A character assasination.

We got on to the topic of the old Evans & Sutherland CEO at lunch today - and how he ruined the company, and as my blood pressure rose, I started wondering just how bad he was. Let's examine, shall we. The following shows a long-term stock graph taken from Google Finance. The arrow points to the date when he joined E&S.



At that point they had about $90M in the bank and 1400 employees and the stock price was teetering around $32 a share. When they finally sold us off (the simulation division) to Rockwell Collins - where I now work - this is what had happened:

  • He presided over 39 consecutive quarters of loss

  • He took the company from +$90M in the bank to -$240M and put us in a position where nobody would loan us money any more

  • The stock price had plummeted to around $4

  • He bought RealImage - a profit-making company - and turned it into a loss-making venture

  • He bought AccelGraphics - a profit-making company, laid off all the employees and turned their graphics card business into a loss-making venture

  • He sold 5 buildings and hundreds of acres of real estate

  • He laid off 1200 employees - that's a full 85% of the company


During this staggering reign of incompetence, his salary went up 40% year on year, as well as giving himself bonuses (this is all in the public record). He filled the board of directors with close personal friends who wouldn't ever get rid of him. In the layoffs, he repeatedly laid off engineers who were trying to turn the company around. Why? Because he simply would not admit he was wrong. He refused to believe that qualified engineers knew more about engineering than he did. He was best described like this: "He's like the pilot of a 747 who is down the back trying to fix the coffee machine whilst the plane is nose-diving into the ground."

At lunch, there was some debate about whether a great many people hated him, or simply disliked him. I cemented that argument by pointing out that at one of the reunion get-togethers, there was a pinata of him that was reinforced with rebar so that everyone could give it a good beating. That's not "dislike". That's "hate". I don't care if you're his friend or not - nobody can make excuses for what he did to that company, it's employees and their families.

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