Gemstar CEO - My screw ups are worth at least $30 million
You might not know the company Gemstar, but, if you have cable TV, you know what they do. Gemstar owns TV Guide and runs all of the interactive guides on most cable boxes. So when you want to find out what on Fox next Tuesday, the program you use was written by Gemstar.

In line with my continuing chronicle on the audacious greed of CEO's, here's an excerpt from Phillip Swan's newsletter on the Cable TV Technlogy industry.

Henry Yuen, who was officially fired from Gemstar last week, stands to collect nearly $30 million in dismissal benefits. $30 million! This for a guy who:



• Nearly destroyed Gemstar's relationship with the cable TV industry by trying to bully everyone in sight. (The company now has to struggle to get cable operators to use its Interactive Programming Guide.)
  
• Put Gemstar in financial chaos, causing the company to re-state its earnings twice in two months.
  
• Refused to testify about Gemstar's finances before the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC has filed a contempt charge against him.
  

Gemstar has frozen the $30 million severance package, pending the SEC probe. But Yuen is so shameless that he went to court to try to get the funds released. (He lost this week.)

Though I read more and more about cases like this, I am continually drop-jaw amazed.

- posted by Anonymous @ 10:03 AM