Nooo... This is a bad, bad day! It would really interesting to learn more about this company and how it survived for 15 years in a very competitive market.
For a minute before I clicked the link I wondered if this was about Enron. I mean, there are a few 'greatest' failures. Pretty good write-up though with its particular perspective.
Before I got there they rolled the dice and walked away from a $250MM acquisition offer and ousted their original CEO. They were somehow able to acquire additional funding before I left but, based on the numbers I saw, they were using questionable models to indicate that they were more profitable than they are.
They still exist and will probably take another 18 months to wither and die. The experience taught me to look hard for red flags and to hold my company as accountable as myself.
I'd like to see a book about 8 CEOs who did everything wrong and wound up bankrupting the company. Not a blurb, like these 25[0], but an in-depth, biographical play-by-play. It takes decades to destroy a Blockbuster or Borders and likely there was more than one CEO involved. Decades is a long time to watch a train wreck and keep doing the wrong thing.
After reading the two-chair tale o' woe, the comment that they "sold the business in pieces" leads me to think his company collapsed after the dot.com bust.
Sure, their 1999-2000 balance sheet looked spiffy, but that was the peak of the boom. How did the next year go? Did these guys enjoy a profitable exit or endure a liquidation?
Edit: Poking about, it seems they sold the company in 2003. That's quite a time after the 1999-2000 numbers being splashed about in his feel-good writing. I'll bet the numbers in those later years would shine a bit more light on the business's true condition.
I would subscribe to a blog you write about the people (with names, photos) behind every single business fuckup, especially if it is a decision made because of greed.
This article would have been more interesting if there were a list of things he did wrong, and examples of other large companies doing the same things and how it screwed them over.
Otherwise, the saying comes to mind "In Theory, Theory and Practice are the same. In Practice, they are not."
One great company after another destroyed by financial shenanigans. Avaya & Silver Lake Partners is another that comes to mind, but there have been many.
I'm sure there are a lot of lessons to learn in there.
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