When Carl Icahn Ran a Company: The Story of TWA

Re:When Carl Icahn Ran a Company: The Story of TWA by factman on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @12:44AM (#7426861)

Pretty unlikely when a fund invests 1/6th of its total capital in a single deal, the namesake of the fund is not intimately involved. Most funds have a cap of 10% of total equity in a single deal to avoid concentration risk and even if this was 15% for a16z, they were still above this limit.

Note: since this $300MM fund, a16z has gone on to raise enormous funds many multiples of the size.

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Re:When Carl Icahn Ran a Company: The Story of TWA by nknighthb on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @01:52AM (#7427047)

Wrong side. He didn't claim to be uninvolved with a16z's decision, but with ebay's. He resolved the conflict by walling himself off from one side of it, not by absenting himself from the process entirely.

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Re:When Carl Icahn Ran a Company: The Story of TWA by rohamg on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @02:08AM (#7427073)

couldn't you then make the argument that ebay missed out on the guidance of one of its smartest board members? (just playing devil's advocate here)

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Re:When Carl Icahn Ran a Company: The Story of TWA by nknighthb on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @02:45AM (#7427145)

Category error. That's no different than being out of contact on vacation. Actually, it's better, since they were only missing his guidance on this specific subject, not anything else that came up during that time.

The shareholders could simply kick him out if they felt he wasn't doing his job. Instead they re-elected him with near-unanimity.

The alleged behavior in question is not that he didn't do his job, but that he committed various torts and federal crimes.

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