Years later when all was falling about their ears, the share holders realised their mistake and humbly begged him back (he had a successful Business Of his own then. Next computing).

The share holders wanted to reward him better than the measly $1.00 salary but due to this that and the other, the decision that had been made in his abscence was not ratified until later by all the signatories. As CEO, he then signs what ever the board approves which is share options to deserving employees. Of course the details into the investigation are far more detailed than this sketchy outline, but the most important issue in all this is that no shareholder lost as a result of this action. No share holder has raised any complaint or threatened to sue independently. All the share holders & customers of Apple Inc i.e Applelites are extremely happy and satisfied with their CEO, board & employees.

In this light how can you find find anything to complain about unless you happen to be in a rival camp.

Jobs is a very savvy business guy, not a starry-eyed product wonk. Coincidence that Pixar AND Apple both have back-dating scandals?

Jobs is highly regarded as a top-notch jerk, and I can attest to that after having been in a meeting with him for 90 minutes. Just being a jerk doesn’t mean he’s guilty, but my instinct says he is.

It llooks like the opposite should happen.

Backdated options have nothing to do with rewarding performance. It actually is exactly opposite of what stock options are designed to do, because when they are backdated, the profit is already realized.

As for the ex-CFO and ex-GC, of course they had direction from the board and from Jobs. Staff don’t do these things without the leadership knowing it.

Jobs is responsible for this, but I don’t think the SEC will go after him for a number of reasons. Now, if Al Gore decides to run for president, I think the situation will change.

Of course they did break the law so they should get in trouble, but a lot of people are completely overreacting and making it seem like another Enron.

If Fred Anderson knew granting those backdated options were so wrong, why in the end did he accept a big chunk of backdated stock?

“Oh, Steve, there’s some serious accounting implications about doing this, but you know what, let’s forget about all that because I really like the look of those stock certificates.”

Or maybe:

“Well, I tried to warn Steve but in the end, the board bullied me into accepting stock that was worth $3.5 million more than it should have been. It was against my ethics, but I was afraid of losing my job (or something). They even forced me to sign the paper with a date I knew was incorrect!”

Yeah, right Kevin - Fred’s story is more plausible.

And I have a feeling that those crying out for “justice for Jobs” really don’t care about that at all. Wiping out 20% of shareholder value overnight is less important than the pleasure of seeing Jobs being taken down a notch or two.

And it’s funny that Kevin is so readily willing to take Fred Anderson’s word while an independent internal investigation and an external investigation by the SES was somehow not enough to clear Jobs of wrongdoing. Fred can saying anything, but the board came up with paperwork proof that satisfied the SEC - all Fred has is his word.

Seems like the only reason questions linger is that people like Kevin keep inventing them out of a personal need to see Jobs punished.

Hey what happened to that “We’re not a computer company anymore. We’re a consumer electronics company.”?

Jim

I believe in football, a team has the option to decline a penalty if that would be in its best interest. As a shareholder, I vote for declining the penalty.