It was just reported that former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson resigned after being called out by Dan Loeb and Third Point for padding his resume. Thompson, who had been peddling a fake computer science degree for some time, made national news in a society that is very fascinated with the misgivings of 1%-ers, and then claimed to all the sudden be suffering from a serious illness before stepping down. And, Thompson was also able to bypass forced crying on television or the entering some sort of rehab center to bolster PR. Surely he’d arranged his contract in a way that will afford him millions of dollars for fraudulently taking the reigns at the embattled company for roughly four months, so, case closed.
In another instance of a top executive behaving badly, Best Buy’s founder and chairman Richard Schulze has stepped down, after a probe revealed that he was aware of ex-CEO Brian Dunn’s inappropriate relationship with a female employee. Dunn resigned in April, and there were no disagreements between he and the board on anything relating to operations, financial controls, policies, or procedures. Best Buy had hired an outside legal firm to take a look at Dunn’s dealings, and revealed that no misuse of company resources or aircraft occurred during the ongoing tryst, but indicated that Schulze “acted inappropriately” when he found out about the relationship.
Best Buy has been having some big problems as of late, and was forced to close several of its stores and lay off hundreds of employees. Leadership had already been on thin ice, and Schulze, who founded the company since 1966, made a misstep in possibly protecting Dunn’s misconduct. As Schulze resigns, he will be replaced by Hatim Tyabji, chairman of its audit committee. Schulze will be fine – In 2011 he was ranked 157th richest person in America, according to Forbes, with an estimated worth of $2.5 billion.