Hilarious scandal! bwhahahaha!!!

Dan Loeb Alleges "Discrepancies" on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson's Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

May 3, 2012 at 11:53 am PT

The gloves are now really off in the proxy battle for Yahoo.

In a letter to Yahoo's board, Dan Loeb of Third Point is alleging that the company's new CEO Scott Thompson has inaccurately added a computer science degree to his resume.

[UPDATE: Yahoo confirmed that Loeb is correct about Thompson not having such a degree and called it an "inadvertent error."]

Thompson went to Stonehill College from 1975 to 1979, according to his LinkedIn profile, but it does not specify the major.

And older bios, such as one from his director bio for F5 and one from Forbes, as well as an Stone Hill College alumni newsletter, note that he graduated only with a Bachelor of Science in accounting.

But in bios from his job at eBay as head of its PayPal division, as well as on the current Yahoo bio, a new degree in computer science also appears, along with the accounting degree.

"Scott received a bachelor's in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College," read the Yahoo and eBay bios, as well as related regulatory filings.

According to Loeb's letter:

Upon recognizing this discrepancy, Third Point initially assumed that the documents we had reviewed were incorrect and the representations in Yahoo!'s public filings were accurate. However, we were then informed by Stonehill College that Mr. Thompson did indeed graduate with a degree in accounting only. Furthermore, Stonehill College informed us that it did not begin awarding computer science degrees until 1983 - four years after Mr. Thompson graduated. We inquired whether Mr. Thompson had taken a large number of computer science courses, perhaps allowing him to justify to himself that he had "earned" such a degree. Instead, we learned that during Mr. Thompson's tenure at Stonehill only one such course was even offered - Intro to Computer Science. Presumably, Mr. Thompson took that course.

I am awaiting call back from Stonehill about Thompson's degree, which the college is checking now. And I called Yahoo for comment and also am waiting for that too.

If Loeb's allegations are true and Thompson burnished his resume to add educational expertise to lend him more tech credibility, it could become a serious issue for Yahoo.

It would also call into question - as Loeb does in the letter - the amount of vetting done by Yahoo on the CEO choice, which was conducted by board member Patti Hart.

It gets worse: Loeb is also alleging that Hart changed her degree from Illinois State College from business administration to a loftier economics and marketing.

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