To me, the big story is not so much that he attempted it, or that he tried to cover it up, or that he got busted doing something totally illegal, or that he was never prosecuted criminally, or that the judge threw out the initial settlement for being hilariously low, or that the revised settlement was still a small fraction of the billions estimated that the conspirators cheated away from staff...
It is that all of this happened, was well documented and publicly reported... and Google’s board did absolutely nothing. He continued in high ranking positions there for another ~decade. They sent a clear message that they find this sort of criminal conspiracy to be A-OK, nothing worth firing the guy over, or indeed reprimanding him in any meaningful way whatsoever.
To me that’s a bigger story than the Andy Rubin thing.
Obviously it was A-OK. Nothing bad seemed to happen, stocks are up from that time period.
If you can start a company that breaks the law, the only punishment is a $0 fine, your competitors don't do it, and doing it brings you large financial rewards, many would do it 10/10 times.
It is that all of this happened, was well documented and publicly reported... and Google’s board did absolutely nothing. He continued in high ranking positions there for another ~decade. They sent a clear message that they find this sort of criminal conspiracy to be A-OK, nothing worth firing the guy over, or indeed reprimanding him in any meaningful way whatsoever.
To me that’s a bigger story than the Andy Rubin thing.