Everyone masturbates. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods just got caught doing it. I don't have a problem with what John did, but I'm not the SEC, nor a lawsuit hungry securities attorney. I fear that by the time they get through with him there won't be much left. What a shame. I personally think John is a great CEO and a good human being. As I mentioned in a pre-scandle post, I consider him a Business Hero. From what I've read, he didn't bet against his own team and he didn't disclose any non-public information. He also wasn't knocking the competition during the time period when he was thinking of buying them. I was also looking forward to John Mackey joining the advisory board at Integral Institute, a group I support. I understand he had been invited to do so by Ken WIlber, the founder of the integral movement.
As the CEO of a small public company myself, I can understand the temptation John felt to express himself freely. Google automatically sends me an alert every time my company, iKarma, is mentioned on the internet. I'm sure John Mackey got the same alerts for Whole Foods. It's good for a CEO to know what the public is saying. But people often say things on-line that I wish I could respond to, but ethically and/or legally can't. This is especially true about the stock boards. Over the past 10 years cheap electronic trading has enabled the growth of a small army of day traders. These traders often survive by betting on small stock movements of a fraction of a cent. Many (most) get desperate as the cruel mathematics of the game take its inevitable toll. On line day trading is like a virtual Las Vegas where the house takes one percent rather than five. It often takes a months for traders to learn the hard lessons about betting against the house on Wall Street that can be learned in a single Vegas weekend. As a result, the stock boards are awash with desperate traders who will say almost anything to try and move their stocks up or down and avoid going back to their day job.
Because I'm the CEO of a very small company whose stock price could actually be moved by comments on a stock board, I refuse to even look at the boards. I don't need the frustration of not being able to respond, and I don't want the temptation. But John Mackey really wasn't in my situation. Whole Foods is a huge company with a massive market cap. I doubt that the trading volume generated by the Yahoo board ever moved the stock of Whole Foods more than a penny during John's time there. So I can understand how John may have seen his anonymous posts as a harmless pastime. Given the nature of the misinformation found on some boards he may have even seen it as a public service. As long as he remained anonymous, it was. Had John simply hired a professional PR firm to engage day traders in electrical intercourse, none of this would be a problem. But he didn't; ironically for an ethical company like Whole Foods that would have been an irresponsible use of company funds. Now John Mackey, one of the best and brightest CEO's in the world is about to become the Pee Wee Herman of Wall Street. What a waste.
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