[nabilhat]

For things to get this far is a failure of accounting. Engineering may have set the stage, but it's accounting's job to respond appropriately rather than letting (or not seeing) this play out. Treating accounting unseriously is an extremely obvious, avoidable mistake that a mindboggling number of businesses make. A substantial portion of the finance and accounting industry thrives on cleaning up the outcome of accounting being pawned off on the owner's spouse / kid / niece / nephew. They'll figure it out, right? It's just math.

I was thinking, surely it can't be that stupid in this case, but then I checked. Who knows, maybe Geeta Gupta-Fisker really is a profoundly skilled financial wizard. The founder's / chairman's / CEO's spouse is always the wrong person to be managing finances for so very many reasons. At the very least the optics of undermining of a firewall between accounting and equity undermines trust in finance. Such a relationship inspires extra special attention from auditors and regulators when mistakes happen. It's a clear sign that leadership doesn't take accounting as seriously as they should. Yet nepotism keeps being a normal thing that happens often.