The manager — a man named Dean who had left the Fortune 500 company two years earlier — called me back that same night. I had been honest in my message. I had said I was a coworker of Marcus's who had concerns about his resume. Dean sighed on the phone the way someone sighs when they have been waiting to say something for two years. He said, "Marcus worked on my team. He was a senior analyst. He reported to me for eleven months. He was laid off in a restructuring. He never had the title of VP. He never led a team. He did not, as far as I know, go to Stanford — I don't believe he has a graduate degree at all. I tried to tell my HR when he got hired, and I did not follow up aggressively because he was out the door anyway. I regret that now." Dean told me he would be willing to put his statement in writing, if I needed it. I said I might. I hung up. I sat in my kitchen for an hour. And then I made a decision that I have not regretted.