Page 269 - Executive Warfare

The New Bosses

from e-mailing me gossip or personal information. If something inap-
propriate fell into my hands, I would not even finish it. Instead, I would
send it to the legal department.
Investor chat rooms and blogs are equally bad places to let your guard
down. I do think it’s important to know what’s being said about you. If
necessary, hire an outsider to comb the Web for mentions of your name.
And if there are misconceptions, find an above-board way to correct them.
But don’t wade into the fray yourself. When terrible things appeared
on the Web about me and my company, I used to want to argue, too. So I
understand the temptation to flame
somebody and hit the “Send”key.You’re
being called a pirate, and you think, A LAWYER I
“Oh, I could defend myself anony- RESPECT ONCE
mously; I could hide.” TOLD ME, “HARD
Ultimately, you can’t. John Mackey, DRIVES LAST
the cofounder and CEO of Whole Foods, FOREVER.” THAT
learned this the hard way. For years, he OUGHT TO BE A
posted on Yahoo! Finance message MANTRA FOR
boards under an alias, sometimes dis- SENIOR
paraging rival organic grocery chain EXECUTIVES.
Wild Oats. Then, when Whole Foods
decided to acquire Wild Oats in 2007,
documents that the company released to the Federal Trade Commission
inadvertently revealed his Yahoo! identity. Though Whole Foods eventually
prevailed,Mackey clearly did not improve his case with the FTC,which tried
to block the merger on the grounds that it was anticompetitive.He also pro-
voked both an independent internal investigation and an SEC inquiry.
Mackey’s reasons for doing something so foolhardy? According to both
the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, his initial explanation was
this:“I posted on Yahoo! under a pseudonym because I had fun doing it.”
The casualness of self-expression that the Internet encourages is quite
dangerous. Wired magazine’s Clive Thompson may argue for business lead-

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