Scott Thompson Resigns From Board of Directors of Splunk Inc.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – May 21, 2012) – Splunk® Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK), the leading provider of software for real-time operational intelligence, today announced that Scott Thompson has resigned from its board of directors, effective May 18, 2012.

Splunk Chairman and CEO Godfrey Sullivan stated, “On behalf of the company’s management and board of directors, we thank Mr. Thompson for his contributions to the company. In regard to recent health issues, we wish Scott all the best for a fast and full recovery.”

The appointment of Thompson’s successor will be announced at a later date.

Thompson was also on the board of directors at F5 Networks, but resigned from that position last week.

Thompson told one of his colleagues that he did not want to publicly discuss the cancer diagnosis because he wanted the details to be private. He has started the treatment process for the cancer. Thompson will receive some severance pay as he steps down from the company.

When Thompson was hired at Yahoo!, he did not need to provide a resume. Same with when he applied to eBay/PayPal.

Thompson was interviewed by NPR and the interviewer mentioned the CS and accounting degree that Thompson had. Thompson said he did not correct the interviewer because it was awkward to correct someone in the middle of the interview.

Patti Hart stepped down from the Yahoo! board of directors because she was the one that vetted Thompson for the job. Thompson worked at eBay subsidiary PayPal before joining Yahoo! eBay CEO John Donahoe lent his words of support to Thompson, but also said that eBay’s legal filings of his bio were always correct even if their website and PR documents being handed out were not.

“I think Scott Thompson did a great job at PayPal. I think he’s a very talented leader and I believe he can help Yahoo. I hope they get through this and he can continue to do the very challenging job he’s got of helping to turn Yahoo around. I’m Scott’s biggest fan,” said Donahoe.

Below is a letter from Loeb:
Third Point May 9 Letter Release

Yahoos:

I wanted to share some additional thoughts with you related to the disclosure of my academic credentials.

As I told you on Friday, the board is reviewing the issue and I will provide whatever they need from me. In the meantime, I want you to know how deeply I regret how this issue has affected the company and all of you. We have all been working very hard to move the company forward, and this has had the opposite effect. For that, I take full responsibility, and I want to apologize to you.

In my note Friday, I said I would be focused on continuing to do what needs to get done. That’s because I feel I owe it to all of you to make sure that nothing disrupts the progress we’ve made in just a few short months due to all of your focus, commitment, and hard work. As you’ve heard me say many times, we have a tremendous business with incredible assets, and we can win by putting our customers first. The progress I shared with you in the first quarter should make clear that we intend to move fast and deliver on the potential of the business for our customers, shareholders, and all of you.

I know the board plans to conduct the review thoroughly and independently, and I respect that process. I am hopeful that this matter will be concluded promptly. But, in the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. We need to continue to act as one team to fulfill the potential of this great company and keep moving forward. You have my word that all my energy and attention will be on that mission.

Scott

“He clearly knew and lied for years,” said one employee. “And his handling since (being) exposed has been unacceptable.”

Third Point founder and hedge fund manager Dan Loeb sent a letter to Yahoo!’s board of directors to demand an investigation about Scott Thompson’s bio. In his bio, it said that he had an Accounting and Computer Science degree from Stonehill College. It turns out that Thompson never received a Computer Science degree from Stonehill, but did have an Accounting degree from there.

Thompson had a meeting with top executives late last week, but never brought up the resume issue. “It was the gorilla in the room and it was awkward in the extreme,” stated a Yahoo executive in an interview with AllThingsD. “He never brought it up, which was even worse.” Over the weekend Thompson told his top-level staff that Loeb had a “personal vendetta” against him.

The problem Yahoo! is dealing with is that if they keep Thompson in place, the company’s integrity is at stake with major shareholders. If they fire Thompson, Yahoo! would be temporarily without a CEO to drive the company.

“In connection with the statement the company made earlier today about Scott Thompson, the Yahoo! board will be reviewing this matter, and upon completion of its review, will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders,” said Yahoo! in a statement.

The bio mistake has been happening over the last 6 years and either Thompson never noticed it or he just took it and ran with it. His bio filings made by eBay to the SEC were accurate, but his bio on their website was written inaccurately. The inaccurate bio was moved to Yahoo!’s corporate website when he became CEO.

In a letter to Yahoo!’s board of directors, Loeb wrote:

Upon recognizing this discrepancy, Third Point initially assumed that the documents we had reviewed were incorrect and the representations in Yahoo!’s public filings were accurate. However, we were then informed by Stonehill College that Mr. Thompson did indeed graduate with a degree in accounting only. Furthermore, Stonehill College informed us that it did not begin awarding computer science degrees until 1983 — four years after Mr. Thompson graduated. We inquired whether Mr. Thompson had taken a large number of computer science courses, perhaps allowing him to justify to himself that he had “earned” such a degree. Instead, we learned that during Mr. Thompson’s tenure at Stonehill only one such course was even offered — Intro to Computer Science. Presumably, Mr. Thompson took that course.

Yahoo! board member Patti Hart vetted Thompson as he was being picked as CEO at the company. Loeb also alleges that Hart changed her degree from Illinois State College from business administration to economics and marketing.

“If Mr. Thompson embellished his academic credentials we think that it 1) undermines his credibility as a technology expert and 2) reflects poorly on the character of the CEO who has been tasked with leading Yahoo! at this critical juncture. Now more than ever Yahoo! investors need a trustworthy CEO,” added Loeb in the letter.

Analysts and investors are looking to gain additional information from Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson today. Analysts are wondering what is happening in the company’s search deal with Microsoft and talks about selling off their stake in Alibaba. They also want to know about Yahoo!’s patent lawsuit against Facebook and how to handle a proxy challenge by activist shareholder Third Point.

“In the first quarter, Yahoo!’s results came in at the high end of our guidance range and beat consensus on revenue and profits,” said Thompson in a statement. “We also made changes to resize the organization and establish a new leadership structure to quickly deliver the best user and advertiser experiences at scale.”