Apparently, the CEO of Whole Foods has been spending alot of time on the Internet talking pretending to be someone else:
SAN FRANCISCO, July 15 — On the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog — or the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.
Or so thought John Mackey, the chief executive of Whole Foods Market, who used a fictional identity on the Yahoo message boards for nearly eight years to assail competition and promote his supermarket chain’s stock, according to documents released last week by the Federal Trade Commission.
Mr. Mackey used the online handle “Rahodeb” (an anagram of his wife’s name, Deborah). In one Internet posting sure to enter the annals of chief-executive vanity, Mr. Mackey wrote as Rahodeb, “I like Mackey’s haircut. I think he looks cute!”
With all a chief executive has to do, the 14-hour days spent barking orders, digesting reports, motivating employees and courting Wall Street, why would they spend their time sparring with anonymous critics online? And what makes them think they won’t be revealed?
And rather than simply be embarrassing, this episode could prove costly to Whole Foods:
Whole Foods maintains that Mr. Mackey did not break the law because he did not disclose any confidential company information.
But the consequences could be damaging to the company, if not to Mr. Mackey. Securities lawyers say the Federal Trade Commission might use the comments to scuttle Whole Foods’ proposed acquisition of a competitor, Wild Oats, a company Mr. Mackey derided in his posts. Wild Oats may also use the comments as the basis of a lawsuit against Whole Foods.
Oops.
