I recall when the CEO of my company, Lee Stein, invited Ted Waite to visit in San Diego. We were just planning to help him set up a means of selling his products over the internet (1996). Waite liked the city so much he decided to move his headquarters. I wonder how much that decision played into the decline and sell off of the company.
Ted Waite has been using Gateway stock (GTW) as his personal cash machine for years and years. Check out his stock sales just over the last two years; they've been relentless, netting him vast sums of cash while Gateway's regular shareholders were getting seriously hosed (and his sales before 2005 were much, much larger!):
‘... personal cash machine...’
well, DUH. That is why someone decides to start a business. Start it, build it up, and then around retirement time, sell it and hope to end up with a few mil (after taxes) in your retirement account. Then go sailing.
Too bad they don’t teach that in college.