Uh-oh.

The corporate scandal machine seems to be spinning ever-wider as the Wall Street Journal online shows Breaking News [updated with link, subscription required]: "Apple says an investigation has shown that CEO Steve Jobs was aware of options backdating at the company, but didn't benefit from the practice."

Full story coming soon. But the full story on options backdating has already been playing out across the U.S., and indeed, worldwide markets. Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) isn't the only company to be accused of the practice, but if Jobs knew about it (and whether he profited seems far beside the point) he might just have to join former CFO Fred Anderson in resigning.

It just goes to show: brilliant innovators do not make smart businesspeople. We've seen it a hundred times this decade if we've seen it once. From Worldcom's Ebbers to the great and mystifying web of lies wrought by Lay and team at Enron, today's business leaders seem to be telling us: we didn't learn from our business ethics classes. We didn't learn from the 80s. We just didn't learn.

When will they learn? And whatever will happen to Steve Jobs? We await, as always, "the full story."

Jobs knew about option backdating: triple-Apple-oops originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.