Party Like A VC: It’s Not As Easy As It Looks
Startups, especially on the West Coast, are usually full of folks who’ve been involved in more than one. Sometimes that’s due to success – the company is acquired – and sometimes that’s because of failure. Startup junkies are always moving. The Zynga management team includes several alumni, including their CEO and CFO, of SupportSoft.
SupportSoft’s founder who is the current Zynga CEO, and Zynga’s CFO, have been out of SupportSoft for a while. Within five minutes I knew why. SupportSoft settled a class action law suit in 2007 for $10.7 million that alleged its then-CEO and CFO, Radha Basu and Brian Beattie, violated federal securities laws. They were accused of making false and misleading statements about the reasons for record revenues, resulting in the artificial inflation of the company’s stock price.