Liberate -- not as happy as Larry

Liberate Technologies has filed an 8-K form that says: "As part of its ongoing efforts to align operating expenses with revenues, Liberate Technologies is terminating the employment of approximately 180 employees effective January 10, 2003, and expects to transition out approximately 60 other employees during the next three months." Last month, reports CNet, the company also "fired its chief operating officer after a company investigation into questionable accounting". I know most journalists have long since stopped following Liberate's struggles, but the company was a sort of spin-off from Larry Ellison's Oracle and was originally called Network Computer Inc. It was pumped up as leading the Network Computer revolution and later as potentially "a powerful new player in the Linux-on-the-desktop front" (to quote Linux World), when its market cap was an insane $3 billion. Do you think there is the slightest chance the journalists, analysts and PRs who pumped out clueless bullshit promoting Larry and his ideas in the latter half of the 1990s will feel the tiniest bit guilty about any of this? You're right: none at all.