Microsoft May Have Become - at Least Partially - Like a Boiler Room Scam
Giving imaginary salaries using imaginary tokens based on imaginary value (with restrictions on conversion to cash)
The term "boiler room scam" used to be more widely spoken/uttered than it is today. The term "boiler room" alone is mostly a metaphor, but think of companies that claim to have vastly most server rooms than they really have, with some of the remaining ones quietly shutting down. Think of scam companies that pay in shares to staff, i.e. pay in some imaginary/speculative tokens instead of real, hard money. I witnessed this firsthand. Of course I didn't fall for it. But others did.
It's still happening:
Irrespective of the terminology used, "boiler room scams" didn't end in the 80s or the 90s. The terms and conditions (terminology also) changed and standards/enforcement of the relevant regulation got a lot weaker. The US now has a leader who actively promotes scams [1, 2], having been paid (in the campaigning phase) by the scammers. It's no laughing matter and it certainly won't end well. A lot of Microsoft's financial reporting boils down to fraudulent accounting and circular spendings (buying from oneself).
Nobody punishes them for it and the administration would rather not, probably for fear of 'crashing' "the market" (Wall Street, i.e. rich people's interests).
Imagine what it means when a company says "we'll give bonuses to everybody" and what happens in practice is, the company instead buys shares of itself (to inflate share prices, i.e. to benefit shareholders) while debt soars and those bonuses are tied to a massive bubble waiting to implode. There's a dirty, filthy hand inside that cookie jar. β
"Microsoft, the worldβs most valuable company, declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, according to Smithers."