Henry Blodget, not redeemed at all


Roben Farzad argues in a column in the latest issue of BusinessWeek that disgraced/banned-from-the-industry-for-life former internet stock analyst Henry Blodget has redeemed himself, writing that, "I now admire Henry Blodget -- for his audacious reincarnation as a tech and media blogger and author. I find his work indispensably frank, stuff you see all too rarely from an ex-insider."

I'm here to tell you that I don't think he's redeemed himself. I'm more inclined to agree with Jim Cramer, who described Blodget as "a disgrace to the business and a creep." In his terrible book, Henry Blodget wrote little about his own wrongdoing, except to say this:

If missing the top had been my only mistake, I would have survived . . . I also made a more serious mistake, however, which was to write a lot of emotional unprofessional emails, especially during the heat of the crash. Later, amid the wreckage, when the press, public, and regulators began calling for blood, my emails did me in . . . I was accused by New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer of having made remarks in emails that were "inconsistent" with my research (popular translation: "privately trashing stocks he was public recommending"). Along with others, I agreed to pay a humongous fine and be barred from the industry.


As I wrote in my review: "Dear Henry: The problem wasn't that the emails were "unprofessional" or "emotional." The problem was that you were acting as a paid shill for the investment banking arm of your firm, and passing off your research as legitimate when it was anything but."

And the $4 million fine that Blodget paid was a tiny fraction of what this guy earned.

If Blodget really wants to redeem himself, he needs to admit that he behaved incredibly unethically and stop blaming regulators/the press for his downfall. Until he does that, his blogs and magazine articles are just self-promotional garbage from a guy who apparently doesn't get that he did anything wrong.
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Last updated: February 12, 2012: 02:47 PM

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