5. Scott Thompson's resume

5. Scott Thompson's resume

Let’s face it, many us have done it: That slight fudge to the resume, that miserable, soul-sucking job you had for four months when you were 22 that seems to disappear from the work history as the decades pass.

But what most of us haven't done is add big credentials like, oh, college degrees. That brings us to Scott Thompson, the briefest of Yahoo CEOs in a long line of brief Yahoo CEOs. Thompson claimed he has a computer science degree when he only had an accounting degree. Whoops. Already an unpopular figure in Silicon Valley because he had picked a patent fight with Facebook, Thompson resigned under pressure.

But there was a silver lining to l'affaire Thompson for Yahoo. His departure cleared the way to hire Google's Marissa Mayer, long considered one of the brightest execs in the Valley and a strong candidate to one day lead her own company. And she really does have a computer science degree.