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."

Comments

I would've went with accounting

[outsider007]

Yahoo needs an accounting CEO more than a cs one lately.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[slartibartfastatp]

An accounting and liar CEO - that's gonna work.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[narcc]

That's the current standard, isn't it?

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Kenja]

Yea... an accountant. He already said that.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's redundant.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[MiG82au]

Your usage couldn't be more wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, a lying accountant would be an oxymoron, as an accountant is usually known to be truthful, due to certifications taken to become an accountant. while he may not have actively passed his cpa certification etc, if you were to be an accountant, you wouldn't be a liar, as that isn't in the code of conduct, in the sense of the word. it's like an unfaithful lawyer, as a lawyer must be faithful to his client, else he would lose his own bar certification.

however, you calling it on usage, is saying that a shrimp couldn't be jumbo, because shrimp CAN be large, however, by the meaning of shrimp, an association with "jumbo" would be oxymoronic.

it's cool if i'm wrong, i'm knee deep in vodka, but hell, I'm pretty sure we all got his joke.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Black Parrot]

Yea... an accountant. He already said that.

To retread an old joke about politicians:

Q: How do you know an accountant is lying?

A: His pencil is moving.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[wmac1]

My question is that, how dare someone at a top position tell such a big lie? Aren't people supposed to provide a copy of their degrees when they get a job in USA?

Nowadays it is so easy to find out whether a degree is real or not. A simple email, online alumni lists ...

As an example of high profile fake degree owners, a few years ago Iranian interior minister was impeached and sacked by parliament for a fake degree: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/nov/04/oxforduniversity-highereducation-iran

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Greyfox]

Obviously not a very good one. He seems to be having trouble accounting for a CS degree...

Re:I would've went with accounting

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Wait... if a CEO lies, does that mean he's telling the truth?

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Billly Gates]

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!

Re:I would've went with accounting

[cowboy76Spain]

From what I have read, they don't need an accountig CEO neither. You would use him if there was something to count...

Re:I would've went with accounting

[outsider007]

Well I can't speak for you, I was just saying what I would've went with...

Re:I would've went with accounting

[schroedingers_hat]

Mu.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[TheRaven64]

Aren't people supposed to provide a copy of their degrees when they get a job in USA?

Not sure about the USA, but I've only ever been asked to prove my qualifications once, and that was when I got a short-term job at my old university. Apparently the data protection act means that they need my explicit permission for the HR department to ask academic records for a copy of my degree certificate. Everywhere else has just accepted it without any evidence. Presumably if I lied and then couldn't do the job, they'd check and prosecute me for fraud and then use that as an excuse for firing me.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[TheRaven64]

Good thing you didn't go with English...

Re:I would've went with accounting

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

Unfortunately a lot of CS soon to be grads are being fed the lies about "limited employability" of getting a graduate degree.

Things has changed. A truly competent IT leader should have a master's or PhD in CS/CPE combined with a MBA. That means he know his stuff well and can apply his knowledge into PROPERLY running a business. It is a powerful combination. Sadly not a lot of these folks around.

If you are truly concerned about limited employbility then you should have lined up with your drinking buddies back in the MBA program and start your next facebook.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[flyneye]

Theres no accounting for some people...

Re:I would've went with accounting

[flyneye]

Never underestimate the ability to convince others of fabricated facts, padded with fiction in order to improve your image.
Meet women, be the life of the party, impress a boardroom full of stockholders.
You could enter politics, sell cars, write ads, chair an activist cause, profess a field at a university, practice law, practice medicine, adjust insurance,preside over a bank. Most people are so busy with life they just take whatever you tell them as fact, so it is super UBER easy to sucker them.

Just close your eyes, imagine yourself in the situation you want, make up the background you would've had, enlist everything you know about the situation you want,put it in your resume' and pretend it is real. VIOLA! It's your story now stick to it. Be sure to discredit any detractors.

See it's easy and profitable to lie. So many people do it now, we are a planet of experts,authorities,doctors,astronauts and race car drivers.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Bigby]

How can you both miss the CEO of Google, Larry Page. BS Computer Engineering from Michigan and a Masters/PhD in Computer Science from Stanford.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[TheGratefulNet]

a great liar, too! when his lips move, he is lying.

"privacy is no longer reasonable; you citizens shouldn't be doing bad things anyway..."

etc.

what a tool! might have been smart once, but now all I see is lies and manipulation.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[ProfBooty]

Look overseas, in europe and asia it is much more common. In china it is becoming less common, though much of the government political class has technical degrees.

In the USA, it seems that the second generation of CEOs in tech companies lack tech degrees, and then the downhill slide begins.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[AngryDeuce]

Aren't people supposed to provide a copy of their degrees when they get a job in USA?

Of course, but the diligence on the part of the employer varies greatly, obviously. I've worked in entry-level brain dead retail jobs that required a drug screen, background check, and credit check first, whereas many of the degree'd positions around here barely do a background check at all. It's funny, but it seems that many places are more worried that the teenager may steal $20 out of their till, or if the minimum wage person they have answering phones smokes a joint from time to time, then they are about the people that actually have access to real sums of money or access to systems that they could really fuck up.

I always make it a point to check with my references after I get an offer someplace just to see what types of questions they were asked, and 90% of the time, they've never even been called. Next time I apply for a job I'm not too concerned about getting, I think I'm going to try and bury some easter eggs in my resume; like a certificate in underwater basket-weaving or 'bitchin' cup of coffee' certification, just to see if they even catch it.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[SecurityGuy]

My question is that, how dare someone at a top position tell such a big lie?

Seriously. It's appalling. He should be fired. Every company I've worked for has had a policy that falsifying your employment application information is grounds for termination. That should be even more so for high ranking positions. Who can do more harm to you by lying, the guy in the mail room, or the guy who runs the company?

Aren't people supposed to provide a copy of their degrees when they get a job in USA?

You mean like a copy of your diploma or something? No. I've never been asked to, anyway. I've never been asked to submit anything I'd call proof, but I assume companies can check on it. Actually, if I were the company doing the vetting, I don't want the employee providing the evidence. I'd just want you to sign a form that lets me request proof from your university directly. You might fake something up. They probably won't, unless you know someone in the academic records office.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Jawnn]

Problem is... running a business with the intent of producing goods and services in a profitable manner, long term, has become "out of fashion" in U.S. business. Treating IT as the key resource it would be in such a strategy is, in all seriousness, madness when you're focused on quarterly, or at most, yearly numbers.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Billly Gates]

That proves my point. Now compare that to HP and Yahoo? They dont understand what they even sell.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[b4dc0d3r]

Sadly, there are few people who have the luxury of completing two master's level degrees and optionally a doctorate.

What, no, that's just plain silly. In order for advanced degrees to have value, you have to work in the field, then either get the degree while working, or take time off work. Not right out of undergrad.

Your hypothetical monster combo is going to be 40 years old at a minimum in order to be of any value. You can get the degrees quickly, and then spend 5 years working before you really understand how it works.

Only your last line makes sense. Get the IT based degree, and partner with someone who has the business sense. The difference is, you are equal partners. Not the IT guy in the dungeon being told what to do. That is a powerful combination, two people who can complement each other. Not a single monstrosity who thinks he knows everything and has to consult no one.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[PeanutButterBreath]

My question is that, how dare someone at a top position tell such a big lie? Aren't people supposed to provide a copy of their degrees when they get a job in USA?

No.

Nor should they be, and nor should a degree be required in most cases. A degree proves very little about whether someone is suitable for a given job, and lack of a degree does not necessarily disqualify someone to do a job.

I am all for higher education. I think it is a great experience, and anyone who wants to pursue it should have the opportunity.

I also think that employers should be responsible for vetting applicants based on objective evaluations of relevant skills and experience.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[HornWumpus]

I worked at a place where they caught a degree fabricator.

The president of the company went office to office asking everyone 'what's the first derivative of 1/x?' (even CS majors should have enough math for this). If you couldn't answer HR started digging.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[davester666]

He's only off by one. It happens all the time in programming...

Re:I would've went with accounting

[Aqualung812]

Things has changed. A truly competent IT leader should have...

...a fucking clue what she is doing, degrees or not.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[oldmac31310]

Indeed. Of course he should have said 'what I would of went with'.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[TheRaven64]

Firing someone for not being good at their job requires some objective metric that they can't dispute in an unfair dismissal suit. It also typically requires a verbal followed by a written warning and all sorts of HR interaction. Firing someone for lying on their CV is a lot easier.

Re:I would've went with accounting

[yurtinus]

...Unless of course they say they have a particular degree. Then a bit of due diligence on the part of the hiring entity might be in order. Really, I'm right there with you: A person can be damn good at a job without needing a piece of paper that says so. But, they shouldn't be writing down degrees they haven't actually achieved.

Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[JoeMerchant]

Pathological disregard for others makes a more ruthless and efficient leader, isn't that what shareholders want?

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[siddesu]

Also, what is a computer scientist if not a bit and byte accountant? A virtual bean counter, so to speak. And considering the mess that is the tax law, the algorithms an accountant knows and uses may be more complex than anything Knuth can teach you.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Concerned Onlooker]

Yeah, but the only pattern he knows is producer-consumer.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[sg_oneill]

Yeah, but the only pattern he knows is producer-consumer.

The problem for yahoo though, is that google is the singleton.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[rtb61]

Well no really because of course that ruthless and efficient leader is all about ruthless and efficient salary, bonuses and of course golden parachute.

Ruthless and efficient thinking ie psychopathic thinking demands that those with the greatest resources make the most profitable victims, in this case it is the investors.

The pattern should be pretty obvious by now. Fudge the books to create the false illusion of high profits, ramp up salary and bonuses, make it look like you are doing something through acquisitions, mergers and, mass sackings. Make it all last as long as possible and try to avoid jail when you bail with your golden parachute just before the company goes belly up.

Modern CEO no qualifications required beyond excellence in PR=B$ (lies for profit).

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[slasho81]

Sure, but if that's what they want, they also want someone who can get away with it.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[lightknight]

There is some cross-over between accounting and computing. However, the main, and troubling difference, is that a SE / CS / IT person would know, almost instinctively, whether or not the vision he is pursuing is even remotely feasible, at least with regards to technological matters. That is, for those who are not SE / CS / IT people, an understatement. Especially for a technology company, which like or not, has its foundations sunk in technology.

The problem with someone who is not this experienced, unfortunately, is the pursuant of a vision that may be nothing more than a pipe-dream, even if you had the combined resources of MS, IBM, Google, and Intel / AMD all working as one. As such, a company may waste valuable resources on something which simply cannot be done at the moment. Like building a flying submarine, these ideas may eventually be possible, but the people involved will be instantly demoralized with the leadership taking such a, hmmm, difficult position.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[lightknight]

Hmm. And there in lies the problem.

An IT department may be viewed as stocking multiple redundancies, such RAID, backup servers, and let's be honest, a large inventory of computers parts that are not currently being used. Management, classically trained, will look at all those DVI and HDMI cables, and wonder why IT needs to many of them. So what do they do? Play the fools game by trying to measure the 'real' needs of IT, by cutting their budget, and making the manager of said vision beg for parts. They are not aware that those extra parts are kept on hand because it's more efficient, in the 'we are paying our employees an impressive hourly wage / salary, and it does us no good for them to continue to be paid for twiddling their thumbs while we wait a day or two for the parts they need to come in.' Someone will then offer to pick up said items from a local supplier who will, of course, noticing their immediate need, have the company paying good money for shite product. And when you factor in shipping costs, as well as the (very often) lower costs of ordering from an online supplier, it makes sense to order in bulk.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[mwvdlee]

Yes, but they also need him to be an excellent liar, and he obviously isn't.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Magada]

Interestingly enough, what you describe is a case of shitty cost accounting.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

If you surround yourself with people who are honest, understand Greek, and can speak in English, you can run a Greek company. Presidents don't know everything the government does, Deans don't know everything a university does, CEOs don't know everything a large company does. If you don't understand something about one proposed direction for the company, and you're smart, you learn as much as you can even though it's a different field, but more importantly you surround yourself with good people who DO understand it.

Lying to the shareholders should get him fired. But just not having a CS degree should not.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Amouth]

Like building a flying submarine

I propose a small submersible:
          That deploys a hot air balloon or some type of balloon to provide lift (much like a non rigid air ship)
          Has a prop with adjustable blade pitch so that it can provide thrust when both in water or in air (also might want a gear box that can offer the hi speed ratios needed for the air bit)
          That has longer than normal bow-planes to allow for effective steering in the air..

I'm confident that if someone wanted to they could build a flying submarine, but there is the inherent question of why the hell would you ever want to.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Amouth]

From what i have seen of what you described, that mostly happens because IT departments don't operate like they should, how many do you know have a storeroom? how many of them have actually do formal MRO? very very few.

If that Manager can show min/max, inventory levels, turns, and value for it then the bean counters are less likely to blindly cut it. How many IT departments have a budget? Most, out of them how many of them have a signed a up a Budget for maintaining vs operating vs improving? Very Few.

Play the game and do it right, and things will be easier with the bean counters, at the same time they will be easier inside your organization with the added structure. To often IT is viewed as a money pit rather than a cost/profit center. IT produces capacity for other customers to work, if you can't track that and show it and give an actual cost over Maintenance, Repair, and Operations for it then the people who give you the money are less likely to keep giving it. they only know they paid "X" and IT functioned, but they don't actually know what they paid for.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[CAIMLAS]

If that Manager can show min/max, inventory levels, turns, and value for it then the bean counters are less likely to blindly cut it. How many IT departments have a budget? Most, out of them how many of them have a signed a up a Budget for maintaining vs operating vs improving? Very Few.

We're at the point now where the "IT department" is 1 or 2 guys where it was previously 5-6, in many cases, or many IT groups have been outsourced to managed services. "Virtualization makes it easy", to a degree. At least that's the mindset.

Sorry, but when you're one person maintaining a fleet of aging equipment (say, for 200 users) which will maybe or maybe not need a new $15 video card, a $10 ethernet card, $50 in RAM, or a $30 power supply, the cost justification isn't there. We're basically talking about someone getting anal about how many legal pads and pencils a person has on their desk. And in this sort of organization, my experience is that no amount of justification and explanation of cost/benefit analysis will cause the powers-that-be realize "yes, it's a good idea to have spare parts" (aside from fully-functional systems sitting around).

This is a concept quite easily understood in other industries. Surveying companies, road crews, etc. which need a fleet of vehicles keep spare filters, oil, and other commonly worn out parts/pieces (assuming they do their own work); very few actually account for these things short of "we're running out" because it's not worth the time, and they realize they need those parts to keep things running.

Granted, with a larger shop I can see this not being the case, but by "larger" I think you'd need an IT staff of at least 15 people to justify it (or, say, around 1500 employees).

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Amouth]

I agree that you would not go into the same detail for a small company because your right it doesn't make sense.. buy my comment is in the perspective that we are in a thread started via a discussion about Yahoo, and i can tell you that in large organizations IT is still treated and ran as if it was a small company from the view that they are producing capacity. In most large organizations they are viewed as a service center and a money pit, when you get into conversations about bean counters you normally are not thinking about a 1-2 man shop.

when it comes to the 1-2 man shops you should still be doing budgeting, you should still be planning and evaluating solutions for total life cycle costs. It isn't that time consuming and it is extremely valuable information to have and to work within.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Cederic]

How many IT departments have a storeroom? Every single one.

How many "do formal MRO"? Well, if "formal MRO" were worth doing, many would. I disagree with you on that front.

There are many ways a company can internally recharge its IT costs, recognise IT driven revenue, and manage its internal budgets. Formal MRO might work at your organisation but there are other, better approaches.

Oh, and stop calling them "bean counters" or you sound ignorant and bigoted.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Amouth]

say every department has a storeroom is the same as saying everyone does planning even for emergency work, which while true isn't what you want.

And formal MRO is very much worth doing, as that is what IT departments do for both hardware and software. how many projects to you see go through were to cost to maintain the software/hardware is an after the fact though? How many budgets do you see go through that are mainly based on what we spent last year? If your living in that world and the accountants want to change your funding it's difficult for you to give concrete answers as to what it will cost them in production availability. It's the difference between knowing I spent X and things ran last year and knowing i spent X and I got A & B & C. When they know the cost of A & B & C then they can adjust funding based on returns for that portion of the department and the product they produce vs cost cutting across the board.

Also as for Storerooms/Inventory for a Large IT Group, there is big money to be had there, we have gotten lucky that the IRS lets the company do full cost write offs on the purchases rather quickly and allows companies to set arbitrary numbers on when something is a tracked asset. I don't think IT will continue to get a free ride for long, and if they want to be efficient they really do need to start tracking it and showing what is producing and what isn't.

And i do apologize for the "bean counters" i don't catch my self using it, but it is almost universally understood as accounting with a focus of reducing costs at any cost.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Cederic]

Asset management is important - although amortisation rates tend to be dictated by the Finance department anyway (or by regulators). Capturing maintenance overheads is usually not the issue, realising that systems (software, hardware, other infrastructure) are assets that need maintenance tends to be the issue.

Annual licence renewal/support costs are easily budgeted, but few companies will budget for the maintenance overhead on software updates and upgrades. Adopting MRO traceability sidesteps the implicit architectural debt of neglecting a software installation, and IT and Finance departments are both very bad at understanding that, let alone convincing senior management to allocate funding for it or prioritising where to spend those budgets.

None of which is on topic :)

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Amouth]

off topic the the root story, on topic to lightknight's post

And i'd have to disagree that doing "Adopting MRO traceability sidesteps the implicit architectural debt of neglecting a software installation" it is less of a sidestep and more of way to actually start controlling it and realize parts of your organization. MRO is not just storeroom and inventory, while that is a large portion it is "All actions which have the objective of retaining or restoring an item in or to a state in which it can perform its required function. The actions include the combination of all technical and corresponding administrative, managerial, and supervision actions." Traditionally it is only applied to things that are purely physical but the principles and methods can be applied to software, business processes, and their underlying infrastructure. It would only be a side step if you only did MRO for the hardware portion of what your IT department does.

and as you see to be making a call back to the "topic" i say we tar and feather him and drag him through the streets, saying he's a CS major when he's really an accountant, it's a wolf in sheep's clothing..

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[bzipitidoo]

Who should be responsible for tracking IT's cost/benefit ratio? The IT people, or the finance people (aka. "bean counters") and/or management? Mind you, that's tracking, not making the decisions. The decisions should be constrained but not dictated by costs, and IT should have a bigger say than accounting.

IT takes a lot of expertise. You don't want your very expensive DBA, system admin, network admin, or software engineer, doing any more accounting than absolutely necessary. If finance people cost more to employ, then it would make sense to require the IT people do their own accounting. On the other hand, if it's a small enough shop that the handful of IT people needed have a fair amount of downtime, then maybe they should do their own accounting.

Re:Doesn't that make him a better CEO?

[Amouth]

It's your IT Manager's job to track his department, this includes costs. One big thing i see missing from IT shops is a lack of tracking of the actual work done. A lot of work gets done that never gets tracked, maybe because it is considered trivial or quick, but you can't manage what you can't track. 100% work time accounting is a necessity if you want to truly be able to improve your effectiveness and efficiency, too often people view that as micro managing or feel it will be used against them (and understandably so because it has happened before) but only a fool of a manager would do that.

At each level of a work force there is information that is available and useful, to them and to other levels, only by identifying them and putting a process in place for the transfer of this information and the training of everyone involved can you do it quickly and efficiently and get what you need when you need it with out the increased work load everyone fears when they here "track what you do". You would be surprised do when you start going through it with people that 80-90% of the information you need is already being captured by someone at some point because they thought it was "useful" but they have squirreled it away for some reason or another.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:So?

[J Story]

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.

Re:So?

[Black Parrot]

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.

Re:So?

[houstonbofh]

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...

Re:So?

[solarissmoke]

Meaning it is obvious that an accounting degree would contribute much to skills as a CEO?

Re:So?

[wvmarle]

Depending on the job at hand, it's certainly true. One of the major things of having a degree is that it proves you have a certain learning capability, and self discipline to get it done. And after a few years, degrees count less and less, as actual job experience takes over.

Though especially the more technical fields where the actual background/scientific knowledge counts it's not "just any" degree that will land you such a job.

Besides, I'm used to employers taking a resume for granted, and not doing much of checking (as long as the whole thing makes sense). Yet for a CEO function I'd expect a bit more of background checks being done. A simple call to the university the person says to have graduated from would suffice to confirm he actually has that degree. Or not, in this case.

Re:So?

[Lershac]

more its an indication that one can learn what is necessary to accomplish a goal, interact with others (unlikely a sociopath), exhibit determination and patience, and learn somewhat independently.

A college degree signifies that you possess a basic group of skills that are found useful in most business. A specific degree indicates you can probably take a decent whack at accomplishing something in your field, and are prepared with the basic knowledge to learn how its really done out in the actual world.

It decreases the RISK to a company that they have made a bad hire, which is why its used as a criteria. Like it or not, by and large it works.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're badly ill, do you go to the guy who has a degree in treating illnessess? Why?

Re:So?

[Mitreya]

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.

Re:So?

[SteveFoerster]

Yes, because it means you'd understand your firm's financial statements, which is more important for a CEO than understanding the code its programmers write.

Re:So?

[Sir_Sri]

Depends on the job. If you start into project management rather than being a product developer or programmer it's easier to hide that you don't have a CS degree, or even demonstrate that it doesn't. He's also from an agegroup where a lot of people migrated into computer science work from other completely unrelated fields. One of our profs here who is a CS instructor has all of his formal training in business, but that was as close as his school came to CS in the 1980's. Seriously.

A degree doesn't just show you posses basic group skills, nor are those skills necessarily useful in business. In fact, to the contrary, a lot of degrees don't teach you useful skills to business, and that's why they are paid less than college/tradeschool diplomas. A degree makes you an inexperienced professional in your area. If you need to work in a different area (for example of you have a degree in psychology, english or art history, which are the most oversupplied graduates around here) you haven't demonstrated an aptitude in computer science or any of the more technical programmes.

Remember, this is a guy born in 58. That means he probably went to school around 76 -80. Back then a LOT of places didn't have CS degrees, and what they did offer grew out of another department. Technically my MSc which in practice was CS (thesis on GPU ray tracing) is the same degree as people in geology, physics, chemistry, maths, and psychology from my school, because some idiot put them all in the same programme and degree name. In 1980 your degree and your ability to do CS means a lot less than a degree in CS would represent today. It's not that the training is necessarily a whole lot better, just that you simply couldn't supply enough, so someone who took the only 2 CS courses offered would be the most CS trained person available. Which is why we had two decades of clusterfucks in technology of security problems left and right, massively inefficient implementations that hung around long past their lifetimes etc.

Re:So?

[1stpreacher]

Because the government tells me I can choose no other person?

Re:So?

[TapeCutter]

"Look! I can sit in a classroom and waste my money! Doesn't this automatically mean I'm good enough to do the job!?"

As opposed to; "To be blunt I'm special, you'll just have to trust me on that because I can't be bothered jumping through your hoops just to convince you that your own degree is worthless. When do I start?"

Re:So?

[lightknight]

And as the Chief Executive Officer, what happens when he asks the programmers to execute his vision, with no idea whether it's even possible?

Let's be honest, asking programmers to do something they know is idiotic is an easy way to convert them all to saboteurs.

Re:So?

[lightknight]

Yes and no. You typically wouldn't ask a Computer Scientist to appraise a painting, so why would you ask an Art Historian to come up with a new program to bolster the company's fortune?

 

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Yes it matters. He committed fraud. Whether or not it worked out he denied the people who chose him the right to consider him based on his actual qualifications. There is a lot of money at stake.

Do you think a society in which everyone is permitted to lie on their resume without consequences is a good idea. Leaving aside for a moment jobs where practicing without a qualification is strictly illegal and a criminal offence (doctor, pilot etc) consider what would happen if everyone started lying. Imagine the cost of verifying every qualification, not to mention the privacy issues.

Re:So?

[solarissmoke]

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.

Re:So?

[tibit]

Most of the graduate curricula can be finished without much interaction with non-students. If you're enterprising, doing undergrad while avoiding group projects can also be pulled off. At least in grad school I had rather poor luck with project mates. In undergrad it was 2 bad out of three, but one guy was very good. Only two group projects in undergrad, yay!

Re:So?

[XiaoMing]

Actually, it's more of an indication of how unqualified so many of the board members are today.

Much of the top-level execs in companies are there because of old boys' networks and mutual backscratching (VC's only willing to fund if you let them replace half of your board with their buddies, etc.) GM pre-bailout was an extreme with its almost corporate inbreeding, but it's true for just about every CO today.

Re:So?

[chrismcb]

Every time it comes up, lots of people (myself included) always say that you just need a degree

And so the question is... do you really need a degree?

Re:So?

[thoughtsatthemoment]

Perhaps you got hired in the first place was because the one who hired you also lied on his/her resume or had other indiscretion. And you might have looked away from others' dishonesty because of your own flaw. This is how corruption starts and when push becomes shovel, the power struggle can get really weird. Lying on the resume about degrees is rampant among Chinese communists and they have twisted the concept of respect into something not based on achievement, but on covering each others' lies. Believe me, you wouldn't want to live in that kind of culture.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it REALLY matter?

If you or I had been caught the sanction would be immediate termination.

So yes, it does matter.

Re:So?

[Billly Gates]

Great he knows numbers.

How does he get those numbers? You can do magic and sell your assets for only so long. You need people to make your product, market it, and then outwitt your competition. A CS degree mixed with IT experience shows what it takes to maange a project, the challenges involved, and how to make vision.

Re:So?

[wmac1]

Does it matter if it appears that someone is a lair or not? The discussion here is about honesty not the degree this person holds.

If he had told he has a degree in accounting and the company hired him it would not matter (at least in regards to this discussion). But he lied about his degree. He can easily lie about everything else or perform other unethical actions.

Re:So?

[Fzz]

Or maybe it's an indication that 28 years of experience post-degree is more relevant than the degree itself.

The same may not be true if you've recently graduated.

Re:So?

[Tuan121]

We are modding people insightful for saying it's OK to lie as long as you can get away with it?

Whatever floats your boat, slashdot...

Re:So?

[foniksonik]

Demonstrated knowledge counts for a lot in my hiring methodology. A degree makes talking to HR about salary requirements easier but not insurmountable. I currently manage a team of ten and have hired ~30 in my career.

Re:So?

[himself]

>
> ...they weren't really that concerned about his credentials.
>

      Especially if they come from Stone Hill. It's a pretty enough campus -- the Sheep Meadow is especially nice -- but I didn't realize they were producing corporate titans out there in Easton, Mass.

Re:So?

[SteveFoerster]

I understand what you're saying here, and for a smaller organization I might agree, but we're talking about Yahoo!, which is (still) large enough that the CEO shouldn't be dealing with the programmers directly.

Re:So?

[SteveFoerster]

I suppose I can't reasonably disagree with that. And having worked in higher education for ten years, I know better than most how poor the relationship can be between having a degree and actually knowing anything. I hope it didn't come across that I think it's okay this particular guy is a liar, because I don't.

Re:So?

[DarkOx]

It matters because it encourages uttering specifically and dishonesty in general. It sends the message that you to could be one of the 1% if just lie often enough.

I think its harmful to let such blatant false claims go unpunished. Everyone exaggerates from time to time or stretches the truth. There is a bright line somewhere where you move from matters of interpretation to contradiction of fact. He might of said "I studied computer science while at college" which would be okay. Most of us would assume that means he was in CS program. If we don't ask any followup questions and its later revealed what that means is he leafed thru his roommate's text books once; that is our problem. If he says "I have a degree in Computer Science" when he does not that is a strait up lie.

Do you really want to live in a society where the rule is you cannot trust the veracity of specific statements made by people? Do you want to have to get every document notarized? Do you want to have to carry your diploma to every job interview? Force merchants to photo copy your ID every time you write a check?

Its better to enforce punitive action like immediate termination on people who do these things so the rest of us can afford each other some minimal level of trust, knowing that unless someone has a reason to be deceitful, they are most likely being more or less honest as there could be negative consequences if the lie is discovered which they would seek to avoid through honesty.

Re:So?

[BootysnapChristAlive]

I don't think that's a very good analogy. First, much more is at risk when you allow people without degrees to be doctors. Second of all, I suspect it's far more difficult to teach yourself how to be a doctor than it is to teach yourself to be, for instance, a programmer (or something else). There is no easy way to get that experience without training.

Re:So?

[Bigby]

CS isn't about code. CS is about finding efficient solutions to problems through innovative algorithms. It is about thinking outside the box. A CS degree would make an excellent CEO.

Re:So?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

And there's the rub. Someone intelligent and capable is more likely to make a CEO than someone with a degree. (There are other character traits one needs, of course, and a good team is as important). But the evidence strongly suggests that this person lied about his degree to the shareholders, which is not okay. He will take a while to live this down. But that's okay, because he's filthy, filthy rich.

Re:So?

[shiftless]

He committed fraud.

He did what he had to do to get ahead. Nobody checked his credentials and he slipped through for years.

Sorry, I'm siding with the winner (him, and the woman who found him out) vs your buddies, the losers (i.e. anyone who was fooled by his lie.)

Whether or not it worked out he denied the people who chose him the right to consider him based on his actual qualifications.

So? So basically, your argument is they should fire him because they're butt-hurt? Is he doing the damn job he's supposed to be doing, or not? If no, then yeah, here's a great opportunity to get rid of his ass. If yes......WHY the fuck would firing him be a good idea?

There is a lot of money at stake.

Then why would you fire someone for such a meaningless trivial thing as "he fooled me, and made me look embarassed, and now I'm butt-hurt over it"?

Do you think a society in which everyone is permitted to lie on their resume without consequences is a good idea.

Do you think a company ruining its bottom line over what basically amounts to a trivial and stupid thing is a good idea?

Leaving aside for a moment jobs where practicing without a qualification is strictly illegal and a criminal offence (doctor, pilot etc)

...hairstylist, etc.

Yeah, everybody and their mom have to get their cut in the form of licensing fees and certifications....which is the exact reason our economy is such shit today.

All of this bullshit bureaucracy should be permanently abolished. Hell, our Founding Fathers *tried*, but we just couldn't listen. If I trust a doctor, I will allow him to give me medical treatment. If I don't, I won't. Some worthless scrap of paper hanging on his wall changes nothing. Giving it the force and weight of law also changes nothing and really just makes things worse in the end.

consider what would happen if everyone started lying.

Started? Wow.....you are really displaying your naivete now. I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, but ....... People lie all the time, about much more important and serious things than the words printed on a scrap of paper they received from some worthless institution.

If you live your life believing in things just because someone insists it's so, then you're.....to put it simply and mildly.......a moron who will sooner or later be bent over the table and fucked hard and raw by an opportunist or The Powers That Be. The only solution to this is education, not crying for Big Brother to hold your hand.

Imagine the cost of verifying every qualification, not to mention the privacy issues.

Yes. The cost of being a moron (i.e. expecting a random scrap of paper to tell you anything worthwhile about a person) is often quite high.

Re:So?

[AngryDeuce]

And as the Chief Executive Officer, what happens when he asks the programmers to execute his vision, with no idea whether it's even possible?

You could ask Steve Jobs, if he wasn't dead...

Re:So?

[AngryDeuce]

Do you really want to live in a society where the rule is you cannot trust the veracity of specific statements made by people?

Conversely, how naive do you have to be to automatically take people at their word these days?

As Dr. House says, everybody lies. Go read your average resume and there is so much bullshit being shoved into every nook and cranny you ought to be wearing hip-waders as you go through it. That's what happens when the economy gets shitty and a single opening results in hundreds of resumes...people start doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to make even their 6 months as a cashier at McDonald's while they were in school sound like some grandiose career. "Cashier, you say? Oh no, I was a 'Computer Cash Register Specialist'." Janitor? Try 'Certified Custodial Technician'."

Re:So?

[shiftless]

Do you really want to live in a society where the rule is you cannot trust the veracity of specific statements made by people?

We already do.

Do you want to have to get every document notarized? Do you want to have to carry your diploma to every job interview? Force merchants to photo copy your ID every time you write a check?

What good would that do? Talk about a non sequitur. Your last example demonstrates why you're wrong: a) checks are stupid...you do know they invented debit cards now? b) it's up to the cashier/business to determine whether to accept the check, based on their GUT INSTINCT...not based on some worthless scrap of paper.

Re:So?

[E_Ron.Eous]

In other words, being a fraud is OK as long as you don't get caught?

Re:So?

[E_Ron.Eous]

All a degree proves is that you completed the course work. When it comes down to it, if you'll lie about a degree to get in the door, you'll lie about anything to stay inside.

Re:So?

[Cederic]

I've lied on my resume to get an interview and eventually the job.

Ah. A fraudster.

I've also interviewed people who had obviously lied on their resume, but they sounded smart enough and enthusiastic enough to pick up the lacking skills, so I've given them the job

Ah. A fraudster that recruits fraudsters.

Please, tell me where you work? I'd like to avoid your company and its products.

Re:So?

[DarkOx]

House is right but its not the "rule".

I suspect if your recorded all of your personal interactions for a week, and verified the truthfulness of each statement made by those where were strangers to you when the statement was made; you'd see most people are honest. The number would probably even be more favorable toward honesty if you include statements made by people you know.

At least here in American *most* of what people tell me is either true or correct to the best of their understanding. I am not naive, I know *much* of what I hear does contain lies and omissions. Still most of us are able to safely navigate day to day life using the "unless I have some reason to think otherwise, or the risk is high, default trust" algorithm.

When someone tells you the road is closed three miles ahead, I'd like to be able to take them at their word rather than do a 6 mile round trip to confirm for myself.

Re:So?

[Cederic]

He did what he had to do to get ahead.

He committed fraud. If I were a Yahoo shareholder I'd be demanding that he be prosecuted.

People lie all the time, about much more important and serious things than the words printed on a scrap of paper they received from some worthless institution.

And when they gain financial advantage for doing so, they're committing a crime in this country. For good reason.

All of this bullshit bureaucracy should be permanently abolished.

I'm cool with that. If you're good enough to be a CEO, the type of your degree is frankly fucking irrelevant. So point that out to the people recruiting for the position. Don't lie about it.

Re:So?

[Chuckstar]

As an employer you wouldn't care if your employees are lying to you as long as they get the job done? No wonder business ethics in the U.S. is in the shitter.

Re:So?

[lightknight]

And why not? At MS, an arguably more successful company than Yahoo, Bill Gates was known for inviting programmers into the meeting room, so he could understand what they were doing. And if they were pursuing a waste of company resources, he'd give them an earful.

And Gates was / is a programmer. Lacked the degree (at the time), but still had the skill-set to know when someone was pursuing a detrimental path.

Re:So?

[AngryDeuce]

Well, of course; I'll parse any statement through a motivation filter before I decide on whether or not I take it at face value or not. A perfect stranger telling me the road is out 3 miles ahead has no discernible reason to lie to me at all, unless he just feels like being a jerk-off (an extremely remote possibility). When it comes to something like a resume, however, there is a shit load of motivation to try and pad that as much as possible and come as close as possible to the point of incredulity without going over.

Honestly, the way I look at it, the harder someone is trying to sell me on something, be it an idea, a product, whatever, the more I distrust what they're telling me and more likely I am to discount it until I can independently verify their claims. I admit, it's led to arguments in my personal life (especially as regards political ideology, which is all but impossible to discuss without one person trying to "sell" the idea to the other) but at the same time, the fact that I don't take much at face value has garnered respect from my peers as well. The difficulty lies in the implications of my distrust...all too often, people look at it as a negative reflection on them as a person, but I don't necessarily see it that way. I don't doubt that they may believe whatever it is they're telling me, but beliefs != facts. The problem is making someone understand that just because I may not totally believe what they're telling me, I don't think they're a lying asshole. All too often, people equate one with the other, and that's not true at all in my estimation of a person. I mean, if that was enough to immediately write someone off, I wouldn't associate with any religious people whatsoever.

Of course, there's the argument that in order to "keep the peace", we should all just smile and nod and accept the white lies and exaggerations of others so that we can safely tell our own white lies and exaggerations, but I've never subscribed to that idea, either, because honestly, I think we have enough Emperor's New Clothes bullshit going on in the world today that a little extra scrutiny at the expense of harmony would go a long way towards keeping the most egregious purveyors of this nonsense honest (or deservedly ostracized).

Re:So?

[lightknight]

I'm fairly certain Jobs was a programmer (checking Wikipedia, he did a fair amount of work with Woz on circuit boards...); at which point, he already knew whether or not his vision, based off of past experience, was remotely feasible. His methods, while they worked, also caused many of those programmers to burn out very quickly.

Re:So?

[SteveFoerster]

Jobs did that too, I suppose. But I wouldn't do that. A CEO is extremely expensive and only has only so many hours in a day. There are managers whose job it is to oversee software development. A CEO shouldn't waste his own valuable time undermining those managers' authority by doing their job for them without having complete information, not to mention that if programmers are working on the wrong thing it's probably not their fault in the first place.

I'm not saying it's irrelevant whether the CEO of a tech company has a tech background, I agree that's a good thing. But at that level, that's not his job any more. Either he can trust the people whose job it really is, or else the company has bigger problems that a tech background won't help solve.

Re:So?

[frig.neutron]

Does the leader of a country need to know how all the mechanisms that run the country operate?

No. Leaders hire experts.

Re:So?

[elsurexiste]

...if his employers aren't smart enough or care enough to verify they weren't really that concerned about his credentials.

Actually, they noticed because a stakeholder who was looking for a skeleton in the closet found out. I guess they don't give a damn, but if he's a chronic liar, maybe they won't trust him enough in the future, will they?

firstly

[NemoinSpace]

Now that everyone realizes he's not an IT guy, he'll probably ask for a raise.

Re:firstly

[crafty.munchkin]

... and get it.

Re:firstly

[houstonbofh]

Or go into law... I mean selling a lie that well, he would make a fantastic lawyer!

Re:firstly

[lightknight]

This may be too early, but didn't you hear? He has a law degree -> it's say so right there on his resume.

Re:firstly

[Yogs]

Now that everyone realizes he's not an IT guy, he'll probably ask for a raise.

There was a lovely mug capturing that sentiment displayed prominently by a (very successful) sales guy the last place I worked. "MBA: when you BS can't take you any farther."

Except here it was the BS that got street cred??? He didn't get or even claim to get an MBA that I can tell. Maybe it's not the degree holding me back, maybe I suck (or just don't know how to lie well enough).

Reminds me of Disney

[Grayhand]

"Investigation from an activist shareholder revealed that his degree was actually in accounting" Back when I worked for Disney we called Eisner that guy from accounting, it's actually a Berke Breathed quote we borrowed. It's amazing how many of these supposed CEOs are glorified accountants. Kind of explains the whole lack of imagination in big business.

Re:Reminds me of Disney

[Black Parrot]

It's amazing how many of these supposed CEOs are glorified accountants.

In our takeover-squeeze-discard corporate culture, it's the auditors that thrive.

Re:Reminds me of Disney

[hey!]

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.

Re:Reminds me of Disney

[TubeSteak]

The *really* good accountants I've known also understand something important, which is the limitations of their discipline.

For a creative accountant, there aren't really any limits to the discipline.
See: Google, Apple, and Greece as recent examples

Re:Reminds me of Disney

[Tom]

Actually, my experience with actual CPA's has been that they're a pleasure to work with.

Good people in any area are a pleasure to work with. Saddly, there aren't all that many. I've enjoyed working against real pros more than working with average run-of-the-mill people.

Re:Reminds me of Disney

[dbc]

In general, you can divide the world into people who solve problems and people who execute instructions. Accounting is a problem solving profession. Bookkeeping is instruction execution. People who know how to analyze and solve problems, no matter what their discipline, are good to work with. Also, the clear thinking that goes with problem solving tends to be portable across disciplines.

I think what you have described are CPA's with excellent and portable problem solving skills. You must have been working a a company that knew how to hire the right people.

Re:Reminds me of Disney

[Cederic]

Creative accountancy is excellent fun. It was so nearly my career; good accountants pull the strings of a business.

Instead I went into IT and earned less, had less influence, and only had a little more fun. So these days I tell the accountants how to structure IT :)

One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[caywen]

If you can get to the top ranks of a tech company without a CS degree, it's almost like a big FU to all of us that do hold CS degrees. I've always was kind of awed by people I work with that understand everything I do about technology and even CS concepts but don't have a degree. It's humbling and enlightening. Despite being 10x harder, a BSCS is kind of treated like a liberal arts degree these days. It's something to be personally proud of, but it seems to hold no real weight on ones resume. At least, that's how it seems.

So, IMO that makes it an even bigger red flag when someone claims to have such a degree when they don't. It speaks to me of true cluelessness.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[CryptDemon]

I dunno about you, but my CS degree got me over 50k a year graduating. Hardly think your average liberal arts major is making even half that.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[msauve]

" I've always was kind of awed by people I work with that understand everything I do about technology and even CS concepts but don't have a degree. "

Let me guess. You majored in CS because there wasn't an English requirement.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Black Parrot]

If you can get to the top ranks of a tech company without a CS degree, it's almost like a big FU to all of us that do hold CS degrees.

Not really. It has long been known that there's a glass ceiling for *any* technical skill (programmer, chemist, etc.), and that the only way to rise above a certain level is to switch to management.

If you want to rise to the top, any degree that gets your foot in the door will suffice. Then switch to management as soon as you can.

Study CS if you want to do technical stuff instead of climb the company ladder.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[xQx]

I did an MBA rather than a CS degree because an MBA doesn't have a math requirement.

true story.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[luis_a_espinal]

Because of the degree or because of your skills?

Most likely both, and the later being (to a great degree) a function of the former. Skills do not occur in a vacuum but in a educational context (be it ad hoc or academic).

Difficult to know.

No. It is not.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[joocemann]

MBA is also the easiest postbac related degree on earth.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[JWSmythe]

    Good, then I gave a big FU to those of you who hold CS degrees. Over the last 15 years, a few titles I've held have been "Sr. SysAdmin", "Director of IT", and "Chief Information Officer".

    Honestly, you can't claim that a piece of paper makes you any better or worse than another candidate. When I've hired or authorized hiring, the primary qualification is "Can this candidate do the job better than the other candidates, within the constraints of the position?" The constraints being salary and other incentives.

    I've known some people who the only thing they have to show is their degree. I've known others who have actually learned the desired field, and can do it well. I've also seen many people who have great degrees who struggle in very low positions.

    As for the piece of paper being worthless, many are. To show this, I purchased a very official looking Doctorate, which had contacts that would confirm the fact that I earned the degree, and many people who tried to research it couldn't find anything to say it was just a worthless piece of paper. I won't ever claim that I actually earned the degree. I use it as an example of how you cannot trust user provided credentials without verification.

    If you are a candidate interviewing with me or any of my subordinates, you had better show that you have the skills required to accomplish the tasks in the position. Saying little more than "I have a degree in this, hire me!" will only get you an invitation to leave the premises.

    If you are hired, and you continually voice your opinion that you are better than your superiors who don't have degrees, you will find yourself dismissed for insubordination. Expect that anywhere.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Concerned Onlooker]

This is my favorite post of the day.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[ArsonSmith]

This is true of any technical ability. You can only increase your productivity so much as an individual. At some point you have to be able to direct/motivate/drive multiple people to accomplish higher productivity. Even the best widget maker in the factory can't produce as many widgets as we well run team of people producing widgets.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Anonymous Coward]

dude -- you get a CS degree in FOUR YEARS. After that, you go to work for ten to twenty years. After a short time the first four years aren't that important.

The fact that Scott is a liar and let people think he had degrees that he did not earn is a real sign of his character and how he behaves when he thinks nobody is looking.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[myowntrueself]

I have an Arts degree majored in computer science. What happened was that I started off with philosophy, got hooked on logic and ended up studying things like the mathematical foundations of computer science, algorithmic information theory etc. I was kind of shocked when I realised I had enough credits from the computer science papers to qualify for my degree... I'd been worried that I hadn't enough philosophy papers.

Turns out you can get an Arts degree majored in a Science subject. Who'd have thunk it?

So am I an artistic scientist or a scientific artist?

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> If you want to rise to the top

The cream floats to the top...but so do dead fish.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[mortonda]

Not really. It has long been known that there's a glass ceiling for *any* technical skill (programmer, chemist, etc.), and that the only way to rise above a certain level is to switch to management.

If you can't do it, teach. If you can't teach, get into management. If you can't manage, run for office. :D

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[caywen]

Lucky guess.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[lightknight]

Yes, but in the scenarios you are referring to, they have the skill-set, minus the piece of paper.

What do you do if they have neither the skill-set, nor the piece of paper, but are placed into the position of handling those who have either or both?

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[TapeCutter]

Very easy for me to know. I dropped out of HS and worked for 15yrs as an "unskilled" labourer. I signed up to a CS degree at age 29 beacuse I liked programming as a hobby and the employment ads showed salries for a 40hr 9-5 week were ~4X what I was earning on a 60hr rotating shift. There was now way in hell I would have got my foot in the door at such an oppurtune time in the software industry without that piece of paper, I know because I tried the few ads that didn't specify a degree. I figure I'm about $1,500,000 better of over those 20yrs and that's going by a monthly rate, an hourly rate puts me even further ahead. Of course YMMV, but that's life.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[lightknight]

Or you could study CS, and start your own company with you at the top.

If you're working at a place where there's a glass ceiling, but a place which cannot exist without people like you, then you're in the company of idiots.

Sadly, I've seen a few companies run like this. Typically, the founders had technical degrees, or if they had business degree, they minored in an appropriate technical field (so they could understand what everyone else was saying, without hand-holding). A generation or two later, marketing is running the show, with the techs being treated like sharecroppers working on mastah's fields. Why does this always seem to happen? The techs focus on skills that are useful, while the marketing people focus on being liked. So when a vote comes down to install the next CxO, the most charismatic, but somewhat clueless person, with lots of 'spunk' is chosen. And what's good for marketing is typically not good for HR, Legal, Accounting, or Tech.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[lightknight]

"At some point you have to be able to direct/motivate/drive multiple people to accomplish higher productivity." -> And that's the problem, right there. Management doesn't 'get' tech, or the people who are techs. I am going to paraphrase from Discworld (Small Gods) here, and say that some people are like sheep, and need to be driven; others are like goats, and need to be lead. There is a world of difference in the approaches here.

And like it or not, trying to manage programmers is like trying to herd cats. They respond best if you have an architect who actually knows what he or she is doing, someone who leads by example, by being in the trenches with them, rather than directing orders from on high.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[lightknight]

Logic is a science. Good logic is an art. ;-)

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[tibit]

But what if the hired person actually is better than said superiors? Put up and shut up or else, because the king enjoys being naked as long as no one says it out loud? Perhaps people would be well advised to stay away from you :(

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[tibit]

Vi Hart is a mathemusician, so you'd be in good company :)

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Starteck81]

The guys in marketing usually have more sway with management, than the technical group, because they are better communicators/manipulators. If the technical teams understood as much about how the average business leader thinks and communicates, as the marketing team does, then they wouldn't loose quite as much.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Bigby]

A doctor, especially a specialist, has a "technical skill" and they don't seem to be hitting a ceiling. If the specialists move into management, they'll take a pay cut.

And everyone needs to separate CS from programming. Although knowledge of CS helps in programming, CS is more about algorithmic analysis, which is more important in AI, high performance systems, high availability, real-time systems, and computing breakthroughs than writing code.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[DaFallus]

I'm finishing up my MBA this week, and my program required at least one statistics course. The amount of math you run into also depends on your area of focus. I've been focusing more on the business modeling and data mining side, both of which require a fair amount of math knowledge.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Shatrat]

Obligatory XKCD http://xkcd.com/1050/

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[Cederic]

The irony.

"Sr. Developer", "Director of Software Development", and "Chief Technology Officer."

All roles that have fuck all to do with computer science. Give me a good software engineer for the first one, a technically proficient man-manager for the second and a diligent technically proficient business manager for the last one.

Computer scientists? They have their uses, but it's their other skills I'd tend to hire them for.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[lightknight]

"The guys in marketing usually have more sway with management, than the technical group, because they are better communicators/manipulators." -> which is a summary, albeit more concise, of what I just wrote.

"If the technical teams understood as much about how the average business leader thinks and communicates, as the marketing team does, then they wouldn't loose quite as much." -> In life, and in reality, you can only do one thing well at a time; you can do two things at the same time, but not as well. As such, a choice needs to be made here, and it takes some quiet meditation to make the right one; you can have your engineers, scientists, programmers et al. engaged in the usual skulduggery, interoffice politics, and brown-nosing games that many businesses engage in; or you can free them from that unnecessary burden, and allow them to focus their full attention on the problems and tasks at hand. The latter choice, by the way, provides more revenue and profit to both the company and shareholders, over the long term. Additionally, if and when it comes time to spin-off a division, the spin-off will typically have the technology and understanding to dominate their market. That's right, a spin-off that provides more fiscal opportunities than the initial IPO; you'll notice we haven't had many of those lately.

Now, my words may sound rather coarse to those who are used to yes-men and lapdogs breathlessly engaged in a prolonged version of the Sycophant Special Olympics; however, if you allow a moment to reflect on them, you may find that they are firmly supported by the pillars of reason and the historical performance of the firms that chose one method or the other has been reflected on the markets & other areas.

tldr; Shooting the messengers may ensure the message, when it finally does arrive, sounds more pleasant to the ear, but at the cost of its accuracy.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[oblio_one]

LOL, I was getting paid that straight out of high school on a level 1 support job.

Few years later, performing third level support sitting on just under 90k no Uni degree.

Let's suppose (based on my anec-data ) that one could be making 120K after a few years out of school with a Uni degree.

At 133% your wage it will take roughly 12 years to make up the lost income one could have earned by going straight into level 1 support. If planning to retire at age 34 you're "LOL" is definitely warranted, as school was a bad decision. If planning to work even one year past that, ignoring all future promotions (which is where the degree really starts to come in handy) then you made the sub-optimal choice. "LOL"

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[JWSmythe]

    I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. If your attitude is "I'm better than [superior] because I have a degree", and you keep saying it because you have this feeling of superiority that you spent 4 years in school, that's bad. Insubordinate behavior is still exactly that. If you go around telling everyone that your boss is a moron, the moron will probably fire you.

    I have worked under people with a stack of degrees, and people with no formal education. In both cases, there were good and bad. I have also worked under a fair number of people who do have inferior skills to my own. Some ask me for help, which I'm fine with. It's the ones who don't ask for help, and continue stuck on the same problems, or going down the wrong track that are a problem. Some have made it abundantly clear that they "know" I am better at their job than they are, and that's why I was no longer there.

    At one job, we had a guy with a Masters degree. He didn't make a lot of friends by continually reminding everyone "I have a masters, and you don't." It was that much worse when he started insisting that people call him "Master [name]". Honestly, you could have a doctorate, but unless you are my MD, I won't call you Doctor Bob.

    Unfortunately, your rank (as it could be considered) granted by diploma is a rank that is purchased, not earned. You paid to go through school. If you couldn't accomplish something the first time, you'd repeat it as long as it took (i.e., "career students"). Some people go through tremendous effort to find the easy courses, where the material is easy, or the instructor doesn't care and passes almost everyone.

    I have a deep respect for the higher military ranks, NCO and CO alike. Incompetence and sloth (usually) don't allow for substantial rank increases. A retired colonel or general have earned the respect, and rarely have I needed to change that opinion. While most who are alive today and still in the work force today do have degrees, the degree is only another bit of training to them.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[tibit]

I know where you were going with your grandparent post, but you finished it with a fairly general statement. That statement was not qualified with "because of a degree of the hired person", you only mentioned superiors and their degrees. So, what is it if the hired person has a degree, his superiors don't, and yet he is objectively better? I don't think that's necessarily such an unthinkable or rare situation, quite the contrary.

Alas, I do agree with the rest of your argument, even though it is quite often is that lack of education can narrow one's horizons. Every once in a while some haughty 6-figure-a-year troll shows up on /. who insists that him not having any formal CS education is OK, because look, he got took some fool for 6 figures, that's how good he is! Almost universally, upon further inquiry, it looks like said troll is very productive yet stuck with CS background of a somewhat-interested young teenager, and thinks it prudent to publicly announce it. Yes, the converse is true as well: there are plenty of no-good CS Ph.D.s, I know that.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[JWSmythe]

    Yup, I think you get exactly what I'm saying. It's not the paper that says you're good. It's the skills that you have learned.

    Most self-educated IT people that I know have a pretty broad range of interests and skills. Just today, I was working on one of my cars, did a little home repair stuff, and now I'm taking a break before I get back into my personal servers, doing some sysadmin work and some programming. Tonight, I'll probably get back into some of the long running discussions I've been having with people on Facebook on a variety of topics.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[tibit]

How uncanny :) I bleeded a caliper (rebuilt replacement is in the mail), then took care of delaminated emergency/parking brake shoes, finally did some yardwork. Tonight I'll probably work on a translation, chat, and maybe play a game.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[JWSmythe]

:) I ran into trouble with mine. It's a Chevy Tahoe with a L31 engine. I tore the whole engine down, and have been putting it back together a bit better than original. I ran into an insanely stupid problem. The "meets OEM spec" timing chain that the parts store was a perfect match, wasn't. None of the stores stock the right one. The new timing chain cover that'll work with it is on the way.

I should get back to work that'll make me money. I'm setting up new hosting servers for friends and family's hosting needs. I still need to get the billing up. Gotta collect that $10/yr on a regular basis. :)

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[tibit]

:) Uh-oh. The "those must fit the 12 inch rotors" brake shoes I got were in fact for 11 inch rotors, and no one had the right ones here on a Sunday. I presume the dealer would have had them, but they are closed on Sundays. I relented and ordered them online, might as well. Wife will have to survive without a car until those shoes come back -- just in case her front-right caliper sprang a major leak and she needed that emergency brake.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[JWSmythe]

    I know that feeling. I was helping a friend with his car. It was a simple change the pads job on a newer Toyota sedan. He got the parts and came over to my place with them.. The front ones were wrong. Very obviously two inches too short wrong. We took them back to the store, but they couldn't find any information about the one in my hand. It took 3 stores before we finally found someone who had it in the computer.

    The timing chain is a bit odd. It came with a single roller chain. The replacement that everyone lists is a double roller chain. It's better, but they really shouldn't list it as the OEM replacement when it doesn't fit under the cover. I bought both from the same store online, since they weren't stocked locally. The "fix" is to get the timing chain cover for an older engine (1967-1997 SBC). It doesn't have provisions for mounting the crank sensor. That's ok though, I just decomputerized the engine. I got really tired of bad or intermittently malfunctioning sensors, and the fact the injectors cost more than a new intake manifold and carburetor. The pleasant side effect is, it'll have more power now, get slightly better gas mileage, and eliminate a lot of under-hood clutter. Well, assuming I can remember all the finer details of tuning carbureted engines, which I haven't done in over 15 years. :) I'll miss the OBD-II diagnostics, but I can add an O2 sensor gauge and a vacuum gauge on the A pillar.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[tibit]

I'd think that if you had multiple sensors that "intermittently malfunctioned" , you either had a poorly designed ECU, or, more likely, a rotting wire harness. Injectors should last "forever", as long as you get them regularly cleaned and have the entire set checked for calibration/balance. The only sensors I changed on my car were two O2 sensors that were replaced along with the marginal catalytic converter (that's the right way to replace them -- as a system), and the engine temp and IAT. The former were OK but were they to go bad, they'd likely take my brand new cat with it. The latter simply went permanently badd -- off by tens of degrees C. That's on a 12 year old, 200k mile car. My wife's car didn't have any sensors changed -- not in the last 6 years or so, at least, and it's same vintage and mileage.

Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree

[JWSmythe]

I got the truck ('99 Tahoe 4wd) with 160,000 miles on it. It was a nice truck, that was neglected. It had a rear axle "noise", which ended up being it fell apart 2.5 miles from the sellers house. The wires all looked good. The first sensor to really cause problems (i.e., engine stops running) was the crank sensor. It happened on a road trip. It sputtered while we were heading out of town, so I hooked up the OBD-II reader and it said crank sensor. We stopped by a store, since I still knew the close stores at that point. We made it 50 more miles, and the engine just stopped. The VSS is the bastard. It works most of the time, but will just drop intermittently. Because of that, it would keep shifting from 4th to 3rd gear around 55mph. I could go up to 65+ mph, and it would stay in 4th, or drive around in 3rd gear. I've changed it, tested the wires, and looked for absolutely anything that could have problems. Nothing.

The way the intake and injectors are on a L31 is that there's a "spider" inside the intake manifold, and all the injectors are inside the manifold. Changing them is a project, and the injector/spider set is expensive. Because the extra hardware is in the way of the air flow, it hurts the performance, or at least to 4 of the cylinders. I opted to replace the intake manifold, and put a 750cfm carb on top. Now the whole assembly comes off with 8 bolts. :)

It had an undetected intake manifold gasket leak. Like, all was fine one day. I had to drive to the datacenter to deliver some hardware and install it. The drive there was fine. I made it half way home. The engine overheated and then stalled. In the dark, on the side of the road, I only saw that the radiator was dry. My only choices were to walk about 10 miles for water, or fill up with sea water and flush it when I got home. I opted for sea water. Towing wasn't a good option, I'd wait for hours. I made it half way (now 3/4 total trip) home, and it started acting very funny. I managed to pull into a 24 hr Walmart, where I could actually see. The radiator was dry again. Now I could see, the crank case oil wasn't oil any more, it looked like a chocolate shake. I took a taxi home from there, and had it towed in the morning.

I flushed the oil and radiator that day, and proceeded to strip the engine down so I could inspect everything. BTW, flushing that stuff out is a horrible messy job. I found the bad intake manifold gasket. I also found one intake valve had bent somehow. I assuming it was the timing chain, but when I did get that far, it lined up fine. There was wear on the gears, and the chain was a little sloppy but still serviceable. Since I was that far, I opted to change it. And that's the point it's at now. Parts from Summit Racing should be here tomorrow. :)

Other problems I've found on it were...
The front differential (4wd) had no gear oil. I changed the different when I did the rear end, because I changed the gearing so it could move better.

The rear differential was shot. I put in new gears and a limited slip unit so it would drive better than the locker. I use it to move stuff, but I'm not towing houses with it. :)

The transfer case was dry. Not just dry, there were chunks of what used to be fluid. Filling it works for about a week, but it leaks. The limited slip transfer case (push button auto-4wd) isn't ideal, and a lot of off-road people put the manual version in because of reliability problems. It's here as well as the shift lever, but hasn't been installed yet. It's an easy swap, except for the weight of it.

The tires were shot. One formed a bubble on a short trip. I limped home very very carefully. When I got home, the bubble was the size of a softball. The next morning the tire was flat. It popped overnight just sitting in the driveway. :) I already had 4 new tires being shipped, so that was ok.

Did I mention I got the truck *real* cheap? The total investment in

Remember kids, lying is wrong...

[gman003]

Unless, of course, you're a politician, CEO or other Important Person. Then you can pretty much get away with it with little more than a slap on the wrist and a tsk-tsk from the media.

Ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick Google search would have exposed his charade a long time ago.

Re:Ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a Yahoo search would have been even more ironical...

And he still has a job?

[Guppy06]

If he were labor, HR would have sent security to escort him out of the building before this even got to press.

That must be one hell of a golden parachute he's packing.

Re:And he still has a job?

[houstonbofh]

Actually, fraud may invalidate that parachute.

Re:And he still has a job?

[Guppy06]

CEOs can afford their own lawyers.

Re:And he still has a job?

[tomhath]

Nah. It happens all the time. If HR catches it during the interview process the applicant is done, but once in the door it's a non issue.

Re:And he still has a job?

[JWSmythe]

    Falsifying credentials at hire time are usually grounds for immediate termination, regardless of how long you have worked for a company.

    I wonder what their history of termination for this kind of issue have been.

Re:And he still has a job?

[Anonymous Coward]

Different HRs have different policies.

A skilled developer was just fired where I work when he let slip he had a GED, and someone that was in his interview loop remembered he claimed to be a High School graduate on his resume. Yep, he lied, but the response should have been a slap on the wrist for such a minor lie. I've started looking for a new job. Any company that would value an arbitrary policy over years of dedication to a job isn't one I want to work for.

Re:And he still has a job?

[Arcady13]

A GED is legally equivalent to a high school diploma. He should sue for wrongful termination. Or just get a new job someplace that isn't run by dicks.

Re:And he still has a job?

[Guppy06]

yeah they can, they can also be overlooked if someone is happy with the job you do.

really, if a company is looking for a reason to get rid of you they'll find a way

Termination for policy violation + history of applying that policy unevenly = lawsuit for wrongful termination.

Re:And he still has a job?

[Billly Gates]

Good luck with that argument?

Verizon's CEO lost 1 billion dollars and he still got his bonus. Just half of it and a paultry $8 million. On MSNBC forum boards one of the Verizon workers stated that in LA they will fire you if you are more than 2 minutes late 3 times. In LA this means leaving your home at 3:30am just in case an 18 wheel flips over and causes your communite to 5+ hours. The CEO came up with the plan.

So people get 6 hours sleep so they are not 2 minutes late for work EVER and their boss losses a billion and gets a bonus. Talk about setitng a standard and being real fair. lol.

Its easy for HR to fire you and me but HR reports to the CEO. Only shareholders from Wall Street can do that in a private meeting appointed by the board. It just is not that simple. The CEO would have to fire himself voluntarily. Like that is going to happen ...

Re:And he still has a job?

[Guppy06]

I was speaking of the general case, in response to someone who said that HR is free to apply policy to labor capriciously. If a laborer gets fired for policy X violation, and can demonstrate that not all laborers get fired for a policy X violation, that laborer can then make a case that they were really fired for being a member of a protected class.

Re:And he still has a job?

[tomhath]

Sounds like they were looking for an excuse to terminate him. Usually they go through expense reports first, since it's nearly impossible to get them 100% right; and a person who has other issues with the company is probably cheating anyway. Failing that they can use false claims on the application; but again that's unlikely to happen unless they were already fishing.

Re:And he still has a job?

[yoctology]

Moreover, since investors rely upon material representations to decide whether to invest in a stock, this kind of falsehood may have legal--both civil and criminal--repercussions.

Re:And he still has a job?

[shiftless]

Falsifying credentials at hire time are usually grounds for immediate termination, regardless of how long you have worked for a company.

Sure....at a company run by chimps. Other, brighter organizations see more subtlety to this scenario than your inflexible black and white worldview.

Re:And he still has a job?

[Billly Gates]

Its never fair and difficult to prove. I am sure the MBA bosses are more than 2 minutes late for work. Different rules apply always depending on how easy you can be replaced.

Re:And he still has a job?

[n7ytd]

    Falsifying credentials at hire time are usually grounds for immediate termination, regardless of how long you have worked for a company.

    I wonder what their history of termination for this kind of issue have been.

For the past two years all that has been newsworthy about Yahoo has been how incredibly stupid their management has been. Tossing him now would be publicly owning up to being so lazy and incompetent that they couldn't even bother checking the resume of a potential multi-million dollar employee. It would be admitting to the latest in a long and steady stream of boneheaded moves, and upper management usually can't admit so quickly that they were so wrong.

It will be 6-9 months from now, after the attention span of the media runs out, when he "moves on for new opportunities".

Re:And he still has a job?

[JWSmythe]

    Actually, it's not all that hard to prove. It's all in how much money have to burn. You can subpoena an awful lot of things. Work records, such as timeclock history and personnel files will show if others are habitually late or leave early, and how those time shortages were handled. For those who don't clock in or out, witness testimony about their arrival and departures, as well as scheduling and email history can show more. If a manager's meetings were all scheduled from noon to 3pm, that's a hint. If emails were only sent from 11am to 4pm, that's another. Finally, the AA could testify to the fact that he arrived at 11am, went to lunch from noon to 2pm, and then leaves at 4pm, that would be the best proof.

    But, someone who was recently terminated, and wasn't already independently wealthy, they wouldn't be able to afford the court fees, legal assistance, depositions, copy expenses, etc, etc.

    Exactly that came up in the hearing, the one time I had to fight for unemployment benefits. Their major claim was that I showed up late 3 times in a few months. I worked 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for 2 years. In the pre-trial mediation, I defended myself (I couldn't afford legal assistance). They brought up the 3 incidents. I asked for timeclock information on the others, and they admitted no other employees time was being tracked. I asked for how many other employees had been reprimanded for time related incidents, and none were. They volunteered earlier that I was given special provisions, as I would work longer days.

    The whole truth to that was, they were preparing to be acquired by another company. They were trying to cut the employee costs, and I was #6 or #7 on the list (I don't recall at the moment). Each of them was terminated "with cause", and most were absolutely bogus claims. They didn't want the increased unemployment insurance costs. A few of us fought it, and we all won. Some others got lucky and found new employment quickly. This was just a few years ago (mid-recession), so finding work for those who were newly liberated of our responsibilities was very difficult.

    I still know of one guy who still isn't working after that. He was next after me. He has been very frugal with his money, so he does still have enough to live on for a while, but those resources are becoming rapidly depleted. Others have found themselves in and out of horrible part time jobs paying minimum wage, when they had held down senior positions for years.

"Wrongly claimed.."

[3Cats]

I asked my son if he broke the neighbor's window, he "wrongly claimed" that he didn't.

My boss asked me if I was coming in to work today and I "wrongly claimed" I was ill.

"Sweetheart, I am not "wrongly claiming" when I told you I never slept with your sister. It was an "inadvertent error" ..I *LIKE* this !

Re:"Wrongly claimed.."

[Idbar]

I hope the Shareholders' line is : "we wrongly claimed we were going to pay you "

Re:CEO's

[houstonbofh]

Why do CEO's in this country think they are above everyone else, demanding excessive compensation and feel they can prevaricate with impunity when it suits their purposes?

Because people continue to give them excessive compensation, and they keep getting away with the lies... In other words, they believe that because it is true.

bunch of yahoos

[tomhath]

I always felt that Yahoo was an odd name for a company.

Swift describes them as, filthy and with unpleasant habits, resembling human beings far too closely for the liking of protagonist Lemuel Gulliver

"wrongly claimed"???

[mark-t]

Oh fer crissake...

The man lied. Nothing more to it than that

"wrongly claimed"... give me a break.

Re:"wrongly claimed"???

[frencha]

The man lied. Nothing more to it than that

Whoa there! He wasn't lying. It clearly was not intended to be a factual statement .

Re:"wrongly claimed"???

[InspectorGadget1964]

Perhaps he should consider a career in politics. Lies are even more common in that field.

Re:"wrongly claimed"???

[khallow]

Why rule over a country when you can rule over a corporation that rules over the country?

So what country does Yahoo (of all things) "rule"? It sure isn't a real one.

Re:CEO's

[joocemann]

Actually, the CEO of one company is on the board for another company whose CEO is on their board. There is a site called theyrule tht tracks these connections to demonstrate the complex collusion/extortion going on among corporate leadership and their siphoning of wealth from the small guys that actually invest in their businesses. Decades ago, those milions went to the owners (stockholders), but as the coup has entrenched, the excess has become standardized and regularly increased.

Uh Oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Major Uh Oh!

Thompson has claimed this for more than a decade!
And the Yahoo Board Member who managed the vetting also has an "anomaly" in regards to "scholastic achievement", perhaps not now least of which is a question of corporate achievement.

So, the investigation now moves swiftly to the other Yahoo Board members and the operating officers: what are their anomalous scholastic and corporate achievements!

'Fed eyes' are upon Yahoo.

PS

IRS accountants spot an 'anomaly', and report to FCC and DoJ.

Lordy O' Lordy (LOL).

Re:Yahoo! should now be the employer of choice

[rhizome]

Nah, it's only the lower classes who get such checkups, sometimes middle-class'ers. Sandwich makers get drug tested, bus drivers get FBI background checks, it totally makes sense in a certain light.

Re:shit ?

[able1234au]

That link should be blocked by slashdot and people who post it are lame.

Shocked

[frovingslosh]

Someone who worked at PayPay lied? I'm shocked!

Re:Shocked

[shiftless]

I know, right? That company is a festering shit-pile of bad ethics. Anyone who comes out of there is tainted.

Fire Him

[JStyle]

I say fire him immediately. Having someone at the top who egregiously lied for so long sets the tone for the whole company. That's not how you want to do business, so that's not who you want as your leader.

Re:Fire Him

[slimjim8094]

Not only that, it's a fire-on-the-spot offense for anyone else anywhere. They'd really set the tone for the company (in a good way) if they said "we're going to hold everyone to the same rules" and had security escort him out of the building after he emptied out his desk, like they'd do to anyone else.

Re:Fire Him

[XiaoMing]

I say fire him immediately. Having someone at the top who egregiously lied for so long sets the tone for the whole company. That's not how you want to do business, so that's not who you want as your leader.

"Our company is doing fine! We're experts in this field and we say so!"

Actually... lying about their core competence is probably exactly how they need to go about it given their downward spiral.

Re:Fire Him

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire liars? that would set a precedent that potentially beheads all of Fortune500, any UN + axis of evil country government and, well, could also have negative effects.

Re:Fire Him

[shiftless]

No, I think a competent person who lied about his credentials to get past a meaningless, corrupt, red taped covered bureaucracy (the whole "people who think degrees mean a fucking thing" thing) is exactly the type of person whom Yahoo needs setting an example. I think that hiring people based on competency and not based on what a worthless scrap of paper says is exactly the right example to set, and is exactly the type of thinking that's needed to get this company back on its feet. So if the CEO is doing a good job, then I say keep him.

Re:Fire Him

[shiftless]

Not only that, it's a fire-on-the-spot offense for anyone else anywhere.

Only at companies run by morons. If anything, Yahoo needs to use this as an example of why they should move away from such retarded thinking, in order to improve as a company.

Re:Fire Him

[n7ytd]

I say fire him immediately. Having someone at the top who egregiously lied for so long sets the tone for the whole company. That's not how you want to do business, so that's not who you want as your leader.

You're making a big assumption about how they want to do business. But you do raise a great point: how come no other company has called him out on this yet?
If I were on the board, I would be even more worried about his willingness to lie on such a stupid, easily checkable fact. What else would he be trying to put over on me?

Re:Fire Him

[slimjim8094]

Actually, I think this particular policy makes sense. Lying on an application/resume is prima facie evidence that you aren't always honest in your dealings with the company. Lying on a resume (or other piece of qualifications) is additionally egregious because it's the document that got you hired, and you presumably lied to show yourself more favorably than you deserve, so you likely wouldn't have been hired in the first place.

Cringely

[craw]

This brings back memories of the controversy with regard to Cringely (pen name) having a Ph.D. from Stanford. Some of us old-timers might remember that this is a topic of great discussion here.

Re:Cringely

[T.E.D.]

Cringely started out as a pen name for a column in Infoworld, used by multiple authors (supposedly as a way to have some fake employee to "fire" whenever the column ticked off powerful advertisers). As such, it made perfect sense for Cringely to have a made-up backstory, complete with made-up degree.

Perhaps Yahoo! has taken this concept a step further, and come up with made-up executives?

Glad I don't have a degree in Computer Science

[dittbub]

Does this mean degrees in computer science are worthless?

Tech Jobs needs taring / vocational / tech schools

[Joe_Dragon]

Tech Jobs needs taring / vocational / tech schools / on the job.

That proves certain learning capability a long with real tech skills. CS for most tech jobs is to long with lot's of classes that are off base for most tech work + all the other non tech class filler and fluff that comes with college.

that kind of thinking can get you in mess as well

[Joe_Dragon]

There are lot's stories of people with A ba or higher in CS coming on the job with no idea on how to do tech work. Now why can't people think the same way about tech schools and community colleges?

But tech schools and on the job learning are better for people with disabilities and saying BA needed may be barking the law.

There are people with disabilities who can do the job and who can take on line / tech school classes but are not cut for classes in a fashioned college setting and not hiring them just because they don't have a BA is discrimination.

doctors are not the same as IT work and they have

[Joe_Dragon]

doctors are not the same as IT work and they have med school and residency.

For IT you can cut the 4 year college replace med school with a mixed tech school / vocational with real jobs skills plan.

Do you really want IT guys to have 6+ years in the class room and have to pay them A lot to pay off 100K+ loans??

Re:CEO's

[artor3]

They give themselves excessive compensation. Remember, the company is controlled by a board made up of the CEO's buddies, and the CEO likewise sits on the boards of their companies. They all vote to rob the shareholders, and the shareholders can't do shit about it. Heck, its only thanks to Obama that we even get to have a non-binding vote on compensation. Prior to that we couldn't even complain as they robbed us. And it's not like we can take our money elsewhere, because every big company does it, and if you don't invest somewhere, you'll never be able to retire.

Seriously, if you ever want to feel utterly helpless and abused, try to vote your shares.

more like any degrees is unless if you can do the

[Joe_Dragon]

more like any degrees is unless if you can do the job or learn it on your own or take NON degree classes.

CS from 1975 has of lots obsolete things in it

[Joe_Dragon]

CS from 1975 has of lots obsolete things in it any ways so may this is a sing that TECH Needs a some kind of way to say I have on going education with out it just being masters , PHD.

under the badges systems he should have equivalenc

[Joe_Dragon]

under the badges systems he should have equivalence by doing the real work.

Are you implying that you have a degree in Engrish

[drainbramage]

What exactly does your degree prove?

Fired for fraud

[lanner]

Failure for Yahoo's board to terminate his employment with cause for fraud would be a clear indication of corruption at the highest levels in the organization.

I would not be surprised if he were to stay. That's just how those people think. It's basically the good 'ol boy system in the modern day.

Re:Activist Shareholder?

[Kergan]

I think you mean dick...

Nah, OP probably meant a naked short seller.

http://www.deepcapture.com/introduction-to-the-deep-capture-analysis/

Re:CEO's

[CodeBuster]

Excessive compared to what? A minimum wage earner or perhaps even a median wage earner? Could just anyone off the street run a Fortune 500 company well or even just capably? Could you? If you were the CEO in charge of any of these companies what would you have done differently? Would you have created a better shareholder return than the existing management? People like to complain about overpaid CEOs, and some of them are overpaid, but running a big company well is a lot harder than it looks. The best CEOs, boards and management provide substantially better results and superior shareholder value as compared to the worst. Most shareholders agree that good management is worth paying for, especially when there are billions of dollars at stake, as there are in the biggest corporations, where even modest mistakes can cost millions. The non-binding votes on compensation mostly bear this out. With a few notable exceptions, Citi being prominent among them, most CEOs earn their pay packets in the eyes of investors. If you don't agree or think that you could do better, sell your shares and found your own company to compete against your "incompetent" competitors.

Re:CEO's

[cbope]

CEO pay in the US recently hit an all time high. In 2011, they made 209.4 times the average worker. Their pay has increased 127 times faster than worker's pay over the last 30 years. In the period from 1978 to 2011, CEO pay rose by 725%, while worker pay rose only 5.7% in the same period. This is in stark contrast to worker productivity which rose 93% in the same 30 year period. So, the average worker is doing nearly double the work for a less than 6% raise over a 30 year period. Unfortunately, I have not seen any stats on CEO productivity, but I doubt they are doing much more than they were 30 years ago.

You do the math... CEO's will lie as much as possible remain in the position to keep their massive pay packages. The gap between CEO pay and average worker pay is widening at an alarming rate, with the CEO absorbing a very large percentage of company net profits compared to 30 years ago.

OMG.

[benjfowler]

I'm shocked, SHOCKED to hear that the 1% habitually lie, cheat and act unethically to get ahead.

SAY IT AIN'T SO.

Re:that kind of thinking can get you in mess as we

[T-Bone-T]

There are stories in every field like that. An aerospace engineer was talking to one of my classes and said that he knew aerospace engineering when he graduated. When he got to work he spent the first 2 years learning real aerospace engineering because what he thought he knew wasn't good enough for the real world.

AXE this guy

[keithwoodie]

How can we be sure he won't cook the books like the Eron folks did? Let's tar and feather him!

Re:CEO's

[tommeke100]

how much did automation rose in the 78-2011 timeframe?
Probably more than 2x.
Might account for higher productivity of the average worker.

I agree with the greed though. CEO paychecks are excessive. If you built the company from the ground up, okay, you can cash in as far as I'm concerned. But just being planted at a company that was doing business before you joined and still will after you left (hopefully) doesn't justify 7 (or 8!) figure salaries.

Damn, I coulda done that

[GameboyRMH]

I would have said that I had a PhD in CS and was the l33t king hacker of the world, and then when they found out I was lying I'd say "joke's on you, SUCKERS!" and retire on whatever CEO's pay I had acquired.

Re:CEO's

[yeshuawatso]

As someone with an undergrad and post grad in business, I feel compelled to answer your confusion between worker pay and executive pay. For the worker, they're focused on their specific task, a tacical viewpoint of the business unit they are responsible. The worker answers for the actions of him/herself and not the actions of their fellow co-workers. When profits are down, investors don't ask the worker, they don't fire the worker, they look at the leadership team. It's not the worker who's neck is on the line if the company is unprofitable, and the worker will most certainly never face lawsuits from investors, the government, and other stakeholders.

The CEO on the other and is responsible for the actions of every worker that represents the company. They're responsible for the financial well being of the organization, the brand, and the relationship with every stakehokder. Like a game of chess, the CEO is responsible for the strategic direction of the business with not just today's direction but tomorrow's and the years ahead. In short, the worker is responsible for one thing, his/her work. The CEO is responsible for the work of everyone underneith him/her.

As far as compensation, most CEO's compensation come with base salaries and huge amounts of stock ownership to incentivise the CEO to return higher profits for the shareholders. So it would make since that CEOs receive a large stake of the profits.

Re:CEO's

[captbob2002]

Source for those numbers? I really do not doubt them at all, just wondering what your source is.

Joe Biden's lie

[snsh]

This lie by Scott Thompson is pretty minor compared to the lies told by Joe Biden about his academic credentials:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign,_1988#Academic_revelations

Re:CEO's

[Bigby]

They should be paid in only stock and not cash. Because as long as they have both, they don't really have any responsibility to the company. See the financial crisis. They fail and the company gets bailed out. When CEOs are "held responsible", they take their millions and get hired elsewhere.

In principle, what you are saying should be the case. But it isn't.

Re:CEO's

[gl4ss]

If you built the company from the ground up, okay, you can cash in as far as I'm concerned.

well, in that case they would probably be cashing on their ownership - not on their status as an appointed ceo.

but the way it's sold to boards is that if they don't pay excessive amounts for even poorly performing ceo's they will not get a good ceo. which is kinda dumb, if one thinks about it.

Re:CEO's

[gl4ss]

When profits are down, investors don't ask the worker, they don't fire the worker, they look at the leadership team.

..I think you'd need some more real world expertise. they might look at the leadership team and notice that the leadership team made policies that guaranteed them bonuses and good pay regardless of actual company performance though!

true, investors don't directly fire the worker - they just ask the leadership team to do so.

what's been increasingly fucked up with big business has been really, really, really stupid bonus matrixes copied from even bigger businesses(there's more credibility in pushing it through if the tactic was invented at some other, at one point successful company). so you have things like a biz losing a billion dollars but ceo still raking in bonus - or ceo raking in bonus on selling all company assets that were wroth anything - that the company needs and then needs to pay for using to a 3rd party - at firesale prices during one year.

Yahoo's vetting department

[yoctology]

And wouldn't a competent, connected company like Yahoo have certainly verified all facts on the CV?

Sounds as if they are perfect for each other.

How Ignorant We've All Become

[KlomDark]

The degree started off simply as a tool to get your feet in the door of a company. Now days many think that you must be functionally retarded if you don't have one, which is just foolish: After you've got the work experience, degrees don't mean shit. If you can get the work experience without the degree, you can make it thru your career without that stupid piece of paper.

So this is a whole bunch of thunder signifying nothing. Sure, probably shouldn't have lied about it, but of all the destructive corporate lies I've heard, the wrong degree is way under the threshhold of "Oh Noes!"

We have better things to worry about. This is a stupid distraction.

Re:OT: but still... a CEO job

[expatriot]

Only idiots and bigots, and Republicans assuming they do not fit into one of the previous categories, are quibbling.

Re:CEO's

[shiftless]

When profits are down, investors don't ask the worker, they don't fire the worker, they look at the leadership team. It's not the worker who's neck is on the line if the company is unprofitable, and the worker will most certainly never face lawsuits from investors, the government, and other stakeholders.

"Bullshit rolls downhill"

Unbelievable

[shiftless]

It blows my mind how the most insightful post in the entire discussion is a 1, but immediately below it, some ignoramus screaming "FIRE HIM IMMEDIATELY!!1" is modded up to 5, Insightful.

I must be new around here.

Re:Unbelievable

[SomeJoel]

It blows my mind how the most insightful post in the entire discussion is a 1, but immediately below it, some ignoramus screaming "FIRE HIM IMMEDIATELY!!1" is modded up to 5, Insightful.

I must be new around here.

I think the root cause is that the sentence "Competant people often have to fake credentials to get decent jobs." encapsulates everything that decent human beings hate about corporate America. Those of us that are competent AND have the proper credentials (and the resultant student loan debt) tend to be a little upset when this kind of thing happens. The spelling error adds just the right amount of "fuck you".

The whole thing reminds me of the guy that speeds past a line of cars by using the shoulder. Of course he gets away with it, and gets to where he's going an hour before the rest of us.

Re:Tech Jobs needs taring / vocational / tech scho

[Cederic]

erm. What's "taring"?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Taring isn't helping me much on this one.

Anyway, CEO isn't a tech job.

Re:CEO's

[kubajz]

I also think that companies these days are somewhat larger than they used to be. Just look at the likes of Apple, Exxon or the banking industry. So yes - I'd say one CEO today probably does the work of a couple of CEOs 30 years ago.

This is common at the C level

[DukeLinux]

I have seen this for the better part of 25 years. The guy was somebody's friend on the board and he had to "enhance" his resume so the rest of the board would vote him in. Is it fraud? Yes. Is is "accepted practice?" Yes. Just don't ask for a birth certificate!

Re:This is common at the C level

[mysidia]

Yes. Is is "accepted practice?" Yes. Just don't ask for a birth certificate!

Who's accepting the practice?

I'm not accepting the practice. It's not legal, it's totally unethical, and it's not OK.

The fraud should be referred to local authorities so the person doing that can be arrested, and he should be fired on the spot.

Re: Mu

[TaoPhoenix]

Slashdot totally needs a new mod "Other: Fill in _____"

This is +1 Buddhist!

Oh, that is RICH.

[jeffb (2.718)]

When profits are down, investors don't ask the worker, they don't fire the worker, they look at the leadership team.

...and ask them, "What are you doing to reduce costs?" To which the "leadership team" invariably answers, "Well, of course we're looking to improve efficiency wherever we can, particularly by rightsizing and right-shoring across the organization." The usual result: the leadership team continues on, possibly accepting a small cut in their bonuses as a "show of good faith", and the teams doing the actual work get butchered.

And when the house of cards finally does collapse, it seems that those top-level execs quickly land new top-level positions, while the workers struggle to find a position paying a reasonable fraction of their previous salary before their unemployment benefits run out.

No, I don't claim to know how it is across the entire economy, but that's what I've seen at a number of start-ups and large companies. At none of those companies have I seen the top-level execs fall without a large number of "workers", if not the entire company, going first.

How can they believe anything he says?

[QuincyDurant]

Lying on an SEC document is more serious than run-of-the-mill resume puffery. The time to clean up any inadvertence or carelessness is before filing sworn documents.

Investors deserve complete candor from CEOs. The degree he received in 1979 is not important; lying about it in 2012 is.

Inflated resumes are indeed common among Silicon Valley cubicle slaves, but Thompson should be held to a higher standard. That, as they say, is why he gets the big bucks.

A resume malfunction?

[PacRim Jim]

If anyone needs to beef up their resume, Japanorama is giving away Ph.D. diplomas at http://www.japanorama.com/images/diploma.gif

Re:Excessive compared to what they deserve. Idiot.

[CodeBuster]

So why not show up at the shareholder meeting, apply for your 3 minutes at the mic, and suggest that? If you think that the other shareholders would agree then you can try to get it on the ballot as a shareholder resolution or you could simply vote 'No' on the non-binding pay resolutions that are now required by law. However, I think that both you and I know the score here, so one so one of two things is true:

1. You're right and anyone can run a Fortune 500 company which means that me and all of the rest of the shareholders are idiots for continuing to tolerate a CEO and board of directors, all of whom are paid millions, to run the business on our behalf.

OR

2. A good CEO and board, generally costing millions, and not just anybody really are necessary to run a Fortune 500 company. Me and the rest of the shareholders are right to continue paying the CEO and the board and you don't know WTF you're talking about.

Now, which do you suppose is more likely? (don't strain your big brain thinking too much about it m'kay)

Re:CEO's

[CodeBuster]

I could hire 500 full-time expert advisers to work together and do my job, and sit back and enjoy the excess 50% of the CEO salary, and do a better job than any average CEO, yes.

So start your own company and prove it by eating everyone elses' lunch.

The better question is, do you really think a single CEO does the combined work load of 1,000+ men?

Of course not. At the Fortune 500 companies there are already 1,000+ expert managers and smart men working beneath the CEO and ultimately reporting to him (or her) via the chain of command. The point is that somebody must ultimately be in charge. For example, every government on this planet has a head of state or a single person who is in charge and and ultimately held responsible for success or failure (here in the US we call that person the President). Large corporations likewise require a singular leader or executive to call the shots, make final decisions, and generally get things done.

Now, how much that person is paid is an arguable point. It depends upon the size of the business, the consequences of failure, and the perceived difficult of running the business well. To use an analogy here, a good CEO and board will adroitly steer the boat through the rapids and emerge out the other side while the bad CEO and board will smash the boat on the rocks, capsize the it and dump everyone into the water. The quality of CEOs and board members (and therefore how much it's worth paying them) is demonstrated by how well they react under market pressures and how well they steer the ship of the corporation unerringly towards profitability, damn the torpedoes. Is there a difference between a Steve Jobs, a Jack Welch or just anyone else? You bet there is AND it's worth paying for.

Re:CEO's

[CodeBuster]

Yes, excessive compared to a median wage earner. It used to be that the boss made 30-50 times his average employee. Now it's more like several hundred times.

Do you feel this way about other highly paid people or just CEOs of big corporations? For example, Kobe Bryant is paid ~28.7 million dollars per year to play basketball for the LA Lakers. Is that excessive? Is he worth it? Are the best CEOs less talented or simply overrated? What I'm getting at here is that few, if any, play basketball as well as Kobe Bryant and without him and others like him nobody would watch the NBA and billions of dollars in revenue wouldn't be collectively earned by the league, the owners and countless other businesses involved, directly or indirectly, with the NBA. If you believe that average people can run big corporations well, then you probably think that CEOs are overpaid. However, if you believe that the difference between a good CEO and a bad one is hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars less in profit to the corporation (i.e. a losing season); perhaps the good CEO is worth paying for? It's all about supply, demand and what the market will bear, not how much his (or her) labor is "worth". This would fall more generally under the criticisms over what's called the Labor Theory of Value or even more generally who creates value and therefore who can demand what share of that additional value that's created.

Have CEOs somehow become ten times as awesome in the last twenty years?

I would argue that management, in general, has definitely improved in the last twenty years. There are more and smarter people coming up all of the time and competition has only increased. It's true that the role of the CEO has become more prominent during that time period than perhaps it was in the past, and it's a difficult question to ask because there are so many variables, but I would say that at the very least CEOs have, in general, also improved substantially in the last twenty years, yes.