Now Tech Companies Are Trying To Bribe Journalists With Pre-IPO Stock....
A leading technology journalist, Adam Lashinsky, writes that he was just offered pre-IPO stock in Arista Networks, a company that makes a new networking technology. (One startling aspect of this story is that Arista actually doesn't need any hype - it's doing perfectly well on its own).
The offer came directly and personally from the company's CEO, Jayshree Ullal:
I was surprised but not completely flabbergasted by the phone call I received a few weeks ago. A representative of Arista Networks, a networking company I've written about recently, phoned to inform me that the company's chief executive wanted to offer me "friends and family" shares in Arista's upcoming initial public offering. The offer was explicit, down to the number of shares I'd have the opportunity to purchase at the IPO price. The caller specifically wanted me to understand this offer came directly from CEO Jayshree Ullal.
Lashinsky, like any good journalist, called Arista and asked whether the company was bribing other journalists, too. The answer, it sounds like, was, "yes":
I phoned Wednesday to ask if other journalists had been offered IPO shares; a spokeswoman pointed me to a section of its Form S-1 filing which states that a directed share program exists -- and nothing more.
This response suggests that many people at Arista are involved in the journalist-bribery program, not just the company's CEO. It appears to be an organized public-relations campaign, dreamed up or at least actively supported by the most senior people at the company (who are apparently so oblivious about general rules of decorum and propriety it didn't occur to them that the company might accidentally offer stock to a journalist with integrity and, therefore, that the program might backfire).
(It's not clear whether the program is designed as payment for prior favors - Lashinsky recently conducted an interview with CEO Ullal - or future loyalty. It also doesn't seem like it really matters.)
And this attitude, Lashinsky and others recall, is exactly like the arrogance, delusion, and programmatic wheel-greasing that infected the Valley last time around.
(As just one of many examples, in 2000, a San Jose Mercury journalist was "reprimanded" for accepting a similar offer of pre-IPO stock in a Valley company.)
- US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- 9 health benefits of drinking sugarcane juice in summer
- 10 benefits of incorporating almond oil into your daily diet
- From heart health to detoxification: 10 reasons to eat beetroot
- Why did a NASA spacecraft suddenly start talking gibberish after more than 45 years of operation? What fixed it?
- ICICI Bank shares climb nearly 5% after Q4 earnings; mcap soars by ₹36,555.4 crore