Q3 CC
"Ron: Now on upgrades. Can you just give us an idea on how we’re doing? In the past you said it was negligible. Last time you didn’t want to talk about it. How are we doing now in terms of money coming in to upgrade?
SKS: So we’ve closed business. I mean we have a number of accounts that we’ve closed already in fourth quarter. I think it is measured in thousands of seats.
Ron: But how about in dollars?
SKS: In dollars? It’s probably a few hundred thousand dollars."
I repeat with emphasis:
"So we’ve CLOSED business. I mean we have a number of accounts that we’ve CLOSED already in FOURTH QUARTER." That's not a forward looking statement. It's a statement that this has already happened.
As you rightly observed I've discounted Steven's forward looking statements for years, with the exception of a period of around 18 months when he seemed more reliable.
But this was a historical reference to a fact which he was observing. It isn't much of a defence to say: "hey, I'm always unreliable, therefore you shouldn't hold me to any standards." The standard is fiduciary. And while forward-looking statements necessarily contain an element of speculation, backwards looking ones, set in the past tense, do not. So in this case, I relied upon what he said.
The idea that he would lie about something that had happened - closed sales for goodness sakes - seemed too preposterous for cynicism to be called for.
AI
