Whistleblower calls for Yahoo! CEO to be fired

Despite highly publicized stories of a falsified degree listing on his resume, Yahoo!'s CEO Scott Thompson still holds his position as of early Wednesday afternoon. Despite calls from one of Yahoo's largest invested hedge funds  for his resignation and financial mogul Warren Buffet's less than flattering statements to the same effect, Thompson has given no indication that he intends to do so. The latest call comes from Daniel Loeb himself, the Third Point CEO who did the legwork and found that Thompson's claims were false.

The issue at hand is Thompson's Bachelor's degree, which is indeed genuine... in accounting. The CEO claimed that his degree from Stonehill College was in computer science, a fact that Yahoo's CEO search committee took under advisement when they hired him. Loeb also investigated the head of the search committee, who turned out to have a similar "error" on her own resume, wherein her claimed degree of bachelors in marketing and economics turned out to be for business administration.

Loeb sent out a letter earlier today, personally urging Thompson to resign and instructing Yahoo's board to fire him if he does not.

It appears very clear to us — and to many corporate governance experts, Yahoo employees, and fellow Yahoo shareholders — that Mr. Thompson's fantasy degree was in no way an 'inadvertent error.'  The evidence shows he had been using false credentials for years.

Thompson was previously a successful CEO at PayPal, and Yahoo brought him on to be the struggling web company's fourth Chief Executive Officer in three years. Thompson claims that the discrepancy is an error, an idea that seems doubtful at best. Daniel Loeb and Third Point aren't exactly neutral observers in all this: Third Point i looking for seats on the board of directors and a higher stake in Yahoo's finances.

[via Mercury News]