How the Inventors of Dragon Speech Recognition Technology Lost Everything

First time accepted submitter cjsm writes "James and Janet Baker were the inventors of Dragon Systems' speech recognition software, and after years of work, they created a multimillion dollar company. At the height of the tech boom, with investment offers rolling in, they turned to Goldman Sachs for financial advice. For a five million dollar fee, Goldman hooked them up with Lernout & Hauspie, the Belgium speech recognition company. After consultations with Goldman Sachs, the Bakers traded their company for $580 million in Lernout & Hauspie stock. But it turned out Lernout & Hauspie was involved in cooking their books and went bankrupt. Dragon was sold in a bankruptcy auction to Scansoft, and the Bakers lost everything. Goldman and Sachs itself had decided against investing in Lernout & Hauspie two years previous to this because they were lying about their Asian sales. The Bakers are suing for one billion dollars."

Comments

Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Goldman Sachs were the good guys?

Re:Ironic

[jo42]

Since when has Wall Street (Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, AIG, et al) done anything other than for themselves?

They take the little guys money and bend them over (without a tube of Vaseline).

Re:Why civil?

[Smallpond]

For example, a bank should not be allowed to combine with another bank. Mergers should only take place between different types of financial institutions as God intended.

Re:They are the good guys

[lennier]

"We guided them to a completed transaction."

As the lion said of the zebra.

Re:there is no wall at goldman sachs

[Dun Malg]

I do believe the phrase he was looking for is "palsy walsy"