08
January
2007
|
14:15 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Jim Clark, Shutterfly chairman quits, attacks Sarbanes-Oxley

I can't tell you how many of Silicon Valley's top executives of top companies have told me over the past three years: "Tom, all these regulations are killing us."

Here is an excerpt from Eric Auchard's Reuters story via Yahoo News:

Sarbox (Sarbanes-Oxley) dictates that I not chair any committee due to the size of my holdings, not be on the compensation committee because of the loan I once made to the company, not be on the governance committee," Clark wrote.

"It even dictates that some other board member must carry out the perfunctory duties of the chairman," he wrote in a letter dated January 1. "What's left is liability and constraints on stock transactions, neither of which excite me."

. . .

Clark, a veteran founder of Silicon Valley start-ups for 25 years, is the father-in-law of Chad Hurley, the co-founder and chief executive of video-sharing sensation YouTube, which late last year was acquired by Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news).

"As a technologist, I feel there is little that I can offer to guide what has become a manufacturing company," he wrote.

"It seems pretty clear to me that lawmakers have gone too far in considering a large shareholder to be inappropriate in the roles, but it is equally clear that I have no ability to change this in the near term," Clark's letter stated.

Source: Shutterfly chairman quits, attacks Sarbanes-Oxley - Yahoo! News