Live data from Hacker News

Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

justice.gov

11–20 of 255 posts

Re: Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

#11
post #2

The actual title is "Former Netflix Executive Sentenced To 30 Months For Bribes And Kickbacks From Netflix Vendors ". Mike left Netflix in 2014 and joined Yahoo and CIO for a moment before this all came out and Meyer put him on leave.

He was a netflix executive when he took the bribe, so that seems completely acceptable: "Michael Kail used his highly compensated Netflix position to siphon cash and valuable stock options from his tech vendors,"

Re: Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

#13
Every time this story comes up, the comments are filled with people proclaiming that kickbacks like this are totally normal and very common.

I can't tell how much of it is random people projecting their cynicism onto the business world, or if it's people who have been part of bribery/kickback schemes themselves trying to normalize the behavior online.

Either way, cases like this should make it clear that the behavior is not a good idea.

Re: Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

#14
Some of the vendors mentioned:

- VistaraIT, LLC

- Platfora, Inc.

- Sumo Logic, Inc

- ElasticBox, Inc

- Numerify, Inc.

- Docurated, Inc

- Maginatics, Inc.

Is what they did illegal too? Presumably with zero chance of being charged. I haven't fully groked the limits of 'fraud' and 'money laundering' here in the US. These typically feel like they should be civil breach of fiduciary duty type cases.

Re: Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

#15
post #6

> and serve a three term of supervision upon release from prison. Is there a typo in there, is that just a weird legal term, or is it just me that has a hard time processing what that means?

Likely the missing word is Year - ie: he get three years probation after release.

Re: Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

#16
post #6

> and serve a three term of supervision upon release from prison. Is there a typo in there, is that just a weird legal term, or is it just me that has a hard time processing what that means?

I'm 99% certain that should say "three-year term."

Re: Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

#18
post #14

Some of the vendors mentioned: - VistaraIT, LLC - Platfora, Inc. - Sumo Logic, Inc - ElasticBox, Inc - Numerify, Inc. - Docurated, Inc - Maginatics, Inc. Is what they did illegal too? Presumably with zero chance of being charged. I haven't fully groked the limits of 'fraud' and 'money laundering' here in the US. These typically feel like they should be civil breach of fiduciary duty type cases.

IANAL, but in general: yes. Someone should be on the hook for paying bribes as well as for receiving them. At least, that's what every training on corporate bribery I've ever seen asserts.

Re: Netflix Executive Sentenced to 30 Months for 700K Bribes, Kickbacks from Vendors

#20
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't intentional, the headline was too long to fit.

That makes sense, haha. That probably is the word I would have removed as well in that case. :)

HN should really increase the max title length, there's plenty of space and the current limit often requires important details to be cut out
Post reply on HN