Today's New York Times carries a sickening boot-licking piece on the Barbarian of Scotts Valley, Philippe Kahn. Apparently, Philippe "The Frog who walks on water" Kahn has just sold his latest company, LightSurf Technologies, to Verisign for a shitload of money. OK, good for him, but the numbnut NYT reporter, Robert Johnson, then goes on to talk about how Philippe sold his first company, Starfish Software in 1998. Wrong Mr. Ace Reporter. Kahn's first company was not Starfish software, It was Borland software, a company he founded as an illegal immigrant from France in the early eighties. By the early nineties it had grown to become the fourth largest software company in the world! Unfortunately, the usual "I am CEO" delusions of grandeur took over, and while attempting to make every single company decision single handedly (Shades of Queen Carly), he proceeded to run the company into the ground. After a string of way too many losing quarters, the Board of Directors decided that "El Giganto's" decision to award himself a "performance" bonus of several million dollars, was the last straw. He was immediately fired (Shades of Queen Carly - again!) The article then goes into boring details about Philippe's current passion for competitive sailing. Anyone who's ever dealt with him will know that sailing was preceeded by his passions for music, car racing, gourmet cooking, living high off the corporate hog, and infamous toga parties at far too many Comdex shows in Vegas.
Why am I suspicious that Mr. Johnson probably was probably still in school when everything he is writing about was taking place, and obviously doesn't have the gumption to do a simple Google search on his subject. Equally, why am I shocked that no one on the Business Section picked up these egregious journalistic errors. But come to think of it, not much shocks me any more!
Party on Dude!