Live data from Hacker News

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

justice.gov

111–120 of 255 posts

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

#111
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Half-awake, math wrong, ignore me.

Am I reading your comment correctly? GP says that, over 30 months, the average American makes $125k. Given a $68k per year average that you provide, that's $170k after 30 months, which is even more than GP estimated. Even if the average were $40k/year, that's still $100k after 30 months.

Looks like jjulius used 20 months in a year.

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

#112
Why is Vistara LLC not charged for bribing this guy ?https://www.linkedin.com/company/vistara

I know anecdotally a lot of US based Indian Outsourcing companies, TCS, Infosys, Mahindra, HCL bribe the mid-senior IT executives by buying them offshore properties under LLCs. If you look at Avis, Disney and other corps, the top level IT execs are bribed to the gills by these companies.

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

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Officially, the crime is fraud and the victim is Netflix, Inc. He defrauded the other employees and the corporate shareholders. He also laundered the money, which is also illegal and why the IRS got involved. Kickbacks aren't the fundamental issue here. If this was a single-employee startup with no other investors or shareholders, this would be perfectly legal. Or if Netflix, Inc. had a policy that authorized individ…

As a Netflix share holder I'm gonna say that this is a cost of doing business in Hollywood. Nothing this exec did is actually a problem. Half these people are at each other's houses ever day fucking each other's wives at swinger parties.

> this is a cost of doing business in Hollywood.

First off, these were tech vendors giving kickbacks to the CIO, not producers bribing studio execs to get someone specific cast.

But you seem to be missing that kickbacks aren't illegal in and of themselves. Netflix corporate didn't have to institute an anti-kickback policy for its employees. But they did, likely because they didn't want an environment where execs are negotiating both for the company and for themselves. The moment an executive violates corporate policy to enrich themselves, it becomes fraud.

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

#114

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…

I know of people who AWS fully sponsored, including business class intercontinental travel, to attend re:Invent which is essentially a week long holiday party, by virtue of AWS bill.

Every vendor has marketing budget and a decent portion of it goes to keeping their point people at clients happy. You can call it kick back or whatever, it’s a matter of semantics.

So yes it is normal. And no it’s neither cynical and nor have I been involved in. But I’ve seen it happen around me. So I know it’s a routine thing.

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

#115
post #109

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…

My question is how this could lead to jail time? I mean, its against policy, the employer can sue for damages, fire the person, etc. But to throw someone in jail for breaking essentially a corporate policy seems really off.

It's corporate corruption and this type of behavior prevents companies from competing fairly. It's bigger than "corporate policy". That's like saying "theft" is against corporate policy, so when I embezzled $10K I should just get fired instead of jailed.

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is effectively a race to the bottom situation and is a form of corruption of the rule of law. In today's world, we tend to have a culture of "letting things slide" and all this does is gradually normalize and escalate breaking the law over a long period of time.

It’s a side effect of having so many laws that it’s impossible not to break some of them. And this is coming from someone on the left.

I'm curious - which specific laws have you found to be "impossible not to break"?

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

#117

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…

Heh, I have been working for a some corporations in the last 10 years where there was a sort of kickback scheme in place.

Some times (very rarely a person got caught, no criminal charges) some timed it was known and nobody cared.

Some of my friend chose not to become managers because they did not want to get involved in the scheme.

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

#118

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…

what I don't understand is none of the companies that bribed him had criminal charges levied against them. doesn't this reek of companies doing bad ok, smash the ants?

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

#119
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not usually the average American in a position to receive bribes like that. 700K for an executive might not be a good deal for most.

Depends on the probability of being caught, which is usually extremely low.

True, but at those levels the marginal utility of money is much lower than 30 months of your life. Clearly some people take the chance, I wouldn't.

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

#120
post #84

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…

> 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. Or people who actually know about those things, having worked in/with/studied the various industries, without having "been part of bribery/kickback schemes themselves", and have seen them to be fairly wide…

I will state this isn’t normal for large enterprises, at least at that scale. Most software vendors are happy to invite buyers to Warriors games, which is a lot cheaper than the 0.25% dilution. I’ve even seen folks recuse themselves from recommending prior employers because they still had shares.

I think the problem lands somewhere between “widespread corruption” and “never.”

Salespeople can hit their quotas without kickbacks.

What I do see from time to time is this happening “fully disclosed”’at the very senior level. A CEO of a major database company convinces the board to buy a firm that he has an interest in. A CEO “allows” a company to rent out his property for corporate housing. These are fully disclosed, and therefore considered acceptable.

Post reply on HN