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Skype Execs Purged On Eve of MS Takeover
jfruhlinger writes "You might think that the executive team that engineered a lucrative buyout for their company would be rewarded. But eight execs from Skype instead found themselves fired just before their company was formally taken over by Microsoft. It appears that this move isn't meddling from Redmond; rather, the private equity firm that owns a 70 percent stake in Skype wanted to cut back on the payout to company execs that would normally accompany this kind of transaction."
It appears that this move isn't meddling from Redmond
There must be SOME way I can blame this on evil Microsoft. Were the fired execs open source, by any chance?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Always seems to be carrying a very sharp sword.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The spokeswoman declined to say whether the eight executives were laid off or resigned.
Someone knows something not in the linked article?
are other corporate psychopaths, it's hard to feel sympathy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That is a really slimy thing to do. However, usually the little guy gets hurt in mergers and aquisitions so I, in some ways, am happy to have the upper echelon get a taste of it. I think these executives that got affected might consider the smaller guys in their future roles, perish the thought.
I can't see how it was reasonable to expect that either side of this transaction would want to "reward" those that "engineered a lucrative buy-out" - either it costs the investors money (why give up money you don't have to?) or the buyer will be mad at the people that increased the price of your aqusition (why reward someone for driving up your cost?).
Ken
Ordinarily, even pathetic, abject failure verging on negligence isn't enough to get the People Who Matter sacked. These private equity guys must have some epic level suits on staff, if they are able to rightsize executives as though they were mere peons...
These suits ate little fish in their time. They got eaten by bigger fish. They will again start eating little fish once again. Just stay out of their jaws, if you can.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You know, every time a takeover happens some people get fired.
I am delighted to see that for a change it happens to you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not that the executives can't sue but they normally have contract that may allow the company to do these things. However the details of the contracts are important. The articles seem to suggest that by removing these execs, the parent company saves a lot of money as the executive stock options that the execs would have gotten either go back to the company for free or extremely reduced cost. That is, unless the contracts stipulate other terms.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This submission, and the article referenced to, read entirely differently.
Where exactly does it say they were fired?
If the situation is what the summary suggests, the execs will sue them and the investor will end up paying legal fees AND whatever their obligation would have been had they not been fired.
A wise old CEO wheezed unto me: "A merger is a risk to everyone except one of the two CEOs - to everyone else it is a danger". Mergers reduce competition, so the market loses; mergers cost stockholders, at least in the short-run; mergers are engines of redundancy so it's a threat to all the employees. The only possible virtual gain is an investors' promise of less competition in the marketplace. Almost everyone loses. So the next time you read: "Massive-corp to buy out Macro-corp!" try not to cheer for the two original owners who get their one-time lottery prize, but instead pause in lament for the majority and progress in general.
...cue litigation in ...1...2...3...
Countdown fail!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What this basically means is the same type of executives that outsource operations and employees, needlessly eliminating thousands of positions at high tech companies for "cost cutting" purposes aka bonuses -- these very people are surprised they are being treated the same way by another greedy group of managers and money-men ?!
Because of our corrupt campaign finance system, neither Republicans nor Democrats will enforce the anti-trust laws. So we have constant mergers reducing the number of players competing in every market, but no force actively breaking up larger companies into smaller companies to apply pressure in the other direction.
The net result is less competition, and I shouldn't have to remind you that competition is the engine that drives a capitalist system.
What matter is whether they were the whole team, half the team. or deadwood statues of the team.
It's hard for outsiders to recognize the deadwood, and it's hard for insiders to fire their friends. Sometimes takeover time is a good time for insiders to let the outsiders clean house. Is this what happened or was the whole team let go?? This is something that an outside observer can figure just by visiting the parking lot.
Who cares if the were laid off. They are out in either case. Unless they turned into contractors.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Now we blame everything on Apple..... and sometimes google.
Not everything, just the moderate amount of evil that isn't actually Microsoft's fault. Most of it can be fairly blamed on Apple, but this one kind of falls through the cracks. It's evil, but can't really be blamed on Microsoft or Apple or Adobe or Oracle (the usual gang of malefactors), Google haters are utterly stumped, and it's not even patent or DRM style evil.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire