own a piece of it. Doesn't the FTC have better things to do with their time than release information trying to make Whole Foods and Mackey look bad? And more importantly how did they prove this was Mackey posting this stuff? Disclaimer - I am a shareholder who is angry at the FTC, but I'm not John Mackey ;).
I've seen him on TV from time to time. He comes across as an ideal CEO, refusing a salary and expecting his execs to live on less than usual. He seems really enthused about his products, his employees and the mark he is making on the economy of food.
Could he have totally fooled me and others? If so, he should run for president.
...omphaloskepsis often...
It has ZERO to do with the acquisition of another company and the FTC knows it.This is typical Bush Administration crap to justify an ad hoc regulatory decision after the fact, a decision that appears to be based on the lefty politics of the two companies involved. These guys always have the same M.O. They relentlessly take politics into consideration whenever they have to decide in an official government capacity who to help or hurt. Help goes right and hurt goes left. My guess is, this was basically all the dirt that opposition research could find on Whole Foods. A bunch of stupid posts from a CEO at home.
How were these posts even found? If a CEO posts as an AC, what databases (secret or otherwise) would contain this information? How would the FTC even know to look for something like this? Did they find his home IP and do a wide search for it in hopes of fishing something up? (I imagine the information path was NSA-DHS-FTC-WSJ.) Are they looking for posts from CEOs of other companies that merge, or just this one?
There is simply no basis to the argument that Whole Foods' acquisition of Wild Oats should be called into question because of stupid online posts from a CEO. If SBC and AT&T want to merge, that's OK. If the nation's largest hog producer buys the second largest, that's OK too. But a less than 1 billion dollar merger between Whole Foods and Wild Oats, well we can't have that because then yuppies will have no place to go to get their overpriced fruits and vegetables!
>>He wasn't manipulating prices or public perception...
He was *trying* to manipulate stock price so they would be an easier take over target.
>>If he didn't do anything illegal..
It would be illegal if he had not been anonymous; he was the CEO of a competitor.
>>so what's bizarre about it?
See above. He knew his behaviour was illegal, so he did it anonymously so that it wouldn't be illegal. I just think it is pretty funny, especially since he had little chance of suceeding. It is kind of weird a CEO would do this time of stuff for such little gain - it seems like he would have better things to do.
One other important item to communicate to you is, in light of my decision to forego any future additional cash compensation, our Board of Directors has decided that Whole Foods Market will contribute $100,000 annually to a new Global Team Member Emergency Fund. This money will be distributed to Team Members throughout the company based on need when disasters occur (such as Hurricane Katrina last year). The money will be placed in a special account and any money not distributed in any particular year will roll over and be added to the following year's contribution. We are still working on the exact way Team Members will be able to access this money. The first $100,000 will be deposited on January 1, 2007. (I added the highlighting)
Not many CEO's behaving that way these days.
Disclaimer: :-)
CoderDudeI work at WFM in the IT group, so now I make more than the CEO does.
i have a bad habit of hitting up the baton rouge store once every few months for salmon steaks. i usually end up spending way too much money when i go (which is why i regulate my visit frequency after all) but it's divine feasting for that night at least.
education
That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
~a.bierce