I saw a piece of news today about a legendary founder and investor, Andy Bechtolsheim.
I heard the name first when listening to the story of Google’s founding. Bechtolsheim invested $100,000 before Google was incorporated – probably one of the top 5 best investments of all time. His net worth is estimated to be $16 Billion.
The SEC alleged that he was caught insider trading. After confidentially learning about a Cisco acquisition, he traded options by accessing the brokerage accounts of a relative and associate. He’s agreed to pay $1 million to settle the lawsuit and he is barred from being a Director of a public company for five years.
The article concludes – “It should be inconceivable that someone so wealthy would do something so reckless for relatively little reward. Except that we’ve seen it happen time and time again.”
I thought that was a poignant note and speaks to just how hard it is for us humans to say… enough.
