If Aristotle said it, then it is almost certainly wrong. Is generally a good rule not to trust the opinion of someone who can't count the legs on a fly and who also claims that menstruating women cloud mirrors.
Well, I've read through a bit of his stuff that I found on Project Gutenberg. Personally, I prefer the outlook of Diogenes.
[edit] And don't get me started on Aristotle's politics, which in my view were largely self interested, shallow and myopic. For example -
"But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?
There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."
Now if we compare that to the story of Diogenes when he was taken and sold as a slave and then asked by the gangmaster what he was useful for, he apparently told them that he was quite useless at everything, other than as a governer of others. Also he apparently told Alexander the Great "I was searching through some bones for those of your father, but could not distinguish them from those of a slave."
Aristotle was a philosopher, not a pundit. Most of his opinions were rooted in reason, even ones that seem silly or backward to us now. It's easy to read the work of people from past eras and be dismissive of them. After all, they were wrong about so much.
Aristotle was certainly a philosopher,but i fail to see how he could not see that slavery is wrong,that barbarians are somehow 'inferior'.No,it isnt based on logic.I guess that makes him as human as the rest of us.
Have you studied Plato and Aristotle? There are arguments behind those opinions. I disagree with them, mind you, but it's easy to just scoff at the past for holding presently unpopular opinions.
That's why I made comparisons with one of his contemporaries. Now don't get me wrong, I do appreciate his genius in logic and maths, however I think his influence in many other areas has been profoundly damaging.
One would assume that whatever their yearnings, any reasonably professional executive would be willing to stay long enough past the IPO to keep people from wondering what was happening.
Edit: oddly enough, since one job of an executive is to keep up appearances, it makes people doubly curious when an executive seems to not worry about appearances.
"Only after autumn does spring come around" - Unknown proverb
I think it's a good thing. FB has become an autonomous monolith. Talent leaving to create new start ups is a good thing. FB will attract enough mediocrity to keep it running.
Real talent is never satisfied with current achievement and is always ready to take a bigger challenge.
More SHOULD follow suit, taking the FU money with them and do wonderful things. Their duty at FB is done.
When spring is in the air, I hope many new blossoms will bloom.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman's mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice
"The game is done! I've won! I've won!"
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
I always thought he was wasting his talent in there. I mean it's a big platform and everything, but he basically took an existing API and converted it to REST (the "open graph" etc).
It's interesting to see that Cory Ondreijka is taking over mobile at Facebook.
He was one of the early employees at Linden Lab (makers of Second Life) and was best known (to SL residents) as the coder who created the Linden Scripting Language. The story goes that he created it quickly, like over a weekend. (It did get improved after that though!)
If your departure from a company is a material fact by virtue of the position you hold, does it make it insider trading to dump your own shares in a company you are leaving?
I'm pretty sure the answer to your question is yes.
Typically, if you're in a position where you'll often have material non-public info you need to create a trading plan in advance, or otherwise remove your ability to trade the company based on all the secret stuff you're always going to be knowing. Look at it that way and for the CTO of a large public co., their own departure is just going to be the last of many, many pieces of info make it problematic for them to trade the stock.
Most likely the Financial department processing his stock—I have little clue of how vesting options works on that side, but I'm assuming they owe him something priced along his departure.
I guess now they will have to change this tutorial of querying one's friends in the Facebook Query Language [0]:
Determine whether the currently logged in user is friends with another user, Bret Taylor (Try this query):
SELECT uid1, uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = me() AND uid2 = 220439
I believe Bret entered facebook via the acquisition of FriendFeed and any millions hes making out of Facebook likely came via that and any golden parachute he had (which I'm sure he hit considering he's been there 3 years)
Also a lot of C level execs work on different vesting schedule and get allocated shares as bonuses. The whole point being this question is largely moot on a lot of levels any stock left on the table is probably a very small portion of what he was bound to make on the IPO via a standard option vesting.
I couldn't think of any scenario - unless there was something profoundly personal/family oriented going on - where someone in his position would leave before they have vested.
I had the good fortune of joining Sun the day the Monday after they went public. There were certainly people who left 180 days later, even though they had unvested pre-IPO stock, because the return on their vested stock was 'enough' for the next stage of their life.
There was also a clue in their S-1 [1] where his name is not included in the 'executive compensation' section, generally that is a sign that either he won't be continuing on with the company going forward (likely case) or that if he quit it would not materially affect the company (hence not of interest in the prospectus)
Given that he's been there 3 years out of four, has a C level position, and all of the other C level jobs have multiple millions of shares, lets give him a 'lowball' grant of 4M shares. So 3/4 are vested and that is 3M shares. So FB is currently $30/share but lets say he sells all 3M and pays 50% in taxes. Lets be even more pessimistic and say that his sale pushes the price down to $25, that is 1.5M shares @ $25 that he pockets free and clear. So $37.5M in the bank. Perhaps he did this math and said, "You know, I've got lots of things I want to do and that chunk of money would give me the freedom to do it until I die."
You would be very very surprised at how common this is. Lots of people leave 50% thru vesting; it can be remarkably demoralizing if you're of the entrepreneurial mindset to work for four years in a large organization.
Not if he negotiated properly coming in, which I suspect he did given this quote: “I had always been upfront with Mark that I eventually wanted to do another start-up.” If he was upfront, then that means before he came on board. He probably negotiated a condition that if he stayed through the IPO that xyz would happen (vesting, whatever else). He carried out his end of the deal, therefore xyz happend. Everybody wins (except those who bought FB on the IPO (or on one of its first 12 days as a public company).
Because vesting periods are usually four years and he joined Facebook three years ago, he's giving up at most 1/4 of his stock related compensation. Because Taylor joined Facebook through an acquisition, it's possible that his vesting is shorter than four years.
He probably has restricted stock units and common stock with a buyback provision. As far as I know, Facebook stopped granting options before Taylor joined Facebook.
Interpretation: More departures coming soon.