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03/24/2005: "Sbona -- the man, the legend, the myth?"

Something is fishy.

Gary Sbona is one of Silicon Valley's highest paid executives. Number 59 on the list, actually, pulling down over 4.6 million dollars last year in cash and stock. What would a guy like that be doing with a failed dot.com?

And whats up with the connection to Mike Pliner? For those not in the know, Pliner used to be on Vivato's BoD, and Pliner and Biba were both part of Sytek way back when 802.11 started. Stalter pushed Pliner off the BoD. I guess Pliner had a score to settle.

Tom Sowa (a business reporter for the Spokane Paper) wrote in to say that he has confirmed that Sbona is the new CEO, and that he "started last week". Nothing new there, other than the simple fact that the company has now admitted the QB substitution to someone outside the company. Sowa also reports that Donald Stalter will stay with the company "until April" (now one week away), and is "leaving to pursue a start-up". I see this as a fancied-up version of the "left to pursue other interests" excuse that we so often get in these forced resignations.

In the meantime, Vivato's management team page is badly out of date. Stalter, DeMarche, and Matthew are all MIA, though Vivato has yet to admit that DeMarche and Matthew are gone. Matthew left in October 2004. Rasputin is Stalter's boy, so he won't last, and Smidl, as the VP of Sales in a company where sales aren't happening, has to be facing the prospect of execution by guilotine. He's also a Stalter plant, loyal to the recently departed tsar and his court.

This leaves Kolb as last man standing. Congratulations, Bradley.