MIB: I don't think the so-called leaders were innocent dupes like the rest. They consistently called it wrong, laughed off the legit criticism and advised their followers in precisely the wrong way for them and exactly the right way for the fraudsters to do their work.
How did it go wrong every single time, without help? Wouldn't a flipped coin end up being 50-50 heads/tails? 100% Wave wrong? What a strange coinkydink! Not the first time, Wave suspended the laws of gravity or chance.
They may or may not have to account for their role and we may finally resolve the question of whether someone who has gone beyond the pale to always steer the followers in the wrong direction at their peril, did so as part of some Wave payment scheme.
It was all smoke and mirrors from the early days of SKS's inherited CEO-ship.
Way back in the late 1990's to early 2000, a reporter asked Steve Sprague in Las Vegas in November of that year when would Wave ship product?
SKS responded in a taped conversation with a CRS online reporter, "We begin shipping next month, about one million a month, ramping up to ten million."
What we learned later through dogged digging, was that at the time SKS made those bold remarks, the company did not have a product or a prototype--they had a design on paper. There is no question SKS flat-out lied and knew he was lying to the reporter. This meant he could not be trusted.
This was reported on the boards, but there were a collective group of supporters not interested in the least in the fact their CEO was not only a liar, but he was lying about the most critical issue to a company's investors--the selling and shipping of their product. In this case, Wave had no product, it was all bologna.
Relevant? Gosh, one would think it would be, but discussion was curbed quickly on that topic and many others like it.
There were many instances where questions were raised about SKS who promised prosperity and profitability in 2003--and every year since, never coming close-always a little further from it.
There were always invented excuses, like instead of going for the quick hit, Wave was playing the long game and of course, that meant stealth--"it's going on, you just can't see it or feel it"--kinda like the SKS or the Loose-lips Solms bulging pipelines, crammed with the best and biggest deals imaginable.
When the sugarplum fantasy was always pushed back--just another quarter, mind you--the Blue Sky Wave Supporters never flinched--their leaders told them, these were good signs they were going to be unfathomably rich perhaps starting in a month or two.
When the first reverse split was being discussed, the leader guaranteed there would be no reverse split. 3 wks later, bingo--a reverse split. At that point I might have questioned this so-called leader, if I had been permitted to, which I wasn't. Gosh, that was convenient.
Wave lured its most loyal investors in again and again for close shearing while the leaders told them it was insurance of their riches soon to come.
Not sure I feel sorry for the folks who went along with the idea of getting only the good news about Wave--the same folks now saying, "Hey when did this happen?"
If it was criminal fraud, that's a different thing. In a civil suit, I am guessing the plaintiff's attorney would make monkeys out of those supporters complaining, by exposing their ignorance of glaring and telling factors about Wave in the public domain at the time--the crucial things they ignored.
They sure had some help in getting steering the wrong way, but why did they keep going along with it, when at every juncture the advice from their leaders was not just wrong, it cost them a ton of money?
Even as Wave was collapsing around them, one supporter was busily posting dots showing how Wave was rapidly making vast inroads in trusting computing. But how come they never sold anything? How come those few who did buy, didn't re-sign with Wave? How come hundreds of pilots and trials netted them not a single sale?
As the facade tumbled down around them, some were sure the debris was a sign a miracle was about to happen to save them and to make them rich--so solid was their confidence in this fraudulent confidence game.
What about the "technologists" who 'examined' the blueprints of Wave's 'superior' technology and declared it couldn't be beat? They were as fraudulent as the company was.
Or the 'futurists' who spun a spidery web of Wave wonder if you could cross your fingers and believe with all your might you were a turtle breaking across the warm sands to the cooling ocean a few feet away? Yes, things, including bankruptcies do take time and are noticed by many long before it happens.
There were so many false leads and leaders. But they all led to the same destination--bankruptcy. And how could anyone think it would be different when Wave again and again failed to sell, to impress, to be favorally reviewed (other than by a friend), or be a recommended 'buy' from a real analyst, not a hired shill.
It was all there in blinking, honking, screaming capital letters. And the small crowd of those "in the know about Wave" led the mob exactly the wrong way every time, cost them life savings, lied to them at every point--and now they are being looked to for leadership in some other venture by the very same ones bled white by this leadership.
That, in all its sadness and idiocy, is exactly why this massive scheme flourished so well for so long and extracted half a billion from the unsuspecting.
Blue
