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September 11, 2007
CEOs and message boards, by Rondesvous
The investment and internet worlds were shocked July 17 when the sordid fake name message board posting story broke about John Mackey CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc . He posted nasty messages about Wild Oats Markets Inc, a rival organic food company, on Yahoo's finance message board.
Slamming rivals is a breach of netiquette up there with posting an old picture of yourself on a dating site taken before you put on the weight and got all that emotional baggage from that previous relationship. People want honesty on the web.
Mackey had very good motives though. Whole Foods was trying to buy out Wild Oats. He was trying to get everyone to sell their shares so that Whole Foods could buy them cheaper. Those cynics at the US Federal Trade Commission allege that it was part of his master plan to corner the organic food market, keep major grocery chains from buying Wild Oats to springboard into the organic food market, and squeeze more money from those tie-dyed, flip flop wearing organic food shoppers. When reading the court documents you can visualise Mackey wringing his hands, drooling at the mouth and letting out an evil BUHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!!! (Then going off to play creepy evil mastermind guy music on the pipe organ). Now shopping for organic food seems so sleazy and dirty.
Unfortunately Mackey was not very clever. He used the nic "RAHODEB" a jumbled version of his wife's name "DEBORAH". In his last post as Rahodeb he tipped his hat to people who figured it out. Maybe they also figured out that with his wedding anniversary, children's names and their birthdays you could hack into his computer and bank accounts and auction off his identity (or at least one of his identities). Mackey would also post stuff like he thought the Whole Foods CEO looked cute!
Here are some posts that I think another CEO or former CEO posted, let me know what you think:
SATAN1: I STILL THINK THAT N640K OF RAM IS ENOUGH FOR ANYBODY
SATAN1: HEY THAT WINDOWS 2000 WAS THE GREATEST HARDLY ANY BUGS IN IT AT ALL. VISTA IS ALMOST AS GOOD.
SATAN1: DON'T YOU THINK THAT THOSE MAC/PC GUY COMMERCIALS SUCK. DON'T YOU THINK THAT THAT MAC GUY LOOKS LIKE A PUNK THAT DESERVES A GOOD POUNDING. COME ON PEOPLE!!!! WHO IS WITH ME ON THIS ONE!!!!
SATAN1: WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THAT INVESTMENT GUY FROM MEXICO BECOMING THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD????? HE DIDN'T INVENT ANYTHING OR INTRODUCE SOMETHING THAT REVOLUTIONIZED THE WORLD AND LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR ALL OF MANKIND??? COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!ARE YOU WITH ME ON THIS ONE?!!!!!
Posted by at September 11, 2007 11:41 PM