Over on Dave Farber‘s IP list, Dana Blankenhorn raises an interesting question about the Worldcom mess. John Sidgmore is now the CEO of Worldcom. Before the meltdown, he was the COO and vice chairman; he used to be the CEO of UUnet and took the current position when Worldcom bought UUnet. Why has the media given Sidgmore a free pass? Why isn’t anyone saying “Hey, John, you were the COO. How come you didn’t know this was happening?”
Timothy Smith, another IP contributor, says that Sidgmore was largely out of the loop– after a falling-out with the CEO, “[Sidgmore] pretty much went off and did his own thing” from sometime in 1999 until the present. If I were a stockholder, I’d be outraged. As a consumer of the business press, it certainly makes me wonder why no one asked this reasonable question of Mr. Sidgmore. Maybe someone will.
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