Replies to post #239697 on Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[tkc]

Of course Barge, I understand that TPMs weren't activated and that there were many reasons for that. I get it that SKS's Wave counted on TPMs being activated. What you fail to grasp,IMO, is that a competent CEO would have also recognised it and managed finanaces accordingly. SKS didn't, au contraire he doubled down and continued expanding expenses rather than pairing, waiting for a market to develop. Instead he told his shareholders the pipeline was growing and growing Q/Q when nothing was there. He funded his Quixotic mission on the backs of shareholders. He lived in a dream and wouldn't give it up.

[Bluefang]

Barge: To me,the worst part of Steven's mgt and stewardship of Wave--was the continual lies about profitability and about deals done that weren't. Both were complete fiction.

Steven may have had a grand vision, but the deception he practiced, the mismanagement, the ineptness of his and Feeney's multiple screw-ups--were more than enough to justify calling Steven not fit to run the company--long ago.

Then there was the enormous salary and guaranteed "performance" bonus he took when shareholders were dying--not to mention his and Feeney's golden parachutes from a company almost DOA when he was fired.

Putting his whole family of inept do-nothings on the Wave payroll was equally unforgivable. Likewise, employing do-nothing friends, like Dave Nadig--the basement blogger in the footed pajamas.

Vision is one thing and execution another.

What you see as senseless "bashing" of Steven, IMO, is well-earned and well-deserved condemnation for unforgivable acts of deceit and selfish greed visited upon the shareholders, always holding out an impossible specter of success just ahead. That went on for many years.

Steven's vision--which I do not share with you at all, does not excuse his deliberate misleading of the shareholders about Wave's true condition and IMO, crosses the border into criminality.

He owns that condemnation based on the facts and IMO, your misguided attempts at defending a liar, a cheat and a profligate squanderer, fall on deaf ears for a very good reason.

Steven deserved to be fired and the fact his own father, who gave him the job he was so miserably and spectacularly unsuited for--tell the Wave tale about as well as anything. He was an unmitigated failure as CEO and the ax should have fallen years ago, IMO.

I believe the ax would have fallen sooner, except for a certain group of rabid supporters who kept the empty Wave balloon aloft as long as they did, by insisting Steven's lies were true. In the end, it was reality, not vision that felled Steven. It was the result of his own actions, not the failures of the TCG.

There is no mitigation and no justification for what he did to shareholders again and again.

Blue

[zen 88]

barge - An excellent defense of SKS.


Now, defend the lying part. THAT'S what most people are upset about. He KEPT SAYING the pipeline was full. Of what? Sewage?

Most smart people don't blame Sprague for TPM in-activation.

[Wildman262]

Barge, the dingdong and the bird were on record from various cc's stating that all Wave needed was for TPM's to ship and the Wave had products that customers wanted. So yes, Wave was in the business to offer product to MAKE USE OF THE TPM.

Your pal had ZERO skill in reading customers and giving them want they want. Had he had this skill, he would have tapped into a marketable VSC product years ago to compete with the RSA tokens. The market was established.

I wish I had the old email from the 'bird' that said customers were "clamoring' for Wave's products. Unfortunately, that was 2 computers ago. That comedy has been chopped up at a recycle center.