I have to admit that this story makes me wonder somewhat about the mentality of CEOs everywhere, but check out the secret, hidden blogging life of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. He logged onto a Yahoo stock forum for about eight years under the moniker "Rahodeb" to essentially tout his own company and trash his major competitor, Wild Oats, which he and Whole Foods are now attempting to buy.
In reading the story, it doesn’t sound like "Rahodeb" (the name of his wife, Deborah, in anagram format) was doing anything much different than I’m doing right now: airing my opinion into the vast expanse of cyber-space. Of course, there is one major difference: I’m not jabbering on about the competitive position and stock value of Advocate Publishing, and we’re not a publicly traded company anyway. Seemingly knowledgeable posts by someone on a stock forum is almost certainly bound to affect someone’s stock picking, and without actually reading all of the posts from "Rahodeb", I would have to assume that there was a certain amount of dissembling required to maintain secrecy.
Anyway, it all begs the question (to paraphrase a well-known quote): Are CEOs really just like you and me, except they have a whole lot more money (and apparently, time on their hands)?
