If the Shoe Fits: Cheating for an Edge
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Cheating is rife across the board, so seeing more of it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
I think what does surprise is not how overt it is these days, but the assumption that everyone will participate.
Especially when money is involved.
Recently the CEO of soon-to-go-public Arista Networks offered Fortune Sr. Editor at Large Adam Lashinsky, who had written about the company previously, ““friends and family” shares in Arista’s upcoming initial public offering. The offer was explicit….” (He declined.)
Lashinsky saw similar acts before the last tech bubble burst and sees this as a sign that there is indeed a tech bubble that will soon blow up.
When times are so good that executives are willing to disregard the difference between ethical and unctuous behavior, it’s just one sign that the end, relatively speaking, is near.
I’m not sure unctuous applies as an alternative to unethical, but there is no question about the ethics of trying to bribe anyone in a position to affect an IPO.
It’s cheating, plain and simple and the SEC tends to frown on it.
Sadly, many don’t see it as an ethical lapse, let alone cheating.
They see it as reasonable business practice.
How do you see it?
Image credit: HikingArtist
