How to Read a 10Q: Ask Jeeves
Posted Fri Apr 27 11:12:58 2001 by sbaldwin |
By Steve Gilliard
Source Document: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1054298/0000912057-01-506504.txt
TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS
Specifically, our technology allows users
to ask a question in plain English (or other language)
and receive a response pointing to relevant Internet
destinations. We believe that by providing an
intuitive way to access information on the World Wide
Web ("Web"), we make online navigation a more
satisfying experience for consumers. We also believe
that our natural language approach enables companies
to better acquire and retain valuable customers.
|
If you use Ask Jeeves for even the most routine of searches, you may
get any answer. Some relevant, some not. To be fair, building a search
engine in this stage of the internet is difficult, but Ask Jeeves is at
best, in my experience, a mediocre search engine.
|
Our wholly owned subsidiary, Ask Jeeves
International, Inc., ("AJI"), was formed for the
purpose of marketing our natural language question
answering technologies and services outside of the
United States. To date, AJI has entered into joint
venture arrangements with local partners to provide
our services in the United Kingdom, Japan, and to the
worldwide Spanish-speaking market. In January 2001,
AJI formed Ask Jeeves Australia, a wholly owned
subsidiary of AJI, to provide a localized version of
our technologies and services for the Australian
market.
| Why
do you need to spend the money to deal with Japanese language queries
when internet penetration in Japan is at fairly low levels, well,
extremely low levels, with wireless dominating connectivity. Does that explain Jeeves running around the Olympics last year? |
The Question Processing Engine, or QPE, is
the engine that drives our question answering service.
The QPE uses our natural-language processing software
to parse, or identify the linguistically significant
terms in, each user question. The QPE analyzes a
user's question syntactically and semantically and
reorganizes it into a structure that can be matched to
our "question templates." For example, if a user asks
"Who is the king of Siam?" the service can correctly
tell that this is equivalent to "Who is the head of
state of Thailand?" a question template that is stored
in the knowledge base. The matching question templates
are then displayed for the user as dialogue questions.
When the user picks a dialogue question, the QPE then
extracts an "answer template" from the knowledge base
that contains the information necessary to link the
user directly to a destination on the Internet or a
page on a corporate Web site.
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In theory. In practice, it works differently. But not, in my experience, particularly well.
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A. George (Skip) Battle was appointed
Chief Executive Officer in December 2000. Mr. Battle
has served as a director of Ask Jeeves since August
1998 and currently serves on the compensation
committee. Mr. Battle retired from Andersen Consulting
in June 1995. Mr. Battle joined the firm in 1968,
became a partner in 1978 and held a series of
management positions in the firm including Worldwide
Managing Partner Market Development and a member of
the firm's Executive Committee, Global Management
Council and Partner Income Committee. Mr. Battle is a
member of the Boards of Directors of PeopleSoft, Inc.,
Barra Inc. and Fair, Isaac and Company, Incorporated
as well as a director of Masters Select Equity Fund
and Masters Select International Fund, registered
investment companies.
Adam Klein joined Ask Jeeves as President
in July, 2000. From 1998 to 2000, Mr. Klein served
numerous early stage Internet companies, including
GetConnected.com, Nearlife Inc. and Bidders Edge.com,
as board member and advisor. From 1996 to 1998, Mr.
Klein was the executive vice president and president
of global marketing at Hasbro Inc. Prior thereto, Mr.
Klein was the President of Klein & Co., a consulting
firm specializing in managing strategic change.
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And he is leaving. The company will not fill the slot
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Steven J. Sordello has served as Chief
Financial Officer of Ask Jeeves since December 2000.
Mr. Sordello joined Ask Jeeves in June of 1999 and
served as Director, Financial Planning and Analysis
from June of 1999 until April 2000, when he was
promoted to Vice-President-Financial Planning
Analysis. From April 1994 to June 1999, Mr. Sordello
served as Senior Director of Financial Planning for
Adobe, Inc., a software company. Prior to Adobe, Mr.
Sordello served in various positions at Syntex
Corporation, a pharmaceutical company.
Cynthia Pevehouse has served as General
Counsel & Secretary of Ask Jeeves since January 2000.
From 1997 to 2000, Ms. Pevehouse served as legal
counsel at Compaq Computer Corp. From 1996 to 1997,
she was legal counsel to Canon USA, Inc. Prior
thereto, Ms. Pevehouse was in private practice in
Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Osaka,
Japan. Ms. Pevehouse holds a J.D. from Willamette
University and an LL.M. in Asian Law from the
University of Washington.
Christine M. Davis has served as
Controller of Ask Jeeves since January 1999 and was
promoted to Vice President and Corporate Controller in
November 1999. From January 1999 until April 1999, Ms.
Davis also served as Acting Chief Financial Officer of
the Company. From December 1997 to January 1999, she
served as Corporate Controller of TIBCO Software,
Inc., a software company. From April 1987 to December
1997, Ms. Davis served as Corporate Controller,
Assistant Secretary and Treasurer of TCSI Corporation,
a telecommunications software company.
George S. Lichter has served as President
of Ask Jeeves International since May 1999. From
January 1997 to May 1999, Mr. Lichter served as Senior
Vice President, Business Development of Havas
Interactive/Cendant Software. From 1994 to 1997, Mr.
Lichter served as Vice President New Business
Development of Knowledge Adventure, an educational
software company. From 1993 to 1994, Mr. Lichter was
employed as an attorney at the law firm of Rosenfeld,
Meyer & Susman.
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The CEO is an Andersen escapee, and the rest seem
to have no experience in either building technology or
information sciences. Why does that matter? Because a
search engine is basically about languages and
information. These executives don't seem to have the
basic grounding in anything but business deals. Think
about this: Microsoft is run by a man who understands
programming. Intel is run by engineers. Slate is run
by an experienced magazine executive. While experience
in the sector your business is in does not guarantee
success, this indicates that the bosses may be more
interested in selling the technology than seeing that
it actually works.
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Ask Jeeves' future success is
substantially dependent on the performance of its
senior management and key technical personnel, and its
continuing ability to attract and retain highly
qualified technical and managerial personnel. As part
of our business realignment, in December 2000 we
implemented a workforce reduction of approximately 152
employees, representing approximately 20 percent of
our staff. As of December 31, 2000, the Company had
565 employees. We have never had a work stoppage, and
no employees are represented under collective
bargaining agreements. We consider our relations with
our employees to be good.
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Well, subtract 120 from that number. Wow, a Christmas firing. Tralalala, here's your pink slip.
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We incurred net financial reporting losses
of $6,806,000 in 1998, $52,929,000 in 1999 and
$189,606,000 in 2000, as determined under generally
accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). As of
December 31, 2000, we had an accumulated deficit of
approximately $250.2 million. We expect to have
negative cash flows and net financial reporting losses
in the future. The size of these net financial
reporting losses will depend, in part, on the rate of
growth of our revenues from our advertisers, corporate
customers and electronic commerce merchants and on our
ability to manage our expenses. It is critical to our
success that we continue to expend financial and
management resources to develop our brand loyalty
through marketing and promotion and the enhancement of
our natural language question answer technologies and
other services. In December 2000, we announced steps
to narrow our financial reporting losses, including a
realignment of our business and a reduction in our
workforce. Although these steps are intended to reduce
our financial reporting losses in the future, we
cannot guarantee that these steps will achieve the
intended reduction in financial reporting losses or
allow us to achieve profitability.
As our expenses and other financial
reporting charges are likely to continue to exceed our
revenues in the foreseeable future, we will need to
generate significant additional revenues to achieve
financial reporting profitability. Moreover, given the
rapid and unexpectedly sharp deterioration of the
general business climate in recent months, we cannot
predict whether we will be able to generate these
significant additional revenues or when, if ever, we
will achieve positive cash flows or financial
reporting profitability.
| Watch
the losses climb. $6m to $52m to $189m. Wow. You have to wonder what
management was doing to get their losses to exponentially increase
every year, besides their silly commercials and marketing campaigns
which no one seems to remember. Instead of losing $189m they might have
spent money on improving their search engine to the point where it
works better than its competitors.
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Our Natural Language Question Answer
Technologies and Services are Novel and Unproven.
We will be successful only if Internet
users adopt our natural-language services and
popularity-based searches as a primary method of
navigating the Internet.
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Once again, asking the user to bet on their technology, even if it doesn't provide a compelling reason to do so.
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Our Geographic Properties May Not Be Successful
Our wholly owned subsidiary, Ask Jeeves
International, Inc., or AJI, was formed for the
purpose of marketing our natural language question
answering technologies and services outside of the
United States. To date, AJI has entered into joint
ventures to provide our services in the United
Kingdom, Japan, and to the Spanish-speaking market
worldwide. AJI has also formed a subsidiary in
Australia to provide a localized version of our
services for the Australian market. This expansion
into international markets requires substantial
management attention and financial resources. We
cannot be certain that our investment in AJI and in
establishing operations in other countries will
produce the desired levels of revenue. In addition,
AJI and its investment properties are subject to other
inherent risks and problems, including:
o the impact of business cycles and
downturns in economies outside the United States;
o longer payment cycles and greater
difficulty in accounts receivable collections;
o unexpected changes in regulatory
requirements;
o difficulties and costs of staffing and
managing foreign operations;
o reduced protection for intellectual
property rights in some countries;
o unanticipated tax costs associated with
the cross-border use of intangible assets;
o political and economic instability;
o fluctuations in currency exchange rates;
o difficulty in maintaining effective
communications with employees and customers due to
distance, language and cultural barriers;
o lower brand recognition for Ask Jeeves and
the Jeeves character in non-English speaking counties;
o lower per capita Internet usage in many
foreign countries, for a variety of reasons such as
lower disposable incomes, lack of adequate
telecommunications and computer infrastructure and
concerns regarding online security for e-commerce
transactions; and
o competition in international markets from
a broad range of competitors, including AltaVista,
Goto.com, LookSmart, Terra Lycos, Yahoo! and other
United States and foreign portals, search engines and
service providers.
| Why
don't they mention the difficulty of adapting their methods to
different syntax and languages. Kanji is a tough nut to crack, and
without endorsement from the larger internet services in Latin America
and Spain there is a high potential for spending a lot of money and
losing it.
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A. George (Skip) Battle, a member of our
Board of Directors, has been appointed Chief Executive
Officer. We do not have an employment agreement with Mr. Battle for
any specific term, and the loss of Mr. Battle's services could
seriously harm our business.
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Why? This seems odd. Why would they not lock down their CEO and a former director of the company?
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Item 2. Properties
Our headquarters are currently located in
a leased facility in Emeryville, California. The
facility consists of approximately 76,000 square feet.
Our annual rent expense under the lease is $2.4
million. The lease expires in 2005.
In February 2000, the Company entered in an additional
lease agreement for facilities in Oakland, California.
The lease consists of approximately 60,000 square
feet.
In March 2000, the Company entered in an additional
lease agreement for its international operations in
Los Angeles, California. The lease consists of
approximately 8,000 square feet. Our annual rent
expense under the lease is $211,000. The lease expires
in September 2004.
As part of our acquisition of Direct Hit, Inc. in
first quarter 2000, we assumed their lease, which
consists of approximately 22,000 square feet. Our
annual rent expense under the lease is approximately
$500,000. The lease expires October 2002.
In April 2000, the Company entered into an additional
lease agreement for facilities in Oakland, California.
The lease consists of approximately 160,000 square
feet. Our annual lease commitment under the lease is
$6.5 million. The lease term is ten years and the
building is currently under construction with
anticipated completion in second quarter 2002.
We have also leased smaller facilities in California,
and New York, primarily for sales and marketing
personnel.
As part of the Company's business realignment
announced in December 2000, the Company closed
operations in North Hollywood and Oakland, California,
as well as its facility in St. Louis, Missouri. The
cost associated with exiting the facilities was
approximately $8 million.
We believe that as a result of our facility
consolidation, our remaining facilities will be
adequate to meet our needs for the foreseeable
future.
| Why
did this company need so much rental space? Especially in St. Louis?
This company was renting so much space so quickly that consolidation in
one larger building might have made a lot more sense. Why did they need
all this space for a search engine? Wasn't there an old industrial
building they could have rehabed? They didn't need warehouse space or
massive offices. This seems oddly excessive and indicates unplanned
growth. Even with mergers or acquisitions, most of that space should
have been sublet immediately.
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We have incurred significant net losses
and negative cash flows from operations since our
inception, and at December 31, 2000, we had an
accumulated deficit of approximately $250.2 million.
These losses have been funded primarily through the
issuance of preferred and common equity securities,
including our initial public offering in July 1999 and
follow-on public offering in March 2000.
We believe that we will incur negative cash
flows from operations in the future. Although we are
targeting positive cash flows from operations by the
third quarter of 2000, because of the rapid and
unexpectedly sharp deterioration of the general
business climate in recent months, we cannot predict
when we will achieve either positive cash flows from
operations or financial reporting profitability in the
future.
| This
company incurred the majority of that debt in 2000. Like the other
companies we profiled, their expenses went up as ad revenue went down.
It wasn't until they faced the harsh 4th quarter did they make the kind
of hard business decisions that companies losing $189m in one year
should make.
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Revenues were $95.7 million for the year
ended December 31, 2000, and $22.0 million for the
year ended December 31, 1999. Web Properties revenues
were $58.4 million or 61% of total revenues for the
year ended December 31, 2000 and $14.6 million or 66%
of total revenues for the year ended December 31,
1999.
They goosed revenues up as losses exploded.
Sales and marketing expenses were $81.6
million for the year ended December 31, 2000, and
$35.3 million for the year ended December 31, 1999.
The increase in expenses are attributed to advertising
expenses related to our branding campaign, the hiring
of additional direct sales and marketing personnel and
sales commissions associated with the increase in
revenues.
| They
took in $95.7m, yet spent $81m on marketing. That is a lot of money to
spend on marketing. The only problem is that they had to run a business
after that. And the thing is that all that money for eyeballs didn't
bring in enough in revenues to run the company. That is $81m spent on
marketing in one year. What were they running? A nationwide chain of
Ask Jeeves hamburger joints? If Krispy Kreme had proposed spending that
kind of money, the CEO would be unemployed. Instead, KK made money.
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In-Process Technology
For the year ended December 31, 2000, we wrote
off in-process technology of $11.7 million in
connection with the acquisition of certain technology
from Evergreen and Direct Hit.
More money wasted. Thank God it was OPM.
In May 1999, the Company adopted, as
amended, the 1999 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. The
Company has reserved a total of 400,000 shares of
common stock for issuance under the plan. Eligible
employees may purchase common stock at 85% of the
lesser of the fair market value of the Company's
common stock on the first day of the applicable
one-year offering period or the last day of the
applicable six-month purchase period. At December 31,
2000, 346,167 shares were available for grant under
the plan.
Also in 1999, in conjunction with an
employment contract with an executive, the Company
guaranteed $1,200,000 in cash or stock to be paid to
the executive after 36 months of employment. This
amount has been recorded as deferred stock
compensation and is being amortized by charges to
operations using a graded vesting method over the
36-month life of the guarantee. Such amortization
amounted to $5,594,044 for the year ended December 31,
2000.
In 2000, the Company granted equity
interests in the joint ventures to certain executives
of AJI and recorded a compensation charge of
$1,223,000 in connection with these grants during the
year.
| Wow.
Options suck. These companies talk a good game of sharing the wealth,
but they offer so few options to their employees. Of 500+ employees, if
all had participated, they would have been able to buy less than 800
shares each. A fraction of what most officers could buy. What this
means is that most employees are going to lose money in options. A
option has to be well above the strike price to make money. If they go
down to the strike price, you've lost your money. When you have 10,000
shares to play with, even a low share price gives you something,
especially when the options are part of your compensation. But when you
have to
buy them, there is an illusory effect of making money with the company.
But the reality is that this is set up to make the officers money
regardless of what happens to the workers. Workers are very unlikely to
sell their options until too late.
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EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT
This AGREEMENT ("Agreement") is entered into
effective as of December 1, 2000 (the "Effective
Date"), by and between Rob Wrubel ("Employee") and Ask
Jeeves, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the "Company").
Employee and the Company agree as follows:
1. TITLE AND DUTIES.
[blockquote](a) TITLE. As of the Effective Date,
Employee shall have the title of Executive Vice
President, Market Development.
(b) DUTIES AND REPORTING. Employee will
report solely to the Company Chief Executive Officer
("CEO"). Employee will be responsible for advising the
Company's CEO on opportunities for partnerships and
strategic relationships for the Company, as well as
performing all other duties reasonably requested of
him by the Company's CEO, consistent with Employee's
title and position. This will be a full-time position
and Employee will devote substantially all of his full
business efforts and time to the Company.
2. TERM OF EMPLOYMENT.
(a) AT-WILL EMPLOYMENT. The Company agrees
to continue Employee's employment, and Employee agrees
to remain in employment with the Company, from the
Effective Date until the date when Employee's
employment terminates.
(b) TERMINATION. Employee's employment
with the Company is "at-will" and the Company may
terminate Employee's employment at any time and for
any or no reason, and with or without cause, by giving
Employee fourteen (14) days advance notice of
termination of employment in writing. Employee may
terminate his employment at any time, for any or no
reason, with or without cause, by giving the Company
fourteen (14) days advance notice in writing.
Employee's employment shall terminate automatically in
the event of his death.
(c) TERMINATION OF AGREEMENT. This
Agreement shall terminate when all obligations of the
parties hereunder have been satisfied. The termination
of this Agreement shall not limit or otherwise affect
any of the Employee's or the Company's obligations
under Sections 7, 8, and 10.
3. BASE SALARY, SEVERANCE PAYMENT, STOCK
OPTIONS AND LOANS.
(a) BASE SALARY. As of the Effective Date,
the Company shall pay Employee as compensation for his
services a monthly base salary in the amount of
$21,666.66, less applicable withholdings and
deductions, payable in accordance with the Company's
standard payroll practices and procedure ("Base
Salary"). Employee's Base Salary shall be increased to
$22,916.66 per month, less applicable withholdings and
deductions, effective January 1, 2001.
(b) SEVERANCE PAYMENT. Employee will
receive severance payments that in the aggregate equal
$275,000, less applicable withholdings and deductions
("Severance Payment"). Employee shall receive the
Severance Payment in installment payments (less
applicable withholdings and deductions) pursuant to
the below schedule:
Payment Date
Payment Amount ------------ --------------
January 1, 2001
$50,000 February 1, 2001 $50,000 March 1,
2001 $50,000 April 1, 2001
$50,000 May 1, 2001 $50,000 May 31, 2001
$25,000
In the event of Employee's termination of
employment prior to his receiving the entire Severance
Payment, then Employee shall receive a lump sum
payment for the balance of the unpaid portion of the
Severance Payment within ten (10) days after
termination of employment.
(c) STOCK OPTIONS. Employee's unvested
shares subject to his stock options shall vest
pursuant to the schedule shown in Exhibit B
("Options") attached hereto. The parties agree that
Employee is not a Section 16 officer (as defined under
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended) as of
the Effective Date and may exercise any or all of his
vested stock options at any time prior to each
individual Option's expiration (or one (1) year after
Employee's termination of employment if earlier than
the stated expiration date) and immediately sell any
or all of such acquired shares, subject to the terms
and conditions of his Restricted status as a member of
senior management and subject to the company's Insider
Trading Policy. Employee may exercise the Options by
delivering to the Company an executed stock option
exercise agreement pursuant to the Company's 1996
Equity Incentive Plan (the "Plan"). Any such Options
will constitute non-qualified stock options if
Employee exercises them during the extended exercise
period for the Options effected by this Agreement. If
Employee's employment with the Company is terminated
prior to May 31, 2001, then any further vesting of the
Options shall be governed by Section 5 below.
(d) LOANS. The principal and interest on
Employee's outstanding loans with the Company shall be
forgiven pursuant to the schedule shown in Exhibit C
("Loans") attached hereto. Notwithstanding the
previous sentence, the Employee may elect at any time
prior to May 31, 2001 (with such election (i) being
subject to the provisions in Section 5 and (ii)
requiring Company consent to become operative) to
defer forgiveness of the then-outstanding Loan balance
until January 1, 2002 (with such Loan balance
continuing to accrue interest until completely
forgiven or otherwise paid off). As a condition of
receiving the loan forgiveness, Employee shall deliver
a check payable to the Company in an amount equal to
the tax withholdings for the amount forgiven on each
loan as it is forgiven. In the alternative, Employee
may elect to use the Severance Payment described in
Paragraph 3(b) above, to pay the taxes due on the loan
forgiveness by informing the Company in writing of his
intention to apply such Severance Payment towards the
tax amounts. This written notice shall identify the
amount of the loans forgiven, the commencement date of
the forgiveness, and the taxes owing on each loan
forgiven. The Company shall then apply the Severance
Payment installment towards the taxes
The
payments here. seemingly give him here over $500K and have his loans
forgiven. Why he has all of these financial benefits when the company
has lost $189m and spent $81m on marketing is beyond me. It seems that
he has been given the kind of breaks which most employees would kill
for. Wrubel has been forgiven $1,436,571.39 in loans. He was loaned
$200K in separate loans on 6/18/99. He was listed as the CEO in a
letter to former president Adam Klein, yet is listed as a senior VP
under the current management structure. The current director and CEO, A
George "Skip" Battle, is being paid $195K but with 360,000 options,
which is worth more than $720K at today's stock price.
The
irony is that while Ask Jeeves has been spending and losing money, its
inside investors have been selling stock. What is interesting is who
were some of the insiders selling stock.
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05/12/00 Yale University Shareholder Planned Sale 14,495 - 347,880 - -
06/12/00 Vanderbilt University Shareholder Planned Sale 66,704 - 1,467,488 -
06/12/00 Williams College Shareholder Planned Sale 33,352 - 794,000 -
06/22/00 Duke University Emp Ret Pl Shareholder Planned Sale 13,341 - 240,100
07/18/00 Paternot, Stephan J. Shareholder Planned Sale 2,143 - 42,000 - -
08/23/00 Childrens Fairyland Shareholder Planned Sale 3,225 - 64,695
08/29/00 Ronald Mcdonald House Shareholder Planned Sale 1,250 - 32,500 -
08/30/00 Mayo Foundation Pension Shareholder Planned Sale 36,251 - 900,000 -
09/01/00 St Francis High School Shareholder Planned Sale 850 - 26,554
10/12/00 Krizelman, Todd Shareholder Planned Sale 2,143 - 28,000 -
11/13/00 Yale University Shareholder Planned Sale 102,235 - 1,584,642 -
| OK,
now look at the number of charities, pension plans and university
endowments which bought Ask Jeeves shares. Now why the hell did they do
that? What was so attractive about Ask Jeeves to become an insider
about? There is a story there. This is a stock which reached 109. Of
course, the great dump off came during the summer of 2000, but there
was a clear spike of sales which reached its height in September.
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02/21/01 - 02/22/01 Wrubel, Robert Executive Vice President Sale 37,500 2.00 - 2.30 75,000 - 86,250 com D 297,290
02/21/01 Wrubel, Robert Chief Executive Officer Planned Sale 150,000 - 343,500 - - -
My
guess is that he was interim CEO before Battle. But there is a real
question here: why is Wrubel being forgiven a million dollar loan and
being paid hundreds of thousands a year? Despite the drop in title, his
base salary will be higher than the CEO's. And there is the loan
forgiveness. There is no record of him buying stocks at that level.
Sometimes officers are loaned corporate money to buy stock, but the
insiders have continually dumped shares into the market in sale spikes
in May, 2000 and September,2000.
It seems as soon as the crash hit, the insiders began to sell their
shares and kept selling those shares as the price fell. While Ask
Jeeves is well above delisting, the rapid loss of share price and the
sales do not inspire confidence.
What is clear is that Robert Wrubel, who guided the company to
spend $81m on marketing, has done quite well for himself in his various
roles at Ask Jeeves.
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Why Ask Jeeves is Failing
The central problem is that their core product, the search engine,
does not work as advertised. Anyone who uses it may find answers far
less accurate than one would get from other services. It is amazing
that companies would spend so much money on marketing and get so little
in return. Their marketing campaign was less than successful.
Frankly, it is impossible to predict what will happen to this
company. Obviously, it will not be spending anything like that in
marketing this year. Yet, their revenues will also drop due to the
tight ad market. Losses may be less, but the company's survival is
anyone's guess. Cutting costs may work, may not work.
But what is of concern is the loans and payments to Wrubel. Any
shareholder should be concerned about his level of compensation and the
loan forgiveness of $1.4m. While the reasons are not explained, it
seems unusual, as does the severance payments. Other executives were
also give $150K in moving allowances and generous options packages.
Which seem excessive, given the cost of cross country moves and their
salaries.
Ask Jeeves seems to have had a very generous compensation package
for their senior execs, while losing exponential amounts of money. One
has to wonder if the company's generous payments were warranted given
the company's financial condition.
Editor's Note: This is Part 6 of Steve Gilliard's ongoing series. You can read Part 1 (IVillage), Part 2 (Salon), Part 3 (Razorfish), Part 4 (Juno), and Part 5 (Ask Jeeves) on this site).
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