To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (10147 ) 4/2/1998 12:38:00 PM From: Robert Graham Read Replies (1) | Respond to
I think the difference may be that Phil andCompany became very aggressive with their misrepresentations in their desire to mislead the public. He went as far as to publish that the US was out of beta and significant sales were being made of the product when no sales had been made and the product was not only in effect still in beta but also incomplete. It is unusual to see such blatant manipulation through press releases. Most CEOs stop with for instance how revenue was booked and perhaps how some expenses are depreciated or amortized. AOL's capitalization of advertising costs was one of the more blatant attempts to come out in recent history by a very visible and popular company. Interesting to note here that the stock since then has been a very popular holding with the public. But I do not think they were making up sales, which is what Phil essentially did through his press releases. Then he manipulated the revenue on the books to help support what he was stating in his press releases. Over the period of several quarters Phil became more and more aggressive with this manipulation of the public's perception of the company. It got to the point where even the press releases standing on their own were getting very hard for me to believe, as I am sure was the case with many of you. But at this point in time, I was already invested in the stock. So I became nervous waiting for the other shoe to drop thinking that this cannot be happening.
