Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 409 posts

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#361

Post by madrox »

hitekker wrote: post #350
madrox wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that's the insinuation, but there's a leap the reader is expected to make between "this middleman made a lot of money" and "bribes were clearly happening" without further investigation. If a car salesman convinces me to pay more for a car than someone else pays that doesn't mean someone was bribed; the rest is a matter of degree. I get that bribery happens, and I get that the SEC stepped on Microsoft employees…

I think the other commenters have raised valid points that you seem to be willfully disregarding. It’s actually similar to when you've denied Amazon has a “hire to fire” policy, or a toxic PIP culture. I guess engineering managers like us are trained to turn a blind eye to bad ethics. We spend most of our work time slavishly rationalizing the power structure so we build an instinct for bending the knee outside of wor…

I'm not quite sure where you get those ideas. I've only ever said that Amazon absolutely has a comp structure designed to kick people out within four years, and that I thought their stated pip failure rate of ~30% was low based on my personal experience there and elsewhere.

I do tend to think individual managers are people. This is true.

We are, however, so off the plot of this thread getting into ad hominem territory now that we're moments away from Godwin's Law. Best to leave it here.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#362

Post by giantg2 »

AitchEmArsey wrote: post #349
lostlogin wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked somewhere that had a fire safety online test each year. One staff member would be nominated to do all the tests and would sit down with everyone’s logins and spent the whole day sitting the test again and again. The other staff provided food and drink.

In a cruel twist of irony, that guy then went insane from boredom and became an arsonist.

Or a manager

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#363

Post by [deleted] »

madrox wrote: post #361
hitekker wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other commenters have raised valid points that you seem to be willfully disregarding. It’s actually similar to when you've denied Amazon has a “hire to fire” policy, or a toxic PIP culture. I guess engineering managers like us are trained to turn a blind eye to bad ethics. We spend most of our work time slavishly rationalizing the power structure so we build an instinct for bending the knee outside of wor…

I'm not quite sure where you get those ideas. I've only ever said that Amazon absolutely has a comp structure designed to kick people out within four years, and that I thought their stated pip failure rate of ~30% was low based on my personal experience there and elsewhere. I do tend to think individual managers are people. This is true. We are, however, so off the plot of this thread getting into ad hominem territor…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#364

Post by bearbearbear »

madrox wrote: post #296

I was prepared to get my pitchfork out, but after reading I'm struggling to connect the dots. This article is scant on details of what illegal or favorable behavior Microsoft is expecting in exchange for money. The only concrete mention is a previous SEC filing that has nothing to do with this whistleblower. The first example about $40k doesn't seem to explain what Microsoft was actually thinking it would get for tha…

It's not uncommon for corporations to pay money in bribes because in many countries it's a cost of doing business; it would be otherwise impossible to get anything done.

If a company is required to pay, say, $3,000 to a corrupt official to pass a checkpoint and get access to an area where they have some business to tend to, then scale that economically to a multinational conglomerate like Microsoft who might do business in that same area 35 times in a week for various reasons and the amount of bribe money flowing out of their coffers increases to scale.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#365

Post by jhanschoo »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #279
worik wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is arguable that the prohibition of bribes is a cultural thing. So insisting on not bribing in other cultures is some sort of "imperialism". That would make bribing foreign officials a "legitimate" business expense.

Problem is that foreign entities bribing in foreign cultures is an even worse form of imperialism. Big corporations with deep pockets could totally distort the market in these countries by bribing generously instead of competing by merit. It’s bad enough that lobbying (some may call it bribing) money plays such a big role in US economic policy so let’s not make it even worse. Especially large scale bribing corrupts c…

> Big corporations with deep pockets could totally distort the market in these countries by bribing generously instead of competing by merit.

As opposed to the market in these countries already being distorted due to domestic bribes?

> Capitalism is only useful if there is honest competition in the market.

It's therefore not clear to me how a market under such a corrupt regulatory regime is already well-served without the supply-side bribing one's way in, when the cost for an enlightened business owner to be a legitimate player is already bribery. On the flip side, with bribery, the bribery cost to do business for well capitalized foreign players is higher, so there are dynamics that work against the foreign imperialist in a corrupt regime.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#366

Post by worik »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #300
worik wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SoBC?

Special Olympics British Columbia was the best my Google-fu could find. I am assuming some TV series but ...

I thought it must be a TV series with a character "Nelson". I was feeling very old

Turns out it is some MS corporate thing. Feeling lucky now!

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#367

Post by hedora »

Despite what the article says, the foreign corrupt practices act is intentionally full of loopholes.

Don't take my word for it. Here's the Justice Department's opinion:

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-pract...

Tl;dr:

If a US employee wires the money, is aware of / ordered the bribe or the bribery takes place on US soil, it is definitely illegal.

Hire a lawyer or ask us before putting foreign employees in a position where they might engage in bribery of foreign officials that don't violate these rules.

Be sure to perform thorough accounting in any case.

Based on the allegations in the article, Microsoft seems to have been following the rules until the whistleblower started screwing up the "is aware of" part.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#368

Post by worik »

wolverine876 wrote: post #294
worik wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is arguable that the prohibition of bribes is a cultural thing. So insisting on not bribing in other cultures is some sort of "imperialism". That would make bribing foreign officials a "legitimate" business expense.

If bribes are ok, why don't the criminals openly advertise their prices and what they are doing? Bribes do economic harm to people of the country, whether we call it 'culture' or something else.

> why don't the criminals openly advertise their prices and what they are doing?

That is what politicians in the USA do, as I point ed out elsewhere

I agree bribes are bad. But in my culture, with very low bribary and very high trust it is OK to put a solo mother out into the street with her children because she has been unable to pay inflated rents.

For some countries, where bribery is accepted, that treatment of a fellow human would not be. If those countries had economic power they might pass laws that sanctioned our landlords.

So we need to be careful when we defend other's economic practices. We should be aware, at least, of our own sins

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#369

Post by hedora »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #303
madrox wrote: post #296

I was prepared to get my pitchfork out, but after reading I'm struggling to connect the dots. This article is scant on details of what illegal or favorable behavior Microsoft is expecting in exchange for money. The only concrete mention is a previous SEC filing that has nothing to do with this whistleblower. The first example about $40k doesn't seem to explain what Microsoft was actually thinking it would get for tha…

An Overview The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq. ("FCPA"), was enacted for the purpose of making it unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Specifically, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA prohibit the willful use of the mails or any means of instrumentality o…

Allegedly, a foreign employee of Microsoft bribed a foreign official off US soil. The transaction was reported to accounting and controlled by some budget, and no one in the US was aware of the bribery. Which rule was broken, and by which person under the jurisdiction of the law?

The same article says to maintain counsel or ask the DOJ for advice if you want to operate in a gray area of the law, implying such behavior is common.

Last I checked, Microsoft had an army of lawyers and also a good relationship with parts of the DOJ.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#370

Post by hedora »

worik wrote: post #260
pid-1 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think govs are different from your average company. Having a Linux based business is hard, for a few reasons: - Destkop Linux sucks - You need experienced sysadmins. There is no Linux equivalent to AD / Azure AD in terms of simplicity, as far as I know. Also true for other stuff like app management. - User resistance, as few people use Linux as their daily OSes

Desktop Linux does not suck. It has not sucked since about 1993 If you compare Linux 1993 to Mac SO 2022 it still stacks up, almost. Comparing Linux 1993 to MS Dos of the time is unfair. It took MS till about 2000 to be able to compete with Linux on quality MS Windows was successful for other reasons than the operating system.

Desktop Linux definitely sucks if you define it as "what's the worst out of box experience I can expect?"

Unfortunately, that's the correct bar for things that need to "just work".

Sure, with enough experience, I'm sure I could buy hammer parts and build an awesome custom hammer.

If you gave me the box of parts and told me to quickly hang a picture, the head would probably fly off the hammer and kill someone.

(Desktop Linux user since kernel 0.9; it's by far the least bad option for me, but that doesn't matter in this context.)

Post reply on HN