It's one thing to include "conversational Spanish" on your resume when you haven't taken a class since high school. It's quite another to fake a computer science degree, especially when you're the CEO of a big-name tech company.
Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson was shown the door in May, after it came to light that he claimed to have a bachelor's degree in both accounting and computer science. His degree is actually in accounting only.
Thompson has since landed at ShopRunner, a tech startup. But Thompson's dumbest moment led to what could turn out to be one of Yahoo's smartest: hiring Marissa Mayer away from Google. Were it not for Thompson and his inflated resume, Mayer would probably still be Google employee #20 -- not Yahoo's heralded new leader. -- Julianne Pepitone
