Whole Sockpuppets
This is actually a few days old, but I just caught it. In what can only be considered a bizarre case of serious weirdness, the CEO of the Whole Foods company, John Mackey, has been caught posting sockpuppet comments on Yahoo chat rooms dedicated to stock trading. And the Security and Exchange Commission is going berserk on him for it. The posts go all the way back to 1999 and continued until quite recently.
Mackey, Whole Foods CEO, was outed this week as "Rahodeb," a frequent visitor to Yahoo chat rooms dedicated to stock trading. In his comments, Rahodeb was unstintingly bullish on the prospects of Whole Foods' (WFMI) continuing growth, and frequently critical of a rival company, Wild Oats. (OATS)
It's not clear whether he violated any securities laws in his pseudonymous postings, but his comments could end up hurting Whole Foods shareholders in another way. The Federal Trade Commission is using some of his remarks to bolster its contention that Whole Foods' planned acquisition of Wild Oats, announced in February, would be anti-competitive.
In a court filing Tuesday, the FTC referred to Mackey's anonymous postings to back up its position.
Corporate governance experts and image consultants say that Mackey's exposure as an anonymous commentator could cause the company's board to question his leadership abilities.
"This evidence raises more doubts about his sanity than his criminality," says Jack Coffee, a securities law expert at Columbia Law School. "The merger is a major business strategy, and he's undercut it with reckless, self-destructive behavior. It's a little weird, like catching him as a Peeping Tom."
"It's more of an embarrassment than an issue of profound ethical and legal consequence," says Eric Dezenhall, a crisis communications consultant. "It shows a degree of obsessiveness that's a little disturbing."
Wednesday, after The Wall Street Journal identified Mackey as Rahodeb, Whole Foods acknowledged that the CEO had posted anonymous comments from 1999 through 2006 using the handle, an anagram of his wife's name, Deborah.
This is unhinged behavior at best. But on the bright side, Salon should be offering Mackey a job soon. They like sockpuppets. Holmes may have to get on the case.
By Steven Silvers, Monday, 16 July , 2007 @ 12:15 am
From Scatterbox:
Despite the PR and social media pundits, there’s not much to learn from the Whole Foods fiasco.