Friday, September 7, 2012

Bill Ruehle Book

I saw on Facebook today that Bill Ruehle, former CFO of Broadcom, wrote a book about his personal experience with the SEC "backdating" investigation. For ~7 years, from 2000 through 2006 (when Bill "retired"), I worked in Finance at Broadcom. Even though I was a Senior Manager by mid-2006, there were always two layers of additional management so I didn't work with Bill directly. Anyway, I bought the Kindle version of the book on Amazon for $10; it should be an interesting read.

Coincidentally, when I reported to my one and only jury duty experience (Orange County Court), Bill Ruehle was on trial as the defendant in Federal court next door. During the voir dire portion of my jury duty, the judge asked me if I knew Bill (I remember he pronounced his last name like "rules") and I admitted that I worked "for" him for 7 years.

==========

I'm only halfway through the 2nd chapter and I've already learned stuff I didn't know after working 11 1/2 years at Broadcom. I do agree with Bill that the entire SEC/DOJ investigation was a total waste of time and money. As a taxpayer and Broadcom employee/shareholder, I paid for both sides of this fiasco. Not sure what it cost the government (read: tax money) to pursue the case but Broadcom easily spend tens of millions, maybe even a hundred million dollars defending its executives.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

any chapters on Nick's coke/hooker parties? that would definitely boost sales

totochi said...

Not yet. I'll let you know if it does.

I doubt he will sell that many books. It may be unfair, but a lot of people are going to assume Bill was guilty because he is rich.