The news that Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has lied about having a computer science degree is now four days old. Neither Yahoo nor Thompson have denied that this happened or have presented any sort of story that mitigates the damage. And as of today Thompson still has his job.
I understand that it’s been a long while since Yahoo was able to hold its head high in Silicon Valley. It seems like yesterday, but the company has been ridiculed since early 2008 when they absolutely bungled the Microsoft acquisition attempt. For shareholders, employees and users, it’s been all downhill from there.
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if Yahoo is a shadow of its former self. Employees still get up every morning and come to work and do their best in a difficult environment. These are good people – not all of them have left or been terminated over the years. And they deserve a CEO that they can believe in.
And so does the community.
We are still a community. Despite all the competition, all the fighting and the insane amounts of money flowing around us, Silicon Valley is a community. There is an incredible willingness for people to help each other. It’s the only reason I’ve stuck around.
The ups and downs of the valley move in cycles. Even in 2007 I was bitching about how we needed a downturn. “Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks,” I wrote. That was nothing compared to today.
When all the money goes away so do most of the jerks. That happened in 2001 and everything was great for half a decade. The people that were here were here for the right reasons. Enough of the others had slipped away in the night that life was unquestionably pleasant in the valley.
Now the money is back and then some. And the kinds of people who hung out here in the late 90s are back too.
Yes, we get a regular lineup of jerks here, just like everywhere else. Thompson isn’t the first person to screw up.
But in the past at least people seemed a little embarrassed by their actions, there was some display of shame. There were some basic standards people were held to. Right?
Today we have a Yahoo that seems to be standing by their man. A man who lied about who he is.
And I’m not talking about the shame of having a CEO who doesn’t have a computer science degree. That’s irrelevant. What’s hugely relevant is that a man who’s willing to lie about something like that has not only risen to the level of CEO in a famous public company, but that the company is also willing to stand by him when the lie is revealed.
How can Yahoo hold its remaining employees to its code of ethics, which the CEO has clearly and egregiously violated? How could Thompson even show his face after that? How did the board of directors not revoke his security card?
It’s all about the money, apparently. Which is a damned foolish way to do business, in my opinion.
Yahoo has hit rock bottom. There’s really nothing else they could do to fuck things up further.
Which is an excellent opportunity to really do something crazy. Clean house, bring in a leader who cares about product and who cares about integrity. Someone who makes no sense at all on paper, but makes all the sense in the world on the ground.
Someone who doesn’t think the answer to all problems is more layoffs. Someone who instead energizes thousands of employees into doing more, giving more, creating more.
Someone who isn’t there for the multi-million dollar golden parachute if things don’t work out. Someone who cares far more about product than about the business model.
Someone old enough to have lived through Steve Jobs bringing Apple back from the grave in 1997, but young enough to still think they’re Superman and unstoppable.
Someone who let’s Yahoo employees hold their head high when walking down the street.
Someone who isn’t so insecure that he lies on his resume and so unapologetic that he doesn’t even have the stomach to resign after he’s been caught.
Someone better than that.
Uncrunched 
And so begins Michael Arrington’s campaign to become the CEO of Yahoo!
I’ve got your back, sir. Let’s make this happen.
Name a name! Who is that person??? Scratch that. Who is the best person that fulfills that criteria and is best equipped to turn Yahoo around???? That’s the $18.63B question.
How many lies have Zuckerberg and the Google goofs fed the global community about what they’re doing and why, about what their companies stand for etc.
They’re different lies from the one that Yahoo’s CEO is telling, but they’re lies nonetheless.
Everybody lies.
“Someone old enough to have lived through Steve Jobs bringing Apple back from the grave in 1997, but young enough to still think they’re Superman and unstoppable.”
That wouldn’t work Mike. They’d never hire me….and I’m damned sure I wouldn’t take the job if they did 🙂
Keith, if you took over they’d either be out of business or on top of the world in 24 months. It would be amazing to watch that. 🙂
The thing is no one is talking about Yahoo’s business. They are not talking about innovative new products, how they are going to expand their portfolio with a new acquisition or how they are benefiting from the Bing search deal. Yahoo isn’t relevant anymore unless it is a screw up.
When was the last time they were on Mashable, TechCrunch or CNN about a new product? They are eating off the dead product that they have been pushing for years and now their latest idea for cash is patent lawsuits. Yahoo should have died in 2000 like every other company from that era because it hasn’t done a single thing worth mentioning since then other than buy up companies and sunset them.
last week. Look it up. Small business marketing dashboard
This is hands down my favorite piece you’ve ever done, Mike. You hit every damn nail squarely on the head.
Well said. Period.
@blakei should return as CEO
Mr. Thompson is an accountant hired to finally put Yahoo out of its misery. He’s doing his job as best he can.
I thought he was a computer scientist. No, wait. Reverse that. Never mind.
Making this a way bigger deal than it is…
So, lying on an expense report get’s you fired as CEO at HP, while lying about your educational background on your resume is just fine over at Yahoo.
Strange new world we live in.
>>>Making this a way bigger deal than it is…
I’m sorry, you are just plain uninformed. This is the same exact CEO who forced employees to sign a strict ethics pledge just days before the layoffs. Which includes lying on your resume.
If ANY other employee would have done this, they would have been walked out the door ON THE SPOT, not given the opportunity to make excuses in a press release.
After just making them sign an ethics pledge that he himself was the very first to violate, he has to go. Scott Thompson MUST go NOW.
Maybe it’s a problem with the education system putting too much pressure on society to be “theory” & “paper” people. Good on him for getting away with it for this long, proves he could do what was required…. It’s kind of like saying you need a degree to prove you can program.
Sure he shouldn’t have lied & I’m not condoning it but i think this story punches holes through the foundation of the current “education” system, this is where your anger should be directed.
With your disdain for degrees, it’s no surprise that you don’t see it as an issue of lying. Not sure what logical disconnect turns it into an indictment of the educational system, though.
I completely agree with you that a degree or any other credential doesn’t mean you are qualified, and the reverse is true, not having a degree also doesn’t mean you aren’t qualified.
Didn’t Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and many other people already prove your point a long time ago ?
And you say “good on him” for getting away with it for so long ? Are you not aware that Scott Thompson forced all employees to sign an ethics pledge, which includes lying on your resume, just before the layoffs a few weeks ago ?
He is the very first one to violate his own ethics policy. Do you see why that might affect morale at Yahoo ? Do you see why his own employees already have absolutely no respect for him ? Do you see why it might be impossible for him to get the employees to even show up for work ?
He has made sure that he himself is unable to function.
He has to go.
He is a useless waste of oxygen.
Why would someone with the qualifications you list want the job?
The Yahoo CEO job has become like the job of the US president. Anyone crazy enough to want (and get) the job is not necessarily the person you want doing the job.
To me it looks like the executives talented enough to turn big ships around have decided that this one is just not worth turning.
I read about a 19 who became CEO and founder of some social network like paying solution. Can’t remember the story but i’m sure he dont have a computer science degree.
It’s a great point, as you have pointed, that all CEOs should have a computer science degrees. But honesty is a must.
I absolutely disagree. Why *should* a CEO have a computer science degree? That piece of paper proves nothing. Do I even need to start making the huge list of people who have become successful in this business without one? I’ll start at one end of the spectrum with myself and end on the other side with Zuck.
Passion, intelligence, dedication, creativity, loyalty – these things count FAR more than some piece of paper from an institution ever could. 🙂
Boom! Classic Arrington. This kind of brutal honesty is what made me love Techcrunch in the first place.
Is a shame for Yahoo! since two remarkable events. Since then, I lose respect for this company. First: When deny to acquire Google for a very low price. Second: When deny to acquire Facebook for 1$ Bn. In both case the CEO try to bid for lower price. There was the best two opportunities in the Internet actual history.
Umm….Not to spoil your disrespect for Yahoo!, but you should probably base your hate on facts. Yahoo! offered to buy Facebook for 1B, but Mark Z (very rightly, in hindsight) declined it.
Mark Z accepted that offer. Yahoo then rescinded it.
.
How much of this opposition is about him lying about having a CS degree vs opposition to Yahoo’s patent trolling and general hostility to the rest of the Valley?
It seems weird that this is such a huge issue to receive repeated passionate posts. If something similar is revealed for companies or people you like (i.e., lying about a degree) will you equally campaign for their termination?
The tradition has been that if you lie on your resume, you get fired. Don’t see how that makes this a “piling on because we don’t like Yahoo”.
You’re asking Mike if he would campaign for termination against a CEO of a company he “likes?” Have you ever read anything else done by him? He’d be the first one screaming for their head – whether he was a fan of the company itself or not. He doesn’t really care if he steps on someone’s toes. He stands up (loudly) for what he thinks is right.
Yahoo is one of the companies I like. Which is part of why I’m so pissed about this.
Anyone feel like Yahoo 2012 is like Blockbuster in 2008? Gasping for breath, BBI brought in Jim Keyes, famous for turning around 7-11, among other businesses. He floundered for 3 years, as Netflix and Redbox ate his lunch. He went retail when it should have gone digital, and then digital when it should have gone retail.
Result? Firesale to DISH for $250M.
Yahoo is doing the same dang thing, except they can’t blame their failure on a $B in Viacom debt.
Good luck Yahoo. Start by scaling Yahoo Finance and Fantasy Basketball and you might have a moon shot in the dark.
How can a company looking to hire a CEO not run a background check which would have clearly illuminated the situation? Well, maybe they just never cared? Once again all fingers seem to point back to the board of directors (how can one group screw up so many times and remain in position?).
Hey Mike
Perhaps, you’re overreacting just like most others. Maybe he had no idea his bio mentioned a CS degree or maybe it was a scribe or a minion that wrote the darn thing. I’m sure we all have been through those situations when someone scribes a bio or an intro piece that doesn’t get a scrutiny.
C’mon, quit skewering the guy for something he genuinely might not have anything to do with. Is there a possibility? Sure does.
At some point, don’t you have to be responsible for your OWN resume?
I don’t know what’s worse: lying about a degree you don’t have, or having an official resume around without knowing what’s written on it. Dishonesty vs sloppiness, two perfect reasons to go away.
Yes! If only there were a way, if that scenario were true, that Yahoo could somehow communicate the cause of the mistake. We could call it “a press release”. Of course, I have a patent on that and will sue Yahoo if they steal my invention.
Another possible explanation is that the inkjet on the printer leaked and just happened to form the words “computer science degree”. Similar to finding a picture of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich. Is this possible? Sure.
Are you fucking kidding me? I’m trying to figure out if you’re being sarcastic, or if you’re really that stupid to think that responsibility for this would lie with anyone other than the person who presents it as being representative of them, regardless of who wrote it.
1) it’s not about him having a degree in CS or any kind of degree for that matter. No one cares past a certain point (and he was well past that point). He lied, and not just recently, and that’s a serious problem in someone you’re expected to follow. I would be leaving Yahoo if I worked there. And not because he lied, but because he still has a job.
2) He had plenty of opportunities to correct the record and didn’t. Once you tell a lie like this, it sticks to you like tar. You can’t admit it because it becomes part of your mythos, part of your mojo that allows you to justify your position. Even if it doesn’t matter now, at some point it obviously DID matter enough for him to lie about and then he was stuck with it. Not having a degree myself, I can relate, but instead he should have made it a badge of honor — no I don’t have a CS degree, but I can still hang with peeps who do just fine.
Good post.
You make some very relevant points about organizational ethics and standards in today’s market place. I enjoyed hearing your views.
Totally agree Mike. If a lower level Yahoo! staffer got caught doing the same thing he’d be sacked straight away. But this multi-millionaire gets away with it?
No wonder Y! is in the tall grass with no way of finding the fairway ever again.
Agreed. So perfectly right. So who could do it? Some schmuck like me that actually lives in the valley (unlike me) I hope. An unknown underdog who fights for product, innovation and doing the right thing. I do hope Yahoo survives this rock bottom, it’ll make a great story someday.
I think this is a case moral relativism. I find it odd that one man lying about getting a piece of paper, that really means nothing, is being viewed as such an egregious ethics violation by bloggers.
I don’t get it, because the same group of bloggers give a shoulder shrug to Dave Morin and Path stealing millions of people’s contact books without their knowledge, iPhones recording your location without your knowledge, the foxconn complex suicides, Google shutting down YT channels for political purposes, Facebook & Google privacy…(take your pick), Twitter siding with totalitarian regimes to silence users being tortured and killed by these leaders, Microsoft and Facebook supporting CISPA…
Who is calling for these CEO’s to step down? I don’t care that Yahoo’s CEO didn’t get a CS degree. I care that Facebook, with all of their political clout, is supporting bills like CISPA. What these CEO’s have done to their user base, the tech ecosystem, or free speech as whole may make us all a lot worse off in the end. As long as they call themselves “hackers”, and are under 35, we high five them and call them disrupters, and then frown on old guys and their resumes. It’s ok, because I’m a “hacker” too, but I certainly view this particular “crime” as a huge overreaction.
This is the same exact CEO who forced employees to sign a strict ethics pledge just days before the layoffs. Which includes lying on your resume.
If ANY other employee would have done this, they would have been walked out the door ON THE SPOT, not given the opportunity to make excuses in a press release.
After just making them sign an ethics pledge that he himself was the very first to violate, he has to go.
Yahoo! is a good company with a lot of potential.
But he cannot lead. Employees will not follow. For Yahoo! sake, the CEO has to go.
Go on then – I’ll give it a shot!
Perhaps one silver lining that may come out of this situation is that the leading tech companies of Silicon Valley, a community that has not followed the usual ways, structure or models of others, should stop making a college degree a “requirement” for any job in the first place. Instead of seeking this or that (often irrelevant) credential, we should be asking what a person has done and/or what they can do…and what their knowledge or skills are.
There are high-profile examples of tech leaders (Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates) who didn’t have any degree, let alone a degree in XYZ.
But, what about all the people without a degree who aren’t fortunate enough to be a founder of a tech company, but they have incredible talent?
I find it ironic that companies like Apple, Facebook and others have mid-level positions where a degree is “required.”
I know extremely talented technical and non-technical people who could turn a tech company into gold, but may not get the opportunity due to not having a degree completed.
I’m not saying having a degree is bad, although there’s a worthwhile debate on the higher education system that relies (and profits) on the myth that you need a piece of paper to certify you are talented.
Hopefully, as Khan Academy and other online education initiatives make education and knowledge accessible to anyone, anywhere, we will eventually have a system that measures your knowledge based upon what you know, not where you went to school or if you went to school at all.
In the meantime, it would be great to see the leading voices of Silicon Valley, including Michael Arrington, take this opportunity to look beyond Yahoo and Scott Thompson, but at the broader way Silicon Valley approaches talent.
I suppose there are certain situations where a degree in X or Y or Z somehow is important for a particular position (i.e. physician, dentist), but in most situations, the degree isn’t relevant…so why do most Silicon Valley companies require it?
Yahoo should respond by saying Scott Thompson screwed up, but since most everyone agrees his actual degree is irrelevant, they will change their own hiring policies by no longer requiring a college degree unless it’s specifically relevant to the position.
And, it’s time for Silicon Valley to practice what we preach and value people and ideas for their potential, not their credential.
Most good people have left Silicon Valley nearly a decade ago because SV no longer represent merit. SV now represents who is well connected. Yahoo and most other companies in SV today represent exactly that. VC’s back people they know and vice-versa, no longer based on merit but based on who you know. Good luck with that! SV will continue sliding down……
Not sure when you came to the valley, but Silicon Valley has ALWAYS made personal connection a keystone of doing business. In fact, it was worse in the old days of semiconductors, because you really needed a lot of money to start a company back then.
I’ve only been here 30 years, so you can know that is my perspective.
Nowadays, you can read a book, and make a business making iPhone apps or the latest social networking web site from your house with no VC money whatsoever.
And the Vulture Capitalists previously simply took your company away from you when they financed it, but now, for example, Facebook and Google, and many others, simply issue different class of shares to founders and investors, and it is the INVESTORS, including VC’s, that are second class citizens, while the founders such as Zuckerburg, Brin and Wall maintain complete control of their companies to a degree that would have been UNIMAGINABLE to an early generation of founders (Intel,etc).
Sure, the Vultures of Sand Hill Road still look at your presentation, sign the non-disclosure, then rip off your ideas just like they used to. And yes, it still very much helps if you used to work with a former executive who is now an angel investor. Still very true.
But you have a much better chance of keeping control of your company now that ever before in the valley. And it’s better in the valley than anywhere else.
I’d be curious to see where you think is more of a meritocracy than the valley.
This is either Mike’s intro to another post called “I’m the new CEO of Yahoo!” or someone he really knows. TC alum perhaps.
But this guy has a death wish for Yahoo.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404068,00.asp
Seth Godin for CEO. Sold his co. (Yoyodyne) to Yahoo back in the day. Would be a spectacular Jobsian return. He has the chops and the respect.
… Scott Thompson/Yahoo could just produce a CS “certificate” from one of the many “schools” online and put the whole kerfuffle to rest… .
Hey, Obama finally produced a fake “birth certificate**” and he is still in the White House…
** Obama’s sycophants actually produced a fake “Proof of Birth” from a Hawaiian hospital — which IS NOT a legal birth certificate…Bottom line: his “kerfuffle” is history now.
Yeah. and birthers produced a fake birth certificate from Kenya…
four years before Kenya was even a country.
No credible person believes or can even begin to prove Obama was born anywhere except where he says he was, including you. Why is that ? Because Obama was born in Hawaii just when he and his mom and his grandmother say he was born.
Is Scott too good to be fired?
Leaving the CS degree issue aside lot of people have said he has the right experience to revive Yahoo. I don’t know much about his credentials other than running a division at Paypal in Paypal’s best days.
So what is his credential to revive Yahoo’s media and technology core. I am not aware if he created/ innovated on a new product there or if he created some/ any new technology as CTO.
Oh yes! He innovated resume writing to get the Paypal job.
Oh! he will do commerce – so a payment processor will re-invent commerce now. What is the credential for that! Why should we trust him and his baggage from paypal that will now manage Yahoo just like the people from Microsoft with no experience in Yahoo’s business were doing for last two years
I always thought no one is indispensable. Yahoo employees are mostly disgusted for all the reasons Mike has outlined. And I bet all the getting up and working hard will not be for long if this continues.
I just feel bad for Yahoo, particularly its employees. The management team has driven the company into a ditch and is now forced to make some really tough choices. Why would anyone want the CEO job over there? Either because it provides guaranteed financial gains or because the candidate is unproven and a bit crazy. With the former, you likely end up hiring a schmuck, put all the wrong incentives in place, and listen to a steady stream of mealymouthed garbage for months until you are looking for yet another leader. And, with the latter, you take a big chance and Wall Street freaks out, but you might just capture some lightning again. I know it is almost impossible for large companies to make the risky choice, but I think it is getting easier by the day for Yahoo to just go for it.
What @Michael Welton said
It’s refreshing to hear someone speak so frankly & down to earth as you do here.
The fact that the board hasnt done anything merely indicates from where Yahoo’s downfall started
I think the people disagreeing with Arrington on this are either forgetting, or merely don’t understand, Silicon Valley norms. For all its faults; for all its unspoken dependencies on luck and insider relationships; for all its burning out of people who don’t make it to the benefit of the small number who do; Silicon Valley functions as a meritocracy. One of the key cogs on the wheel that drives Silicon Valley is that people respect what you do and trust you can do what you say you can do, and lying about what you have done fundamentally undermines that respect.
Perhaps out in America at large there’s a perception that “everybody lies on their resume” and that it’s okay somehow. Personally I’ve never bought into this theory, as I cannot fathom how one would deal with the shame of being caught in such a lie. Clearly though some just don’t feel that it’s shameful. They feel that dishonesty in pursuit of personal ambition is okay. In my experience in Silicon Valley, dating back to 1999, I think things are different here. It does matter what you can do, what you have done.
It may not matter if you crashed out of your first startup, so long as you’re honest with yourself and with others about why, so long as you learn. It may not matter if you have a degree, so long as you have developed skills along the way that fit what you’re being asked to do. But it DOES matter if you make false claims. It DOES matter if you go for a funding round claiming to have built a successful company before, but you actually crashed and burned. It does matter if you take a job claiming to have been a Ruby programmer for 5 years but really just started doing a few online tutorials a few weeks back and think you can wing it. It DOES matter if you claim a qualification and don’t have it. It undermines the foundation of trust on which true meritocracy is built.
As one final response to those saying that it doesn’t matter anyway as he doesn’t need a CS degree. Yahoo is pursuing a strategy with patents which many feel is fundamentally flawed and shows a surprising level of ignorance with the technology being litigated. A board and shareholders may support a CEO in such a strategy comforted by the fact that at heart he’s a technologist and understands the issues on a deep-down level. An accounting degree comes with no such educational basis.
fantastic post, michael. damn fantastic.
Yes, he should go. And He will go. It is just matter of time. It is a rule that in Company, if you do not get good review in your first year. It means that you will almost never be able to get good review in the future.
Worked my brains out to gain my CCS degree. Scott Thompson/PayPal/Yahoo allow a bean counter to claim same for 1 class, off with his head.
Seriously, I love your posts, but three on this? Scott wasn’t worth one… Good luck to Yahoo – I really want to still love you, but you make it so hard!
Mike – Please go back to doing what you do best, and write. Nobody wants to hear about another one of your fights!
We don’t need no education…
Reminds me of “I did not have sex with that woman”. If you have enough power, you get to keep the job no matter what.
It means if you trump up a charge to get somebody politically, not just any old technicality will be good enough. He certainly did NOT have sex with that woman, at least, not by the standards Southern standards of Newt Gingrich, the guy who was accusing him, at the same time Newt himself was banging his third wife while married to his second wife.
You DO remember his open marriage proposal to his second wife, don’t you ?
It doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution that you can get impeached for lying about adultery, but that’s the smear Republicans went for, while quietly overlooking Tom Delay’s blatant and repeated perjury and…
Come to think of it, you are right.
If you have enough power, you get to keep your job no matter what, just like Newt Gingrich, an adulterer charging Clinton with adultery, did and Tom Delay, a perjurer charging Clinton with perjury, did. They had, at the time, more power than Clinton, so THEY got to keep their job, but they were trying to make sure Clinton didn’t get to keep his, because they thought Clinton had less power.
So, Newt and Tom Delay got to keep their job only because they had enough power, for a while.
You are right. That IS how it works. But just not the exact way you said.
He wasn’t impeached for lying about adultery, he was impeached for lying under oath, or perjury. It’s pretty weak sauce, but let’s be accurate. And they all got to stay in power, so you can all sleep easy tonight knowing those downtrodden politicians will bounce back. A few hookers here, a few lobbyists there, a nobel peace prize, a pat on the back, a golf weekend in the Caymans and some money in the pocket does wonders to get those fragile republidemocraticans back on their feet. They know the American people have a short attenti…American Idol is on!
They already tried that CEO route with Bartz.
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