Remember back when Micheal Dell and Austin-based Dell, Inc. were among the early beneficiaries of what Larry Ribstein brilliantly coined as the Apple Rule of the criminalization-of-business lottery?
Well, as Dellís stock closed down yet again yesterday at $12.06 a share ñ far from the lofty $40 a share price of five years ago ñ this 24/7 Wall Street post makes clear that Dell was quite fortunate to have the benefit of the Apple Rule:
Some of the troubling behavior at Dell, which added up is an extraordinary amount for any large company, occurred when Michael Dell was CEO. All of it happened when he was the firmís chairman. Dell can argue that his is a huge company. He cannot know what all 94,000 of his workers are doing at any one time. That is almost certainly true. But a companyís values are established at the top and that behavior is s a by-product of corporate culture.
I submit that there is no rational basis for criminalizing Jeff Skillingís conduct as chief executive officer of Enron and not doing the same in regard to Michael Dellís. Or Tim Geithnerís for that matter.
Michael Dell is not a criminal. But neither is Jeff Skilling and he remains locked up in a Colorado prison.