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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."
Lesson 1: Just because you paid someone 5 million dollars doesn't mean they have your best interests at heart.
Lesson 2: If a deal involves putting all your eggs in one basket, you should assume that the basket is faulty, and that everyone knows it but you.
More power to them. I don't know much in the area of finance and the like, but stories like this continue to give me the impression large financial institutions like to play fast and loose with other people's (read: little guy's) money. Too big to fail? More like too big to be allowed continued operation.
My blood hurts...
No, they are actually te baddest of te bad. Responsible for Euro crisis, credit crisis, mortgage crisis et al. Too smart and too greedy. It's high time Goldman Sachs and former associates are made to PAY BACK what they STOLE!
I read this story when it was published, the the guy that owned the company and lost his technology on top of all that money had a phd and was making huge advancements in the technology much faster than predicted, he's probably the reason Siri can exist. The saddest part is that he still had many improvements he was working on and now he just can't, the tech has been sold, he can't touch it anymore without getting sued. In the end humanity loses.
There is no hell.
The only way to torture these criminals is while they're alive. Get to it.
But strangely—probably the first time I've ever seen a lawsuit in the news with a huge amount of money involved and was able to say "I understand exactly how they arrived at that amount, given the circumstances, and in no way do I find it unreasonable or astronomical."
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-theft-by-deception.htm
Fraud, theft by deception, con, whatever term one chooses to apply, the end result is the same. I'm promised something, which I don't ever get, in exchange for my payment or investment. And, it's theft, just as surely as a burglar commits theft when he removes property from my home.
This parsing of words, in an attempt to hide the fact that theft is indeed theft, only benefits those dishonest individuals who are committing the thefts. White collar thieves want to be distanced from common thieves, so they have created an entire vocabulary for thievery. Some words are applied to common criminals who are to stupid to steal millions. Other words apply to the smarter criminals who have the means to steal millions, or even billions.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
GS contributed to the economic collapse and benefited immensely from it. They are most definitely not stepping stones. Unfortunately they've corrupted their regulators so much that the US government will never set them straight.
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
Of BOTH Parties, (D) and (R).
All you people out there that think the (R) or (D) party is better than the other are just as fooled as those you ridicule across the isle.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.