I was just listening to a podcast last night, in which a financial analyst who identified problems with Wirecard was harrassed for years, both online and IRL. Interesting story: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/868001948
Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
61–70 of 128 posts
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the problem is more that most people from IT just tend to ignore companies that don’t fit into their worldview Why is this a problem? If I studied IT and want a good job in IT then that will interest me the most. Sure, it's good for the overall economy, but what good is it to me that I'm surrounded by pharma or mechanical engineering companies if IT is my bread winner?
Pharma and mechanical engineering companies need IT people, too, even if their core business is not IT.
That's the problem Germany has, it's full of successful companies that aren't IT related so people who want good jobs in IT are forced to either leave to SV/CH/London or stay and be "the IT guy" at a non tech company where you get treated as a cost center.
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget their auditors who have seen nothing wrong for ten years.
I think you are over-estimating what an auditor is expected to do. Auditor's, to me, seem to be there to make sure you're compliant with the law or regulation that they are auditing for. In these audits, the company gathers and presents all of the data that the auditors will see. The auditors will do interviews with people, but the company also (somewhat) picks who will get interviewed. Remember that auditors are pai…
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There is a profound lack of developers to start. I don't think so. Judging by the low salaries most companies are offering in parallel with the huge number of devs on reddit from outside of the EU wanting to move to Germany it doesn't look like there's a shortage of developers, quite the contrary. If there was a shortage, pretty shore we'd see higher salaries being offered.
Or they don't want to pay more than that so they don't find developers. I saw friends moving from Italy to the UK, Germany and the USA because of that. Maybe developers from Germany move to other countries as well.
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are over-estimating what an auditor is expected to do. Auditor's, to me, seem to be there to make sure you're compliant with the law or regulation that they are auditing for. In these audits, the company gathers and presents all of the data that the auditors will see. The auditors will do interviews with people, but the company also (somewhat) picks who will get interviewed. Remember that auditors are pai…
Yes, but the understanding is that the auditor gives approval of your "books" and companies should not be able to function for years while doing fraudulent things. This is why there is audit in the first place. It is mandatory and they should be held accountable for it.
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pharma and mechanical engineering companies need IT people, too, even if their core business is not IT.
Sure, but there is a huge difference in pay, career prospects and respect between being the IT guy at a non tech company and being the IT guy at a company who's main focus is tech. That's the problem Germany has, it's full of successful companies that aren't IT related so people who want good jobs in IT are forced to either leave to SV/CH/London or stay and be "the IT guy" at a non tech company where you get treated…
Of course if you think that only SV-style software companies are worth working for then Germany isn't the place to be.
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a profound lack of developers to start. I was in a German startup and it was awesome. Product didn't pan out for the mass market (medical devices) but the few devices we build by hand are now used for studies in clinics. So it wasn't at all wasted. Software sucks though because I wrote it shortly after finishing my studies with negligible experience. But it works at least. I got support from another develope…
What kind of medical devices did you build?
The device I worked on was classified as IIa. There was a focus on a thorough risk analysis and we ensured mechanism were in place to shut down the device in any case of emergency.
I don't want to say what kind of device it was, it had to do with higher frequency ultrasonic sensory.
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget their auditors who have seen nothing wrong for ten years.
I think you are over-estimating what an auditor is expected to do. Auditor's, to me, seem to be there to make sure you're compliant with the law or regulation that they are auditing for. In these audits, the company gathers and presents all of the data that the auditors will see. The auditors will do interviews with people, but the company also (somewhat) picks who will get interviewed. Remember that auditors are pai…
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#69it baffles me that it had to come this far. There were warning signs all over it. The German BaFin messed up so badly that one must either fundamentally doubt theircompetence or question their integrity.
> When a company is going around accusing reporters of conspiring with short sellers to bring it down, that is an almost infallible sign that it is going down. Companies that are not doing fraud, when reporters ask if they have faked their revenue, respond by explaining where their revenue comes from. Companies that are doing fraud, when reporters ask if they have faked their revenue, call the police to try to get reporters arrested.
> The news about Wirecard, now, is sort of trivial; anyone who read McCrum’s reporting and knew the almost-infallible rules of short-selling conspiracy theories already knew that Wirecard was faking its revenue. The bigger implications of the news are for BaFin, which focused on protecting Wirecard from speculators when in fact the speculators needed protection from Wirecard.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-22/the-be...
Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trust me, in Germany with that income you can either buy an apartment (not a house, at least not in a place where you will find a software developer job nearby) or fly on vacations, but not both...
My parents earn together ~90k, just bought a house and travel about 4 weeks a year through all of europe and still support us three kids. So thats not true, at least not if you are living in a smaller city. And for places like Berlin or Munich, 50k a year would be ridicoulously low. CEO in a start-up in Berlin told me a few month ago that they are hiring poeple with literally 2 to 3 coursera courses in machine learni…