Inside Overstock.com, where a firebrand CEO and 'Deep State' intrigue took center stage
Source: Washington Post
Inside Overstock.com, where a firebrand CEO and ‘Deep State’ intrigue took center stage
Insurers worried the retailer could not rein in Patrick Byrne’s personality and public comments. So, he says, he had no choice but to leave.
By Abha Bhattarai
September 27, 2019 at 4:47 p.m. EDT
At Overstock.com’s 20th-anniversary party last month, employees played tug-of-war, munched on artisan pickles and scrambled through an inflatable obstacle course at the company’s headquarters near Salt Lake City. It was a celebratory affair, complete with a reggae band, but for founder and chief executive Patrick Byrne, it held a tinge of melancholy.
He was about to resign, and not exactly by choice.
The retailer’s chief financial officer had just informed the board of directors that Overstock could not renew its insurance policy as long as Byrne was in charge. The CEO’s incessant broadcasting of his involvement in a “deep state” investigation had irreparably linked his personal life with the public company. On Overstock letterhead the week before, he claimed that he had romanced a Russian agent at the urging of the “Men in Black” — his term for federal agents — and effectively inserted himself into an international political scandal.
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Byrne’s resignation capped an unconventional and controversial two-decade run at Overstock.com, a billion-dollar retailer best known for moderately priced home goods. But the company that revolutionized furniture-buying to become one of the biggest successes in e-commerce was now reeling from a series of missteps and diversions, leaving it with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual losses. The company’s flagship site had become an afterthought for Byrne, 56, who wanted desperately to sell it to focus on his cryptocurrency businesses.
But perhaps the biggest bombshell was Byrne’s claims of entanglement with the FBI. In a corporate news release last month, Byrne said he had been assisting federal agents in their investigation of Russian election interference through his three-year relationship with Maria Butina, the accused Russian agent.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/26/inside-overstockcom-where-firebrand-ceo-deep-state-intrigue-took-center-stage/
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