1. Which of the following statements is true?
A: George W. Bush has been arrested four times.
B: George W. Bush is the first President with an MBA.
(Answer: B. Bush has been arrested only three times: once for drunk driving, in 1976, and twice while a student at Yale–for ripping down the goal posts after a Princeton/Yale game and for stealing a Christmas wreath from a hotel. He managed to avoid arrest at Harvard Business School, from which he graduated in 1975.)
2. Which jobs did Bernie Ebbers have prior to becoming CEO of WorldCom?
A: Gym teacher, milkman and bar bouncer.
B: Bookkeeper, shoeshine-stand operator and paper cutter.
(Answer: A. Bookkeeper, shoeshine-stand operator and paper cutter were all jobs held by Al Capone.)
3. True or false? In the mid-1990s, indicted former CEO John Rigas put his home phone number on Adelphia’s cable bills.
(Answer: True. It is not true, however, that he asked customers to check a box on their bill if they’d like to donate one dollar to the “John Rigas Bail Fund.”)
4. Which of the following is a job previously held by Martha Stewart?
A: Cancer drug developer.
B: Stockbroker.
C: Bail bondsman.
(Answer: B. Bail bondsman is probably the most recent addition to her Palm Pilot. As for cancer drug developer, I’m sure she wishes she’d never met one.)
5. Which of the following is true of former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski?
A: In 2002 he was arrested and charged with evading millions of dollars in taxes on art purchases he’d made.
B: In 2002 he was invited to be Florida Atlantic University’s Business Leader of the Year.
(Answer: They’re both true. And in a speech to the graduating class at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire, also in 2002, he said, “You will be confronted with questions every day that test your morals. Think carefully, and for your sake, do the right thing, not the easy thing.”)
6. Which of the following are actual suggestions made by former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers to save money at the company’s headquarters?
A: Lower the thermostats.
B: Let office plants die to save on water.
C: Count coffee bags to make sure they aren’t stolen.
D: Switch to AT&T for long-distance service.
(Answer: A, B and C. It is not true that Ebbers asked employees to snuggle by the space heaters on especially cold days to stay warm.)
7. Why did John Rigas refuse to carry porn films on his cable systems?
A: It offended his sense of morality.
B: Securing broadcast rights was too convoluted.
C: He was reserving the channel space for family programming.
(Answer: A. Pocketing $3.1 billion from Adelphia shareholders, however, didn’t weigh on his conscience one bit.)
8. True or false? According to
USA Today
, 82 percent of 401 high-ranking corporate executives admit to being less than honest on the golf course.
(Answer: True. And the other 18 percent were probably lying to the person taking the poll.)
9. What percentage of the Fortune 1000 is managed by female CEOs?
A: 5 percent.
B: 9 percent.
(Answer: C. There are only eleven female CEOs. And none
of them have been indicted in the recent spate of accounting scandals.)
10. Which of the following events did Sunbeam’s “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap not attend?
A: A single Sunbeam board meeting.
B: The funerals of his parents.
C: His own colonoscopy.
(Answer: B. The story that Dunlap forced a junior Sunbeam manager to have his colonoscopy for him because he was too busy firing people seems to be just a rumor.)
