[Phillip98798]

Well, I'll be losing sleep hoping Netflix can make it through this tough time. Seriously, is there one person alive who believes the guy should get seven years in prison? Fire him, do your character assassination thing, but prison time? Why are our tax dollars being used to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation? Let Netflix run its own company. Change compensation structure or something to reduce corruption. Douche or not, this is not behavior worthy of jail time.

[xyzzyz]

There are in fact plenty of people who believe that people shouldn’t be able to get away with white collar crime to the tune of millions of dollars with a slap on the wrist, when petty criminals get much worse sentences for more minor trespasses.

[Phillip98798]

Sure, there's Bernie Madoff stuff, and then there's this. Are you comfortable with big corporations and government hegemony muscling employees into compliance? I'm not. The guy should undoubtedly be sued, but it feels wrong to create an equivalency here with violent offenders.

[xyzzyz]

This guy defrauded the company to the tune of millions of dollars. I am perfectly comfortable with big corporations and governments muscling people into compliance, where thing to comply with is “not stealing from the company”.

Imagine you run a business, and your employee just steals one of the company vehicles. Do you think you should have any recourse beyond firing them? I mean, it’s only a few tens of thousands of dollars worth of loss to you, so if you don’t want the government to go after the guy that stole millions from Netflix, why expect the government to help you recover some paltry car? It’s not violent offense after all, just property.

As it happens, fraud is a crime, and government prosecutes crime to deter it. This is perfectly reasonable, and how things have always worked.

[Phillip98798]

I think that's a bit of a false equivalency. The guy incorporated a domestic LLC, which unless he's a total moron, I assume the guy just thought that this is how business is conducted, and the US government would be okay to know about it. I don't believe any small business employee is going to incorporate an "I Steal Trucks LLC."

The American public gets defrauded by corporations daily. I seldom see white knights in the government volunteering to prosecute them on our behalf.

[xyzzyz]

His LLC had nothing to do with how they caught his fraud, or his culpability. I don’t get the point you’re trying to get across with “I Steal Trucks LLC”.

> The American public gets defrauded by corporations daily. I seldom see white knights in the government volunteering to prosecute them on our behalf.

Then you are not paying attention.

[ludocode]

I absolutely believe he should go to prison. If a fine is the only punishment for a crime, then that law only exists for the lower classes. The only way to punish a rich person and deter other rich people from crime is to take away their freedom.

[philwelch]

This isn't necessarily true in the general case, let alone in this specific case.

In the general case, some countries calculate fines according to the criminal's income for this very reason.

In this specific case, fines or, in the case of a civil lawsuit, damages in excess of the amount of money the person illegitimately gained would be sufficient.

[ludocode]

Fines as a percentage of income do not solve the problem. If I'm a poor person living paycheck to paycheck with nothing left over for savings, a 5% fine would be devastating. If I'm a rich person living off of (debt secured by) my investments, a 5% fine, even if it's hundreds of thousands of dollars, is pocket change compared to my true income and wealth.

A fine is obviously not sufficient given how widespread this practice is. If the fine is double what you gained but you are less than 50% likely to get caught, logic dictates you should commit the crime. Again, prison is the only deterrent that works on the rich.

[philwelch]

Follow-up point I forgot to add:

> If the fine is double what you gained but you are less than 50% likely to get caught, logic dictates you should commit the crime.

It turns out that people’s decisions whether or not to break the law have very little to do with any rational economic calculation about the probability of being caught. Consider how shoplifting is basically not enforced in San Francisco anymore. People just steal things from the store in broad daylight and nobody bothers even trying to stop them. Sure, this does result in a lot of shoplifting, but the question is, why does anyone bother paying when they could just brazenly take their desired merchandise out the door with no risk of ever facing any consequences?

[philwelch]

> If I'm a poor person living paycheck to paycheck with nothing left over for savings, a 5% fine would be devastating.

If you’re a poor person living paycheck to paycheck with nothing left over for savings even after committing enough white collar crime to be convicted in a federal court, I am really curious what you did with all the money.

People always think the old saying “an eye for an eye” is brutal and vindictive, but originally it was about proportion. An eye for an eye means that if someone takes your eye, you can be satisfied by taking their eye in return instead of taking their life. In that vein, I think fines are extremely just for financial crimes.

[Phillip98798]

Aren't there better targets to make a point with though? Military contractors, oil companies? We're talking about billions of dollars in bribes. Do you think this case will even put a dent in that corruption? This is not a lot of money and as the popularity of this thread insinuates, this is how things have always been. There is no Silicon Valley without these types of deals unfortunately.

[vkou]

The best target to make an example of is the one you caught.

[bogwog]

Imagine if it was only a fine: say, 90% of all your money/assets. That sounds like a crazy gamble, but people gamble money all the time. Lots of people would be willing to take that risk.

But prison time scares everybody. You can't get those years back, no matter how wealthy you are.

[Phillip98798]

I hear that. I just wonder what exactly it is we're accomplishing here in terms of justice. More corporate compliance and fear? Where is the line going to be drawn? Hyperbolic perhaps, but what's to stop the law from going after salaried people with side projects? Oh, you visited the stackoverflow career page during your 9-5? That's fraud. I'm exaggerating, but the precedent is there. Cases like this can create a slippery slope to complete subservience to big corporations.

[bogwog]

> Oh, you visited the stackoverflow career page during your 9-5? That's fraud. I'm exaggerating

So you're saying that what this guy did isn't clearly fraud? I don't see how you could say that, unless you misunderstood the situation. It is, very clearly, 100% fraud.

In addition to the money Netflix was paying him as part of his salary, he was also secretly taking a cut of the money flowing to contractors.

It's like when a government sends aid money to another government after a natural disaster, but all the corrupt officials steal it so that eventually there's very little left for the original purpose.

[Phillip98798]

Outside SV, I have friends in manufacturing. They tell me stories like this all the time. They have to get this executive on their side to win this deal or that deal. I wouldn't dare try to defend the morality of it, but this is capitalism right? I personally believe the corrupt officials example you bring up is much worse than this though. One is often a life and death situation and the other is about protecting the interests of a successful multi-billion dollar corporation.

[philwelch]

Judging by how many people end up there, prison time does not seem to be a particularly effective deterrent either.