Internet Not as Anonymous as I Thought discovers Whole Foods CEO
In an interesting twist on the “Internet’s not as anonymous as you think” theme, it was recently disclosed that John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, was in the habit of posting snarky comments about his company and competitors on Yahoo Forums under the pseudonym “Rahodeb”.
This would generally be a bad idea for any company owner, but when you’re the CEO of a publicly traded company subject to SEC regulations, when those comments include not only predictions about the performance of your company, but also predictions about the impending demise of your competitor and the incompetence of its CEO, a company that you subsequently purchase, drawing the interest of antitrust regulators because they think you might have a monopoly in wheat grass and slushy natural ginseng-laced peanut butter - well, let’s just say your lack of discretion is earning compound interest.
The ruse was unmasked when the alias was published in an court document filed by the FTC.
WSJ: Whole Foods Is Hot, Wild Oats a Dud — So Said ‘Rahodeb’, NY Times: Whole Foods Executive Used Alias
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
My favourite Rahodeb posting was where Rahodeb reckoned Mackey’s haircut made him look “cute”.
Isn’t the internet precious?