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Yahoo CEO Wrongly Claimed To Have Degree In Computer Science
jmcbain writes "Scott Thompson, Yahoo!'s CEO who was hired on January 4 of this year, was found to have lied about his CS degree from Stone Hill College. Investigation from an activist shareholder revealed that his degree was actually in accounting, and apparently Thompson had been going with this lie since the time he served as president of PayPal's payments unit."
Was he able to do the job well? Does it REALLY matter? If he got away with it that long I say good for him, if his employers aren't smart enough or care enough to verify they weren't really that concerned about his credentials.
Maybe this is an indication that degrees are over-rated. Or to be charitable, that it isn't particularly important exactly what you learn.
Perhaps. Though it's not obvious that a CS degree would contribute much to your skills as a CEO.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Every time it comes up, lots of people (myself included) always say that you just need a degree, it doesn't matter what in. This just proves it... Not in the way I intended what I said the above, but still...
Was he able to do the job well? Does it REALLY matter? If he got away with it that long I say good for him, if his employers aren't smart enough or care enough
They are now saying (in TFA) that this does not diminish his wonderful abilities to lead the company. They are not firing him! Is Yahoo HR informed that a relevant degree is now optional when they filter resumes?
I am happy with either direction:
a) Fire him and apologize for oversight
b) Keep him and announce that Yahoo believes that degrees don't mean much
But you can't have it both ways.
I have worked with accounting graduates who haven't the first clue about drawing real-world conclusions from financial statements. And I've worked with psychology graduates who do. The point is that it's not the degree, but the character and intelligence of the person holding it that determines whether they make a competent CEO.
Actually, my experience with actual CPA's has been that they're a pleasure to work with. For one thing they file kick-ass bug reports. A good accountant knows how difficult it is to track a problem down, because a lot of what they do amounts to financial debugging.
The *really* good accountants I've known also understand something important, which is the limitations of their discipline. That's probably a prerequisite for being really good at any profession, but accountants generally are more aware of the limitations of their profession than, say, lawyers are. So I think the problem is more likely managers thinking they're accountants than vice versa.
It's understandable, because management is an interdisciplinary field in which the only guarantee of success would be a working time machine. Managers out of their depth tend to grasp at straws (like anyone would); sometimes its accounting, other times it is marketing, other times it is quality control. I think a great manager would know the limits of the management discipline, and focus on hiring great people and keeping them working together.
Anyhow, the accountants I've worked with have been terrific, and I've learned a lot from them; so whenever I hear "accountant" casually used as a pejorative, I like to speak up.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Sadly that is the problem with Corporate America today.
You laugh it off, but why do you think corporate America still prefers IE 6 & XP and only looks at IT as a cost center and sales as profit centers and everything else as a un necessary cost?
The reason why is accountants run the show and follow GAAP rules and know little about the business. Wall Street just wants someone to fudge numbers so they can pump and then short the stock within a 6 - 9 week window.
Accountants make the claim I made x amount of money therefore I can raise your stock price etc.
Is there any CEOs who were former engineers or designers left? A CEO with an IT background would be actually nice for an IT company! Who would ahve thought!
http://saveie6.com/