[g2ah5z]

> It amazes me that they didn't call his bluff. They could have said, "We'll let you keep some of your shares, so if this ever works out, you'll make some good money."

If they had said that, Neumann would have just continued to nuke the company until SoftBank's remaining $8 billion of equity in the company went to $0. SoftBank paid him off to prevent him from further destroying the company.

[wpietri]

Why exactly would have he done that? His shares would go to zero as well, and he'd have been more clearly associated with the failure.

[fiter]

Isn't there some legal fiduciary duty that would prevent the executives of the company from doing this explicitly? Just because 51% of the shareholders want to lose their money doesn't mean the executives can act without regard for the 49%?

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Don't minority shareholders have some rights? If they could prove he was running the company into the ground, something could be done... right?