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Why I did not go to jail (2014)

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Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#41

Post by rodone »

Meekro wrote: post #23
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait till you hear how our criminal justice system treats poor people.

It seems terrible for everyone. Poor people get stuck with false accusations by the police, no bail, and public defenders who are either incompetent or overworked. Rich people (or middle class founders who dream of getting rich) get to deal with incomprehensible tax and accounting laws where no one can ever really be sure that they're compliant. Ben Horowitz had the luck to receive good legal advice and the wisdom to…

This is so packed with implicit assumptions that I don't even know where to begin. How about this: tax and accounting laws are not incomprehensible.

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#42

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #13

White collar criminal liability in the US is absurd. Out of a political desire get the big bad rich people we have in the process turned every executive of a sufficiently complex operation into an unwitting criminal.

As I commented above, the Opsware CFO went to jail not just because of her role in the options backdating scandal, but because she lied on her personal tax returns.

In particular, what the CFO was recommending was backdating the grant date of the option, which was fairly common (if not legal) among tech companies back then. What she went to jail for was backdating the exercise date of her personal options, which is kind of trivially obviously illegal to anyone who has ever filled out their tax returns. It's like if you sold stock on Dec 20th, but pretended you really sold the stock on Dec 10th when it had a lower price so you'd pay less in capital gains taxes.

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#43

Post by cosmodisk »

Meekro wrote: post #23
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait till you hear how our criminal justice system treats poor people.

It seems terrible for everyone. Poor people get stuck with false accusations by the police, no bail, and public defenders who are either incompetent or overworked. Rich people (or middle class founders who dream of getting rich) get to deal with incomprehensible tax and accounting laws where no one can ever really be sure that they're compliant. Ben Horowitz had the luck to receive good legal advice and the wisdom to…

A good start would be to write the law in a way an average Joe could understand it. I can already hear the legal sector screaming ' it's impossible!!'. A good example is the 'plain English' requirement for some documents issued by the financial institutions to retail customers in the UK. I saw first hand what that means when we did projects for banks: bank's analyst sends a report to a professional investor- the text is almost illegible and full of jargon. Asset management issues a piece to retail customer and it's all easy to read and understand, because it was written with such notion in mind.

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#44

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #16

This is one of the more important bits to be periodically reposted on HN. Compliance with the law is not 'optional', and if you cross that line there is a fair chance that it will come back to bite you. Regulated industries, stock transactions (and options, as in this bit of startup history) all have their peculiarities and you need to realize that not all of these end up with the proverbial slap on the wrist if you…

[deleted]

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#45

Post by jmchuster »

jacquesm wrote: post #16

This is one of the more important bits to be periodically reposted on HN. Compliance with the law is not 'optional', and if you cross that line there is a fair chance that it will come back to bite you. Regulated industries, stock transactions (and options, as in this bit of startup history) all have their peculiarities and you need to realize that not all of these end up with the proverbial slap on the wrist if you…

> a 3.5 month non-suspended sentence is not something that is handed out lightly for a white collar issue

Only a single American banker saw jail time from the 2008 mortgage crisis https://ig.ft.com/jailed-bankers/

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#46

Post by kube-system »

jancsika wrote: post #3

Toward the middle, referring to author's very trusted counsel: > “Ben, I’ve gone over the law six times and there’s no way that this practice is strictly within the bounds of the law. I’m not sure how PwC justified it, but I recommend against it.” Toward the end, about the CFO's sentence ostensibly for breaking the law referred to above at another company: > Once the SEC decided that most technology company stock opt…

There's nothing wrong with the way the author used the word, although this may be the lesser-common use of the way you're used to.

see #2:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arbitrary

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#47

Post by istjohn »

jacquesm wrote: post #16

This is one of the more important bits to be periodically reposted on HN. Compliance with the law is not 'optional', and if you cross that line there is a fair chance that it will come back to bite you. Regulated industries, stock transactions (and options, as in this bit of startup history) all have their peculiarities and you need to realize that not all of these end up with the proverbial slap on the wrist if you…

It seems there is more to this story than the author lets on. Michelle cheated on her personal taxes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7193033

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#48

Post by vmception »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #16

This is one of the more important bits to be periodically reposted on HN. Compliance with the law is not 'optional', and if you cross that line there is a fair chance that it will come back to bite you. Regulated industries, stock transactions (and options, as in this bit of startup history) all have their peculiarities and you need to realize that not all of these end up with the proverbial slap on the wrist if you…

> If your boss tells you to do something that might land you in jail: resign. Let me make it better: resign, but also take precautions, in case after your resignation, your boss offloads some guilt to you.

Cousin Gregg with the receipts!

Re: Why I did not go to jail (2014)

#50

Post by andkenneth »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

Edit: Actually, disregard what I wrote below, a comment on an earlier HN post explains it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7193033 . The CFO was really jailed for personal tax fraud, not just for her role in the backdating scandal. --- While this article is reposted every couple of years, I always feel that I'm missing something in trying to understand why the CFO went to jail. This page from the SEC lists the h…

I guess also where there's smoke, there's a good possibility of fire.
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