So before the Freakonomics guys get their hands on this trend and ruin it for everyone, here's our chart of tech CEOs, ordered by color-coded company performance, each with a yacht proportionate to the CEO's real boat size.

The CEO Bought a Yacht? [Slate]
Oracle's future: What's a yacht got to do with it? [Computerworld]

• Wired News catches a writer faking a source: a "space historian" cited in three articles. Of course, if Wired wants a space historian, they should just bring back R. U. Sirius. [Wired News]
• Google co-heads Larry and Sergey reached a settlement with the interior designer of their Boeing 767. The blabbermouth agreed to stop telling the press how embarrassing the whole process was. Now Larry and Sergey can get back to important matters, like arguing over how many hammocks Larry can have in his room. [NY Sun]
• Local blog Starked SF writes a roundup of Silicon Valley's stock options backdating scandal, including a corporate VP who wants his company to fire the guys who fired him. [Starked SF]
• Microsoft discovers that the worst part about being compared to Nazis is paying reparations. [eWeek]
• There's probably a painful metaphor in all this:

  [Supr.c.ilio.us]

Vonage Holdings Corp. said customers have refused to pay for more than one million shares that they had signed up to buy in the Internet calling company's initial public offering in May.

Those million shares were worth $17.25 million when Vonage offered them in May, but the tanking stock now makes them worth less than $7 million. Meanwhile, Vonage just told the SEC that it doesn't plan to make a profit this year.

Vonage regrets not following its original plan, which was to sell customers a bucket of brine shrimp labeled "Sea Monkeys."

Vonage Customers Withhold Payment For IPO Shares [WSJ]

The broker told his customer the $38 price was probably a mistake, but he added that he could not guarantee it, given the volatility in Google's shares. Nonetheless, the customer, he said, became hysterical, complaining of chest pains and crying. "The way he sounded, I thought for sure the man was going to have a heart attack," he said.

Sensationalistic reporting by the Sun? Maybe. Who cares. This broker learned the hard way: Distrusting Google kills.

Error Knocks Down Google $350 a Share

For some companies, the wrongdoing could amount "to corporate hygiene issues."

In this case, "corporate hygiene issues" means "greedy exploitation of stock options." BORING. Watch out for these nine interesting and altogether more threatening corporate hygiene issues:

1. Shaking hands with game developer and sloppy bathroom user Will Wright
2. Touching Microsoft
3. Blogging — a known cause of Hep C
4. Whatever disease transfers from Steve Jobs's boots to a journalist's tongue
5. [Requisite "virus" pun]
6. Failing to wash hands clean of the last deal with Dell
7. Grime from dropped fork at Buck's Restaurant
8. Podcast-transmitted flu bug
9. Googleplex Head Lice — stop sharing hairbrushes, guys

Silicon Valley turning into Litigation Valley [Mercury News]

But according to the stats on insider trading site Form 4 Oracle, Eric's got worse timing than the makers of United 93. In the last six months, 1 out of 13 sales were followed by a jump in Google price. So Googlefreaks, don't worry — the less Eric is tied up with Google, the better off it does.

Insider: Eric Schmidt [Form 4 Oracle]

"What I want to hear is how much he listens. I want to see how well he does not being defensive and adversarial but being interested in hearing people."

Ballmer has never done anything like this in his six-year tenure as CEO, spokesman Tom Pilla said.

Heh. Indeed.

Sagging stock sends Ballmer to Wall Street to quell critics [Seattle Times]

Of course, this year the stock sales keep coming. The last six months saw another big chunk (over 8%) of Google insider stock sold.

When's the last time this happened in a California tech company? Wasn't it during Cisco's golden days in 2000, when employees (and some of their families) were dropping stock like crazy? And then the stock tanked, dropping from over 100 to under 20 by mid-2001?

But hey, that won't happen again! There's no bubble! No bubble! (Just keep shouting it!)

Drudge Report [Official site]
Google's April surprise for state [SF Chron]
Google insider selling so massive it makes the Drudge Report [FuckedGoogle]

Just saw this in an Adsense block. Okay, is that you, Jerry Yang?

• Gee, Google's stock sure does fluctuate!
• "If the company can improve in search [...] the potential upside is dramatic." That's right! If Yahoo does its business better, it could earn more money! Are you taking notes?
• If Facebook went public, it might be a tad overpriced.
• Some companies make money without looking trendy.
• Akamai, which jumped to $345 in the 2000 and sank to 56 cents, is back up, trading at a 44 price/earnings ratio — wait, no, the bubble IS back.
• Comcast sucks. Buy it.
• Rupert Murdoch is a clever dude.
• Okay, go buy mutual funds. Pussy.
• So the trick here, the secret investor tip, is "Buy low, sell high." Seriously, why aren't we charging for this advice?

The boom is back [Fortune]

If I were him, I'd ditch the Playskool keyboard first.

IMMEDIATE UPDATE: Orrrrr it's the keyboard for a Bloomberg terminal, which a reader says is "more difficult to use than the Space Shuttle controls." And since this reader may very well have used the Space Shuttle controls, I deeply apologize to Ryan Jacob and will cancel my gift order of Fisher Price's "Baby's First Computer Mouse."

For a Few Tech Stars, Time for a Second Act [NYT]

February 1: Google disappoints dizzily demanding investors. Shares dip.

February 28: Google disappoints dizzily demanding investors. Shares dip.

April 4: Google investors get dizzily demanding. Shares jump 4%.

Doesn't anyone want off the ride yet?

Google shares rise 4 pct on results optimism [Reuters]
Google Inc. stock [Google Finance]

No word on whether Baidu will put out another ass-kicking promo ad. A YouTube user just revealed Baidu's ad from its NASDAQ debut last summer. (And we've already seen them beat up Google.)

American Stock Exchange to Trade Options On Baidu.Com, Inc. [PR News Wire]
Baidu.com, Inc. [Google Finance]
Baidu NASDAQ ad [YouTube]
Earlier: Baidu: Funnier than Google [Valleywag]

The Motley Fool (which, granted, thinks Google is sunk or soaring depending on the day, the time, and whether Mercury's ascending in Virgo) puts it simply: "Bad move." Because Google has $8 billion liquid right now, hasn't been spending all its cash on acquisitions, and pulled in another $1.6 billion last year.

So it's just another matter of "I want more, I'll take more, and you can't stop me."

Google's Surprising Stock Sale [BusinessWeek]
Google Gets Greedy [Motley Fool]
Google Inc. [Google Finance]

The Architect of Oracle owns 60 percent of the company; first-grade arithmetic puts his stake around $60 mil. Woohoo! Larry's rich! Imagine the shopping list:

¬ New coat of paint on the Ellison yacht
¬ Rolaids for the accountant
¬ Budget for filming Weekend at Larry's
¬ Hiring Chuck Norris as a stunt double
¬ A new shirt, damn it

NetSuite gets sweet on idea of going public [SF Business Times]

Why didn't this get article after article of speculation, as any tiny sale of Google stock does? Maybe Apple's 30th anniversary overshadowed it; maybe the media was chasing bigger stories:

Apple again pays Jobs $1 salary [CNET]
Apple CEO Jobs' salary remained at $1 for '05 [MarketWatch]
Apple CEO Jobs' salary remains at $1 for fiscal 2005 [AP Wire]
Another year, another $1 salary for Apple's Jobs [SV/SJ Business Journal]
Steve Jobs takes another dollar from Apple [ZDNet UK]
Jobs gets usual salary: $1 [Seattle PI]
Jobs sells Apple shares [Smarthouse]

Time to file this under "The annual reporter phone-in," next to Punxsutawney Phil, Year in Review, and the War on Christmas.

But, of course, on the news of the S&P 500 add, GOOG bounced back to $370 overnight, and today it's shakily holding the gain. It'd be schadenfreudenly fun (but unlikely) to see the S&P pull a Google, balking at the hype and deciding not to add Google after all. (At least Google's near-acquisition Riya might get the joke.)

And all of this drama over a couple billion dollars — either way, Larry and Sergey are still multi-billionaires, and that's all that matters, right?

S&P Chairman admits he market timed the Google addition [FuckedGoogle]
Google Inc. [Google Finance]

Google intends to keep ignoring market pressures. Meanwhile, Googlers with only two or three million bucks of stock are losing their retirement money. With all this cash being thrown at projects and new staff, maybe they ought to drop some of the perks — fire a couple of massage therapists, turn off the sauna, charge for movie night...

Google Misses by a Mile [The Street]