Nearbeer: "and cliff negotiated the apple deal, and cliff was the attorney in charge of the ITC presentation and Cliff was the ITC judge and cliff was the foreman of the jury of the N.CA. Court trial.... actually Shboomer, my point was that it is a stupid comparison of insider trading. nb. ps...and that is way you get paid, on a contingency on something out of your control?" ....................

I'm really not sure what you mean by all that, and I certainly don't know what world you worked in. From start-ups to big companies stock grants and options are use as incentives for senior management and founding employees to stay the course and build the company. In my experience, even though I was myself well paid, the carrot of a bonus for objectives met and the potential of growing stock value by hard and diligent work, in all disciplines, enhances cooperation and teamwork in small companies. However, it starts to fall apart when greed and egos take over. Many major companies mandate that senior management own a minimum level of stock and also include bonus plans and stock options/grants in structured compensation plans. When an employee, at any level, knows exactly how much he or she is going to earn each year and is under no threat of retribution for poor performance, then performance, diligence and quality of work plummets, be cause there is no longer an incentive to do a good job or care about the company. Integrity is a dying quality.