His bio and SEC documents claimed he had a computer science degree

May 4, 2012 11:51 GMT  ·  By

Apparently, there's a big scandal about new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson "lying" about his college degree. In his public bio page at Yahoo and in the documents presented to the US Securities and Exchange office, he said he had a computer science degree from Stonehill College along with an accounting one.

It turns out, he just has the accounting degree. Yahoo initially stayed quiet, but eventually said that an "inadvertent mistake" was made, but that this is inconsequential to his ability to lead the company. Which it is.

"Scott Thompson’s degree at Stonehill College was in bachelor science in accounting. There was an inadvertent error that stated Mr. Thompson also holds a degree in computer science," Yahoo said in a statement.

"This, in no way, alters that fact that Mr. Thompson is a highly qualified executive with a successful track record leading large consumer technology companies. Under Mr. Thompson’s leadership, Yahoo! is moving forward to grow the company and drive shareholder value," the company added.

The fact that his bio says that he has a computer science degree and, worse, that the official documents say the same certainly doesn't look good, doesn't help with his credibility and could be detrimental to the image of the already struggling company.

But a college degree is absolutely useless to a man that has already led PayPal and is now in the top position at Yahoo, he's probably proven himself by now.

Nevertheless, the Yahoo board is said to be "reviewing" the matter to determine how this came to be and if it means anything for the company or the shareholders. Again, if things were normal at Yahoo, all of this would mean nothing. But things are anything but normal at the company, in fact all of this was revealed by shareholder Dan Loeb who's got no love for the board or the new CEO.