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Activist Yahoo shareholder Dan Loeb appears to have vetted CEO Scott Thompson more carefully than the company's board did. In his bio and regulatory filings, Thompson claimed to have a double degree in computer science and accounting from Stonehill College, but his only degree is in accounting, Loeb discovered. Loeb—who is seeking to shake up Yahoo's board—found that the Massachusetts college didn't begin awarding degrees in computer science until 1983, four years after Thompson graduated.
In a statement, Yahoo said the "inadvertent error" did not alter the fact that Thompson is a "highly qualified executive with a successful track record leading large consumer technology companies." But the error on Thompson's resume appears to have been around for quite a few years, including while he was chief technology officer at PayPal, a position where having or not having a degree in computer science would be extremely relevant, notes Nicholas Carlson at the San Francisco Chronicle. "It is inconceivable that he didn't know his bio was wrong for so long," he writes.
