Sockpuppets, an outspoken CEO and Wall Street hijinks

The Baltimore Sun

"Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet" goes the motto of the world's largest natural foods grocer.

And some would now add about its CEO: "Half-baked?"

John P. Mackey, the co-founder and head of Whole Foods Market, took the unusual step last month of creating a blog to offer his comments on his company's pending acquisition of Wild Oats Markets, the No. 3 natural foods chain.

A CEO creating a forum that might irritate regulators before his deal's been approved is a fascinating display of nerve. Mackey himself acknowledged as much:

"Today we live in such a politically correct and litigious society that most people in the public realm simply don't say anything that hasn't been pre-approved and sterilized," the nonconformist chief executive wrote on his blog (http:--www.wholefoods.com/blogs/jm/). "This is the main reason politicians are often so boring and obtuse - they never want to say anything that will offend anyone. ... I am not a politician."

But other recent news involving Whole Foods and blogs was more eye-popping yet.

Mackey, it was revealed, made hundreds of anonymous posts to Yahoo's investor message board about his company's stock. He wrote under the pseudonym "rahodeb," an anagram of his wife's name, Deborah, occasionally to disparage the same Wild Oats company he now seeks to buy for $565 million. Over eight years, he posted more than 1,300 comments, reported the Austin American-Statesman in the company's Texas hometown.

Mackey's anonymous blogging came to light through documents released recently that Whole Foods had provided to the government as part of the Federal Trade Commission's request for information about the proposed merger.

The commission had already filed suit to block the Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger, claiming it will further constrict the organic foods market.

Mackey apologized to shareholders last week for his anonymous posts. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Whole Foods' board of directors are now investigating the matter.

There's a term for Mackey's message-board masquerade: "sockpuppeting." It describes people who post on a message board posing as someone else.

Mackey's posts in the third person - complimentary of his own leadership, even his own haircut - were likely seen by others as just another semi-informed contributor to the Yahoo financial boards.

On the other hand, a CEO's disguised communications to diminish the value of a public company he's attempting to buy is serious stuff.

How many other CEOs, or their underlings, are out there trying to spin perceptions or counter criticisms on message boards is unknown.

But it's evident from their public comments that many powerful and cocooned corporate chiefs have tissue skin when it comes to the indelicate flotsam on the message boards about themselves and their companies.

A sockpuppet once was the metaphor for the irrational exuberance about the early Internet as mascot of pets.com, the first big e-business flop. The CEO as "sockpuppet" is the latest embarrassment.

andrew.ratner@baltsun.com

Andrew Ratner is Today editor of The Sun and a former technology reporter.

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