Live data from Hacker News

Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

dw.com

101–110 of 128 posts

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#101

Earlier 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.

I think there's a cultural difference. Developers don't seem to be trusted as much here, which means software development isn't that much of a difficult job which would merit higher pay. The "meat" of the work - architecture, design etc. doesn't seem to be done by software developers so much as by specialized roles, often people who don't or almost don't code. These roles are paid comparably better, but if you lump a…

That might indeed be true, but it can probably be detrimental to the software industry as a whole. I think at least basic coding experience is needed to plan architecture and design maintainable software to start with. Especially for getting experience for the viability of available solutions.

I have seen more software projects fail because of over-engineering for alleged maintainability, extensibility and a too generic design. Some would say that violates KISS. Many have shifted to more iterative development, which doesn't exclude the need for a solid architecture and extendable software, but it can improve time to an MVP. Quality can suffer, but you also gain experience.

Business logic can be as complex as you want. In fact one of the highest paid field resolves around optimizations in this particular field. SAP is an example here but there are others. "Cubing" data on your normal business data server isn't trivial, but allows to answer questions about trends management is very interested in and they have all the money bags.

Still, developers aren't payed that badly to be honest and you have options to reduce your workload, so that you don't end up with 60h work weeks or regular crunch. Projects might take as long as some unrelated airports in some setups I guess. If you code in a quiet smaller city, you can kiss 6 figures goodbye of course, but in many cases you are the best paid person in the room.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#102
post #2

it 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.

> it baffles me that it had to come this far. There were warning signs all over it. It's not a Germany specific problem. Warning signs all over tons of companies. Most of silicon valley darlings are plastered with red flags all over. But financial regulators like SEC are unable/not willing to take an action against darlings of wall street.

Can you name some?

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#103
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Levine, who writes the “Money Stuff" column for Bloomberg News, described it like this: > 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…

Really enjoy Levine's stuff, but had to unsub from his newsletter because they are too long for me to keep up with.

I 'snooze' them for later in the day/evening when I have more time to read them.

The other things I realized is that I should treat it like a magazine rather than a newsletter and read only the 'articles' that I'm interested in. I don't have to read the entire thing.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#104
post #76
post #21

Earlier 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...

I don't think it's true, a lot of my German friends have been traveling for 3 years in south East Asia without having any real job while I hear from German old men that new generation is not as passionate about working as they were at their time. So what gives? How do Germans maintain such high quality life without working, it's mystery to me.

Easy, inherited wealth. Germany has one of the most unequal wealth distributions in Europe.

Their boomer parents worked hard and saved a lot and managed to buy lots of assets, especially real estate, back in the 60's - 80's when salaries were high and properties were cheap. Now they can just kick back and relax while all that sweet rent money, that skyrocketed in the last two decades, comes in.

If you move to Germany now you definitely won't enjoy this kind of standard of living as your rent costs will be financing their mortgages while you won't manage to save enough to buy one of your own since property prices now are way higher, wages are low and taxes are high.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#105
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

EY did catch them eventually. I'm guessing the courts will be doing a review of the audits that EY did over the years. It's likely a matter of how deceptive Wirecard was to their auditors.

No, EY just refused to rubber-stamp their books again after KPMG had already raised the red flag about Wirefraud.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#106
post #79

The same people with large shorts in Wirecard like Chanos also have large shorts in Tesla. Just saying.

Chanos, the guy sitting on a bearish call against Tesla in November. The stock is up 200% since then. If Chanos were really betting to match his propaganda, he'd never work again after being destroyed like that.

[deleted]

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#107
post #86

So did the steal the money like Nissan's ex-CEO or just spent over a decade lying about the company's financials? The latter seems incredibly retarded; To what end? It's a job.

The latter. Basically the missing $2b of cash equals the sum total of all the net income the company claimed to have earned over its entire history (which was the basis for its $27b market cap at its peak). As for why, who knows, they probably would have gone under during the financial crisis in 2008 and lost their jobs if they hadn’t cooked the books. Then once you start doing that you’re on a treadmill to keep it going, similar to the Madoff fraud. And in the meantime, the CEO gets to be the big man of the German tech scene and enjoy the perks of being a billionaire on paper. It must have been pretty stressful though, that’s for sure! These kind of people have some way of compartmentalizing things so they can function on a day to day basis.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#108
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or most of the major fraud happened outside of Germany [1] and like most ponzis/frauds they can seem entirely legitimate on the surface until all the tail ends start becoming shorter and there's no Peters left to pay Paul. Plus they seemed to have had a legitimate primary business, more than enough to cover their pump & dumping in foreign countries without strong rule of law. There are always limitations on how much…

Bafin went further than "not paying attention/not having access" though. When Financial Times published articles last year questioning Wirecards accounts, Bafin banned shorts on Wirecard temporarily and asked prosecutors to investigate the journalists for market manipulation, in parallel to looking into Wirecard. That's a bad look when it seems they were right.

FT have been on WC's case from 2015, looking at various associated accounts dated as far back as 2011.

The 2019 article was the killer, with one of Wirecard's financial partners traced to the home of a baffled fisherman in the Philippines.

IMO it's hard not to wonder if there's a story behind the story. "Oh dear we at BaFin really didn't notice" just doesn't seem at credible, even if you include some toxic politics.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least BaFin boss Felix Hufeld admitted they messed up and that the whole thing was the biggest debacle he ever witnessed. This is rare, and I find it respectable. But yeah, how they missed that is hard to comprehend.

Yeah, he did admit that. Difficult not to. Bafin would look a lot better, IMHO, if in addition to investigate the FT and British short sellers, they also had a closer look at WC. They didn't.

The most terrible thing is that Bafin or their successor organisation will contain nearly all the current managerial cadre, but will have grown by 5 times in the coming 4 years. Nothing will change except for more chauffeur-driven BMWs. Never waste a good crisis.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#110
post #86

So did the steal the money like Nissan's ex-CEO or just spent over a decade lying about the company's financials? The latter seems incredibly retarded; To what end? It's a job.

The latter. Basically the missing $2b of cash equals the sum total of all the net income the company claimed to have earned over its entire history (which was the basis for its $27b market cap at its peak). As for why, who knows, they probably would have gone under during the financial crisis in 2008 and lost their jobs if they hadn’t cooked the books. Then once you start doing that you’re on a treadmill to keep it g…

In 2020, I'd be willing to short any company whose CEO sports a black turtleneck.
Post reply on HN