We are prempting our regularly-scheduled feature, “This Week in Cheese” to bring you news of powerful successful seemingly intelligent people being just plain stupid with the internet. Cheese will have to wait because apparently stupid will not.
Exhibit A: NJ Governor Jon Corzine quits email because it’s annoying him. OK, you want to stop sending email to your friends and family, that’s just fine, but you’re the governor of a state – don’t you think you need to be using networked communication to get your job done? Back in April, Corzine opted out of seatbelt technology with some pretty awful results, I hope this technology decision goes better for him.
Exhibit B: Whole Foods CEO and co-founder John Mackey is in hot water for anonymous postings on finance chat boards pumping up WF stock and trash-talking about competitor Wild Oats – which Whole Foods is now seeking to buy. Not once or twice, but a thousand times over several years, and not just about the companies’ finances but about his own personal attractiveness. Sort of a reverse pump-and-dump cake with a layer of megalomaniacal ganache on top. Unethical and creepy.
Bonus stupid from Whole Foods: Remember in March when they stopped selling live lobsters because it was mean to the lobsters? Dave Lannon took the opportunity to remind us all of our own mortality – good marketing there, Dave.
Human beings are all going to die, too. But the quality of life is important while we’re alive. It is the same with animals,” said David Lannon, Whole Foods’ North Atlantic regional president.
Here’s my advice: Corzine: Buckle up and rejoin the 21st Century. Mackey: Grow a spine, resign, and seek counseling. Lannon: Sell the delicious melted butter and skip the gloom and doom.