In business, there are times when we try to do something similar. Today in the OC Register, John Gittelsohn wrote a piece on Henry T. Nicholas III, former CEO of Broadcom, and his involvement in an options backdating case. Nicholas said that the options were given to provide a stake in the company for everyone. That's great. The troubling part of the article is this:
The company's investigation said Nicholas "bears significant responsibility for the lack of adequate controls in the option granting process due to the tone and style of doing business he set."
As CEO, Nicholas said in his interview, he spent most of his time seeking new acquisitions and recruiting engineers. He left the company's financial details to others, he said.
"I didn't understand finance and all the sophisticated leverage," he said. "I had to just make a product that was better than the other guy and I had to make sure that I sold it for more money than it cost to build."
Broadcom's internal investigation also blamed William J. Ruehle, the former chief financial officer, and Nancy Tullos, the former vice president for human resources, for the flawed options process from 1998, when the company went public, until 2003. The probe cleared Samueli.
If he did not understand the sophisticated financials, perhaps he should have asked someone. I suppose the CFO might know, or a consultant. Ignorance has not been an excuse for breaking the law since Roman times.
Just in case you iPhone, Mac and Apple fans need another example:
Jobs claimed ignorance of options issues - Washington Post story October 2006
Then there's the Hollywood favorite - Lindsay Lohan: "It's not mine."
http://www.accesshollywood.com/news/ah6192.shtml
Maybe Edie Murphy didn't know she could get pregnant?
If I just let the computer decide where to water, then can I claim ignorance about the weeds?
( BTW - an interesting article on pushing back the boundaries of ignorance by Jim McGee can be found in the September Enterprise Systems Journal.)
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