Once again Dan Lyons wants you meanies to cut it out!
“Stop Picking on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson!”
Why? Is this bugging him? The Macalope’s not touching him. Is this bugging him? What about this? Or this? Why is Scott Thompson hitting himself? Why is he hitting himself? Why are you hitting yourself, Scott?
Scott Thompson, if you don’t know, is the now former CEO of Yahoo who was found to have been a little liberal on the ol’ résumé, to the point of actually making things up.
Here’s the thing. The people howling about Résumégate don’t really care about Thompson’s credentials.
It’s true. Some just wanted him out because they think they can do a better job. That doesn’t mean he didn’t lie about it.
All this begs the question: Who cares? Thompson has a degree in accounting, not computer science, but frankly at this point in his career does it really matter what he studied as an undergraduate?
Does it matter if your CEO is a liar? Well, if you’re Yahoo, maybe not. But for a company with hopes and dreams, yes.
But the larger issue is: who cares about Yahoo?
Uh… you do?
If you don’t care, why are you writing about it? Usually, if you don’t care about something you don’t devote 750 words to it.
It’s not just the Macalope, right? It’s him.
So now Yahoo has become what Valley pundits call a “patent troll,” meaning a company that doesn’t really do anything valuable and just makes money by using its intellectual property to shake down companies for cash.
Funny, but these are the same pundits who cheer when Apple files lawsuit after lawsuit against Android phone makers.
Lyons doesn’t cite sources to prove that that it’s the same bloggers doing both, but the Macalope might speculate that the reason these strawbloggers don’t see any contradiction is precisely because of what Lyons notes: Apple makes things of value while Yahoo doesn’t.
Forgive me for being less than shocked at the idea of a CEO lying. Steve Jobs used to lie all the time, and he’s apparently the greatest CEO who ever lived.
Again, Lyons doesn’t cite any instances of Jobs lying. The Macalope’s not naive enough to say it never happened, but usually when you’re leveling a charge like that at someone you have the decency to back it up. Also, based on the increase in Apple shareholder value during Jobs’s tenure one could make a pretty good case for him actually being the greatest CEO who ever lived. “Apparently” that’s not enough for Lyons.
Lyons seems to think that the CEOs of Groupon and Zynga have gotten some kind of free pass while Scott Thompson is being unfairly persecuted. The Macalope doesn’t know about Groupon, but people hate Zynga’s Mark Pincus, who’s frequently pilloried by those mean ol’ bloggers.
What is it about this that has Lyons so bothered?
Facebook is a cool kid. So is Apple. Yahoo is the loser kid that nobody likes.
Whoa, whoa, Dan. You realize these are companies not people, right? People mock Yahoo because it’s failed to produce cool new products and it’s failed to provide its shareholders any value. People think Yahoo is a loser because it’s actually losing, not because it dresses Goth or reads science fiction or wears glasses.
This is business, Dan. Thompson, the Macalope is sure, will end up someplace nice with a comfortable salary, despite those mean ol’ bloggers. The Macalope thinks you doth project too much.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]