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With Sarsbane-Oxley passed years ago, not a single CEO has been held accountable.

But, many CFOs have been, and while ,there isn't evidence that CEOs have been charged:

it forces corporations to be more vigilant about financial reporting at all levels, which is likely one of the reasons there have been few accounting scandals at major public corporations since Sarbanes-Oxley took effect. In that regard, the law is doing what it’s supposed to, encouraging accountability and deterring fraud.

Yet, this is ANOTHER case where the CEO SHOULD be an MUST be held accountable for allowing their company to produce a clear and dangerous product deficency.

Maybe, but no under SOX, as SOX covers fraud, not product deficiencies that haven't been proven to be knowingly fraudulent.

However, this is why I don't use proprietary NAS systems. If I wanted vulnerabilities in code I don't control to affect the security of my data, I would much rather use a public cloud, whose entire business is data security, than appliances from a disk vendor for whom this is a side business, supposedly trading on the insecurity of the cloud and punting the security of their device "because not cloud" where it's still effectively someone else's computer (running code I can't look at).

Then make sure you don't buy from Samsung either, since they've been convicted of (or admitted to) price fixing in not one, not two, but three different product markets - DRAM, Mobile Phones, and LCD panels.

If you're going to crack on a company for business practices, make sure you use the same yardstick for all.

The SEC doesn't stop fraud because it doesn't want to stop it, not because it lacks the resources.

Exactly. For those who are not convinced, a bit of reading: Five New York Stock Exchange specialists were actually charged with fraud, but it's not the justice you think it should be. Richard Ney and economist who later turned actor, wrote a best selling book in 1970 ("The Wall St Jungle", interview NY Magazine 1970) with a few follow up books that all called out the NYSE Specialist families for fraud, explaining exactly how they defraud the public. At the time The Wall Street Journal boycotted anyone selling the NY times longest running best seller, and Ney was not permitted as a guest on The Tonight Show - very unusual at the time for someone with such a long run best seller/controversial book - his message had touched a raw nerve. In response, the establishment had Ney widely counter-attacked, labelled a conspiracy theorist nut at every opportunity - comments like "what would an actor know of the stock market" were common and can be heard even today.

To prove Ney's wild eyed grand conspiracy theory right - The DOJ finally got around to charging the NYSE specialists for the exact fraud that Ney described - 33 year's after he wrote about the crime! In 2003 the Specialist firms quickly got their get out of jail free cards for a tiny fraction of what they had actually defrauded over the years. Those get out of jail free cards just keep coming off the monopoly pile. The story does not end there however... news came out shortly after that the NYSE was at long last going to move to an all-electronic exchange - and that the Specialists firms charged with defrauding the public were the very same that had been blocking the move due to their 30% NYSE stake. Everyone in the know + those that read Ney's books knew all too well of the massive fraud going on in full public view for at least 33 years (more like 210+ years), but it was not until these Specialist criminals blocked other powerful interests that the illegal behaviour was actually pursued by the SEC/DOJ.

If ever there was an example of the lack of credibility for the SEC and DOJ, this is it. 33+ years of massive fraud in full public view, but they did not get around to prosecuting until it was ordered to - until it was necessary to coerce the Specialist family firms into letting the NYSE go electronic. Nothing to do with justice, or protecting the innocent being defrauded to the tune of billions of dollars over the decades. As an added insult, the DOJ let the criminals off the hook with a paltry fine. But then there is no surprise there, as Richard Ney said it best:

"Regrettably, the arrangements that exist to preserve the traditions and legalize the frauds of the security industry are inseparable from the general organization of a society controlled by the financial establishment, a society whose laws and principal customs have been contrived to serve the special interests of the financial community,"

Voting Red or Blue will not change this arrangement of US society and it's laws - merely reinforce it.

Some NYSE specialists were charged with fraud: Richard Ney and economist who later turned actor, wrote a best selling book in 1970 ("The Wall St Jungle", interview NY Magazine 1970) with a few follow up books that all called out the NYSE Specialist families for fraud, explaining exactly how they defraud the public. At the time The Wall Street Journal boycotted anyone selling the NY times longest running best seller, and Ney was not permitted as a guest on The Tonight Show - very unusual at the time for someone with such a long run best seller/controversial book - his message had touched a raw nerve. In response, the establishment had Ney widely counter-attacked, labelled a conspiracy theorist nut at every opportunity - comments like "what would an actor know of the stock market" were common and can be heard even today.

To prove Ney's wild eyed grand conspiracy theory right - The SEC and Department of Justice finally got around to charging the NYSE specialists for the exact fraud that Ney described - 33 year's after he wrote about the crime! In 2003 the Specialist firms quickly got their get out of jail free cards for a tiny fraction of what they had actually defrauded over the years. Those get out of jail free cards just keep coming off the monopoly pile. The story does not end there however... news came out shortly after that the NYSE was at long last going to move to an all-electronic exchange - and that the Specialists firms charged with defrauding the public were the very same that had been blocking the move due to their 30% NYSE stake. Everyone in the know + those that read Ney's books knew all too well of the massive fraud going on in full public view for at least 33 years (more like 210+ years), but it was not until these Specialist criminals blocked other powerful interests that the illegal behaviour was actually pursued by the DOJ.

If ever there was an example of the lack of credibility for the SEC, this is it. 33+ years of massive fraud in full public view, but the DOJ did not get around to prosecuting until it was ordered to - until it was necessary to coerce the Specialist family firms into letting the NYSE go electronic. Nothing to do with justice, or protecting the innocent being defrauded to the tune of billions of dollars over the decades. As an added insult, the DOJ let the criminals off the hook with a paltry fine. But then there is no surprise there, as Richard Ney said it best:

"Regrettably, the arrangements that exist to preserve the traditions and legalize the frauds of the security industry are inseparable from the general organization of a society controlled by the financial establishment, a society whose laws and principal customs have been contrived to serve the special interests of the financial community,"

Voting Red or Blue will not change this arrangement of US society and it's laws - merely reinforce it.

Only corrupt overpaid people on Wall St. who destroyed the global economy are too big to fail.

      Yes, it's easy to blame Wall Street. Especially when you see people buying houses, investing $50k in them and getting a 100% return one year later. Especially when you see people mortgaging themselves to the hilt to buy properties because "house prices are going to keep going up forever". Especially when you see people who can't afford a mortgage apply for one anyway. Especially when you see people "living off the equity in their homes". Yes, blame Wall Street for creating the products THAT THE PEOPLE DEMANDED.

      4 banks on Wall Street currently control $296 TRILLION dollars in derivatives. Consider that the world GDP is around 50 trillion per year, if these 4 banks go under they take with them 6 years' worth of the WORLD's GDP. What would happen to your mutual fund, or your 401(k), or the US dollar for that matter, if these banks were forced to dump those derivatives on the market all at once in a bankruptcy? Oh and how much did you say the state of Arizona - or even California, is worth, by the way? Certainly not $296 trillion...

      It's easy to blame Wall Street for everything. However no one was bullied into buying that extra house, or taking on that extra mortgage, or borrowing for doing that ultra expensive reno (after all, we'll get it back when we sell, right?). GREED was happening on all levels of society, and it happened FROM THE BOTTOM UP.

      What I blame government for is having painted themselves into a corner. The time to reduce deficits was during the good times. Now they have no choice but to continue to print money, bail out banks, and raise taxes (directly or subtly) to try to get some control over the spending. A lot of people are bulls suddenly, thinking that the worst is over. To quote Tolkien, no - "this only was wanting, now comes the night."

From IBM's Unusual Buyback Has Overseas Twist: The repurchases were executed through IBM International Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary based in the Netherlands, with $1 billion in cash and $11.5 billion borrowed through a loan agreement with several financial institutions. The principal and interest on the loan will be paid with cash generated by IBM International Group's non-U.S. operating subsidiaries. Company officials stressed that the repurchases are part of the $15 billion authorization for the company's stock repurchase program approved by IBM's board of directors on April 24.

There was $79.6 billion of syndicated bank loans in the last quarter. That is down significantly from before the most recent troubles, but there is still some bank credit available to credit-worthy corporations.

But you don't need banks to raise debt. The volume of US investment-grade bond debt issuance hit a record $298.4 billion in the first quarter of 2009. There was even $6.47 billion of junk bonds issued in the quarter.

What is this "gross breach of fiduciary duty" you speak of? Is that a legal thing?

Yang boarding a flight to the Caribbean with suitcases stuffed with cash would be one thing, thinking beyond a one time buyout deal is quite another.

From almost exactly a year ago: http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/9388783?f=related

Suing a corporation for not selling their grandmothers for a nickel is an abuse of the legal system.

Home Depot has been investigated for this - http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5401128?f=search

This may have already been mentioned, but it's something that I learned about in a business class that I took about a year ago.

(From our text, paraphrased, and according to memory)
One of the accountants (Betty Vinson) in the Worldcomm accounting scandal was just following orders. She knew what she was doing was wrong, though because she had a family to support, and the thought of trying to find other work, and having to start over wasn't appealing. So, she followed the orders as they were given and told herself that this would be the only time. Then she was ordered to do it again, and again. Finally, when things came crashing down, fingers were pointed at her. She was sentenced to 5mos in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison with an additional 5mos house arrest, all because she followed orders.

For more information check out http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3010537/c_3036075. The point is, following orders can and will come back to bite you. Even in the military (at least here in the US), you're told that you must follow all lawful orders of superior officers. If you do no follow an unlawful order, the idea is that you won't be punished for it. However, part of the requirement to not be punished is to inform someone further up the chain about the unlawful order.

By knowing that they're installing software illegally and not reporting them, you could find that you're still somewhat liable as an accessory.

In your specific case, I would refuse to install the software. Refuse in writing. Make sure that the appropriate people get a copy of your refusal. Include your reasons for refusing. Update your CV. Start looking for new work.

Above all of this, I would contact an attorney. There may be some laws to protect you from retaliation similar to laws in place protecting those reporting sexual harassment.

Oh, the EU has fined so many companies for price fixing, I don't even know where to begin--Bayer & Chemtura, Siemens, Dow, escalator firms, Heineken, Aventis, animal feed companies, the Deutsche Post, many vitamin producers, Nintendo and, of course, the well known case of Microsoft.

I'm not saying that none of these fines are unjustified but I am saying that, if I may opine, the EU has been issuing a lot of fines. With this recent Apple one, it does seem as though Apple had no choice and if they aren't given an alternative to losing their contracts with record companies for the sake of running one Europe encompassing store, then I don't blame them. On the surface, the EU Commissions seem to be discouraging big businesses from selling things like XBoxes, PS3s or iTunes inside all of the countries. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I guess time will tell ...

Haven't you heard? If there's a bidding process, it goes to the cheapest though still at the regular gove'ment price of $500 a hammer. But that's a pretty big if regardless. It's more likely that someone in charge of the budget will tap or be tapped by friends or family or lobbists to choose this or that. See Halliburton or that Boeing scandal.

2. I can see your point that Google apps may not be compatible with SOX, but this would matter only to publicly traded companies.

3. You haven't been paying attention to the news. I've seen multiple stories about SOX causing many small publicly traded companies to delist from the stock market and go private, and how it's causing businesses to skip the US stock markets when it comes time for them to do their IPO. In other words, yes, there's a general feeling that SOX is driving business away from the US. Here's an example article I found through a very quick search: Is SOX Driving Small Companies Overseas?

SOX seems to be too onerous on most companies, and only the largest ones can properly put up the effort to meet its requirements. I'm not an expert, so I'm going by what I've read and heard on the news, and by the huge amount of IT changes that SOX has caused at my work. I'm as anti-corporate as they come, and I can see that SOX is having some negative effects. I think he's right that something is going to change.

Everything is looked at through the lens of the Dollar. As management listens to whatever research and advisory firms already output, let's see what Gartner, as an example, has to say on the subject.

Processor.com, July 2, 2004:
As vice president for research firm Gartner, the world's largest IT research group, he's studied the question at length and learned that just because a new technology makes something possible, it does not, sadly, make that very thing probable... "I can point to clear examples where call centers are highly virtualized," says Raskino, "with agents working almost entirely from their homes." But when he speaks to other managers about how virtual technologies are being used, they look at him in utter disbelief. "They say, 'Can it be possible? I'm sure our unions won't accept it.' The forces of inertia get in the way. They don't stop the change, of course. They just slow it down."
Gartner.com, 30 Oct 2001:
In his October 30 address at Symposium/ITxpo 2001 in Brisbane. Gartner vice president and research director Simon Hayward... enjoyed poking fun at today's cubicle environment, using the cartoon character Dilbert to help him out. "It's not just the workers who are objecting to the cubicle culture," he told his audience. "Managers also recognize that people will be more effective if the environment is better adapted to the reality of work."
CFO.com, October 01, 2006: Another factor pushing companies to reconsider office space is the widening gap between what workers need and what workplaces provide. At one time, office employees labored primarily in solitude; today, they spend two-thirds of their time collaborating, according to Gartner. But offices are still set up for the old style of work. "In most companies, you find that conference rooms are overbooked while offices and cubicles are empty," says Mark Golan, Cisco's vice president of worldwide real estate and the chairman of CoreNet. "It's insane. Not only is it wasteful, it doesn't suit the needs of your workforce."
Even if you can build the case against cubicles, you still need to be able to communicate with management. That means, y'know, diplomacy, communication skills, a lil bit of cunning, and what not.

Nevertheless, you might be heard, but don't expect them to listen.
Of course, if they've already invested in cubicles, tough luck. Nothing's gonna change their minds. Cubicles might be less productive than other office layouts, but dumping an existing design == dumping money. Bad ROI.

As for Aeron chairs? Why not demand an onsite spa and inhouse office-desk pizza delivery while you're at it?

Smallcap businesses are hurt by it.

"You could make the same argument for senior management but somehow when they f-up the company they get a nice severance package from the board. I guess a few mil is a nice reward for running a company into the ground."

The guy who ran Conseco had to return the money.

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5157338/c_5157587?f =archives&origin=archive

So I guess that shoots your "stereotype" down in flames.*

*You couldn't get liens straight, so why should you do any better at "what happens to managment"?

If you don't want to support the 767-buying, patent-filing search engine, you could switch to ...

... the search engine that snitches on dissidents to the secret police of totalitarian China!

... the search engine run by a bullying monopoly that has run afoul of anti-trust laws.

... the search engine of another company looking to exploit the patent system.

Suddenly I'm wishing at least one university had held on to its search engine (Stanford had Google and Berkeley Inktomi) before spinning it out to make bucks.

What's interesting is that companies with extremely strong R&D foundations such as IBM and Lucent haven't done as well as low R&D companies such as Dell or Wal-Mart. Companies such as Dell and Wal-Mart show the power of very tightly managed business processes without a lot of the traditional science-based R&D.

I'm not saying that new materials aren't essential to the future, only that these new materials are useless without highly efficient business processes to commercialize them. I hope that space race R&D takes this fact into account.

I'd agree that you want to do some reading outside programming but related to the industry you're working in. Outside of technical knowledge, you can advance your career knowing two more things -
*By better understanding your industry and its current climate, you can provide technical solutions that better meet your employer's needs. If you're a contractor, your clients will appreciate it if you understand some basics about their industry.
*By knowing about other players in your field, you can better identify opportunities both inside and outside your organization. Inside your company, you can better identify projects that will really affect the company (and provide you with opportunities for advancement). If you decide to change jobs, knowing your industry will let you find employers that have a strong business and may be doing things that interest you.

On the business side, CIO magazine's good (and CFO isn't bad if you work in the financial industry). While it's a little fluffy, Fast Company is both informative and entertaining. If your local paper has a well-edited business section, that can be useful as well. I also like The Economist both for it's general and business news.

Yes, AT&T might be in a spiral. Today's news reports that AT&T debt has been downgraded to junk status, suggesting that analysts are worried the company will go out of business. Bad news for any remaining AT&T customers at that point!

"The e-books and e-newspapers of the future will be portable and wireless and reprintable in an instant. They are likely to make use of an emerging technology--digital ink currently under development at Xerox PARC (with 3M) and MIT's Media Lab. The prototypes are card stock flexible pieces of paper with laserprint quality text that can be reprinted millions of times. Couple this with the 300-Mbyte microdrives the size of quarters stored in the spine of the book and the reader has instant access to the information currently housed in whole libraries. Students are likely to carry very small e-books--about the size of a spiral notebook. However it will contain all the curriculum resources they need for all of their classes for many years. The books will show words, images, movies and sounds. The Internet will be one of many distribution and sharing resources for new learning materials." Digital ink. Pulp Fiction.

That's what happened to Freddy Mac. The stock still tanked, as I recall. But then it recovered and has done well.

As I recall, the issue was that they understated earnings to build a buffer they could draw on in future leaner times.

You can't get around them without chopping off someone's hand and plucking out their eyes

You've been watching too much Sci-Fi.. The Sci-reality of the situation that they can currently be fooled by fake fingers made from gelatin, or a photo of an eye.

The Motly Fool has some interesting comments on R&D. From the article:
"Still, not all companies are the same. Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) metes out only 2% of sales on R&D, but continues to keep investors very happy"
"However, patents don't necessarily translate into money-making products. Think of Xerox (NYSE: XRX). For years, the company's PARC research center developed one breakthrough technology after another, but failed to make money on them. Its inventions, like the laser printer and the mouse, are now in the hands of competitors."

This is not strictly true. (I was at Xerox PARC when they spun off SpectraDiode and still have my Alto manual)
Xerox had(has) MANY successful spinoffs, as well as many dismal failures. But thats another story.

Companies may do very well through acquisitions of technology in liu of R&D of their own.

Interesting study in Sweden:
"The study reported in this thesis describes and analyzes technology-related acquisitions and spin-offs. The basic idea is that an economic system where large and small firms interact through technology-related ownership changes is highly conducive to overall innovativeness and long-term growth, given certain conditions"

Cisco certainly is successful at acquiring technology through acquisition, though they do a lot of their own R&D also..
I could go on with lots more examples.
The question is whether Dells model will hold up in the long run.
So far they seem to be doing ok with their 'Business Partner' model. Only time will tell.

This is nicely commented on in a recent story over at CFO where it says "Broadly speaking, Akamai needs servers near the consumers of content..[] Akamai, on the other hand, has servers pretty much everywhere."

To trim the facts down a bit: Akamai has servers near by most users these days, and the distributed DNS gives you returning DNS to the closest contentserver. If I, who live in Norway, try to access fbi.gov from any computer from a ISP connected to the NIX (Norwegian Internet eXchange) I get a DNS response that leads me to Akamais servers in Oslo, Norway. I've tried this for some time, just to see what happens, with cnn.com, apple.com and fbi.gov. While on a trip to Sweden I tried this while connecting through a local DSL-provider and I got a response from a server located in Sweden, hence even the swedes have their own Akamai mirror these days.

The problems with a DDOS from someone in Norway would, if directed towards a domain or webpage and not an IP-address lead to downtime on that specific local mirror, not Akamais entire network. We can from this conclude that only such events as a major blackout in Akamais core network or like this time, DOS'ing their own network would take out their service.

"Many of [NASA's] problems with financial management are endemic to the agency as a whole. NASA has long been faulted for its "stovepipe" structure, in which each center behaves as an independent entity with a unique history and culture that is loath to brook "outside" interference from other parts of NASA. Finance executives are co-located in NASA's 10 centers, and each center has a different financial-reporting system. ... The structural barriers have combined over time to make any NASA-wide initiatives an exercise in frustration."

From Nasa, We Have a Problem

I'm no fan of the Bush Administration, but they are right here. Outsourcing hurts the folks that get outsourced, but the rest of us win. The people that can do the job the cheapest get the job, the basic goods and services we use get cheaper, our standard of living goes up, etc. etc. Again, the person who loses a job is hurt, but it's often temporary. Because we all benefit from the individuals loss, we should support temporary benefits while that person changes careers.

From the Economist, Feb 19th 2004 (the India issue):

EARLIER this month, President George Bush's chief economic adviser, Gregory Mankiw, once Harvard's youngest tenured professor, attracted a storm of abuse. He told Congress that if a thing or a service could be produced more cheaply abroad, then Americans were better off importing it than producing it at home. As an example, Mr Mankiw uses the case of radiologists in India analysing the X-rays, sent via the internet, of American patients.

Mr Mankiw's proposition, in essence, is the law of comparative advantage, first postulated by David Ricardo two centuries ago and demonstrated to astonishing effect since. Yet the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, joined Democrats in their rebuke of Mr Mankiw for approving of jobs going overseas; another Republican called for his resignation. The White House gave Mr Mankiw only lukewarm support -- unsurprisingly, since Mr Bush recently signed a bill forbidding the outsourcing of federal contracts overseas. And the Democratic presidential contenders? Mr Mankiw had just written their attack ads.

...

She uses the example of cheaper IT hardware, one of the main aspects of globalisation in the 1990s. Most of the drop in prices for PCs, mainframes and so on was caused by the relentless advance of technology; but she still thinks that trade and globalised production -- all those Dell Computer factories in China, for instance -- was responsible for 10-30% of the fall in hardware prices. These lower prices led to higher American productivity growth and added $230 billion of extra GDP between 1995 and 2002, equivalent to an extra 0.3 percentage points of growth a year.

These days, software spending is increasing at twice the rate of hardware spending, as businesses struggle to make their new computers work better. The manufacturing sector is where such integration has gone furthest. In many other parts of the American economy, the process has barely begun -- particularly among smaller- and medium-sized businesses. Mr Mankiw's example of the Indian radiologist shows how the internet could help lower costs and raise productivity in health care. Who would object to that?

I'd add more, but the Economist doesn't have a free online site. If you don't mind paying $2.95, you can read the whole article. Or, you can find someone who doesn't mind putting the whole article on the web.

A great book for learning basic economics is Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan. And, of course, a subscription to the Economist can't hurt.

It's painful to see outsourcing move from the manufacturing sector to the service sector, but we're better off because of it. Keep your skills up-to-date folks, and think about those management jobs.

Outsourcing is nothing more than law of competitive advantage at work. It's a basic fundamental force of economics that simply can't be stopped. Its been happening for centuries. It's just that for the first time in history, its the white collar guys who are feeling the pain because the skills of people in the developing world are catching up. Ultimately though, outsourcing is good for the economy, though politically unpopular. When a company can save money by outsourcing one production line, it can reinvest those savings for new product development or manufacturing or other things domestically, thus creating new jobs. Also remember that the basic churn of jobs in the U.S. is enourmous. The number of people in the employed in he U.S. both in terms of absolute numbers and as a percentage of adult population are near the highest levels they ever been. Think I'm making it up? Try this story from The Economist (re-printed at CFO.com). Gritch all you want about this, but it's going to continue, and any presidential candiate who tells you he's going to staunch the flow of jobs going overseas (excepting of course federal jobs) regardless of party, is selling you something they can't deliver.

Really bad, and totally wrong, analogy. Since, let me make this clear - the President does not write legislation, does not introduce legislation into session, does not vote on legislation. The President of the United Fucking States does NOT MAKE LAW. Period. Capiche?

Likewise, I am aware of the bill to which I believe you are refering. It is set to increase the jail-time (to a max of 20 and 25 years). I refer to it in my original post on this thread: "He creates a task force, and doubles the (very small) penalties for this sort of thing." is pretty stupid. The only thing the President CAN do is create a task force, and he CAN'T increase penalties because that takes an act of LAW, which requires Congress. He can suggest, and Bush has suggested, and signed into law a bill passed by Congress, that corporate fraud penalties be increased to 25 years. The average sentence for murder in the US is SEVEN YEARS. You think 25 for white collar crime is too light?

As to seizure of assets: here
here
and here.

Now, I'm really sorry if I'm being a prick about all this, but this ignorant, uninformed bullshit really pisses me off. Derek

But if I had to pick a stronger side I would say it is the theaters (big chains mostly AMC, Harkins, etc.) have an edge. That is where the revenue is actually generated on the outset.


I believe the studios are winning. See this or Google movie theater chain bankruptcy for more info. You will find that in the past two years, 7 of the top 10 theater chains have filed for bankruptcy or have been sold off. It's pretty bleak.

Observers were a bit flummoxed by the timing of CertCo's suit. It would seem that the company could get substantially more cash out of PayPal once PayPal had substanially more cash -- that is, after the company's IPO. But the suit has definitely put the kibosh on PayPal's stock offering, at least for the moment.

As senior vice president e-commerce at Chase Manhattan Bank, June headed up wholesale e-commerce initiatives for one of Chase's largest business sectors and led investment activities on a number of strategic e-commerce investments. June played an instrumental role in creating Spectrum, a for-profit joint venture between Wells Fargo, First Union and Chase focused on electronic bill payment and presentment (EBPP).

PayPal began depositing customer balances into FDIC-insured bank accounts. The company had asked for an opinion from the FDIC on whether it could pass the insurance protection on to its customers. In its advisory letter, the FDIC said the insurance protections--up to $100,000 per customer per bank--would extend to PayPal customers, even when PayPal deposited the funds for them, PayPal said.

http://www.cfo.com/Article?article=1080

There is also the hollywood system that ensures that even the most wildy successful movies are never documented as having made a profit. Although there are rumors of changes that will improve things. Ofcourse, if you screw up, you merely make sure that someone else gets all the profits after you have done all of the hard work.

The really important question, of course, is why this happen doesn't to Microsoft? bet the company and loose, that is.