To be fair, I don't think it started out as a scam.It was (and...

To be fair, I don't think it started out as a scam.
It was (and maybe still is) a worthwhile idea, which some tehnology which still has (potential) value.

In my humble opinion, it became "misguided" (I'm being kind), through;

(1) Enormous ego of MD who truly believed he was god's gift to engineering, and therefore deserved every accolade and every $$ to support the lifestyle he believed he was entitled to (e.g. luxury house in Nth Adelaide plus rural properties plus PPY business class air travel - even when Chairman travelled economy to save PPY some $$- , plus exhorbitant salary plus luxury cars plus , plus , plus) - the truth was, that he could never get past the accademic research phase, which was all he was really interested in anyway.

(2) Inability of a naive and childish behaving MD to trust anyone else, or value anyone else's input due to overwhelming self belief and ego - see item 1

(3) Inherent laziness of MD to attend to detail, and propensity to make things sound more complicated than they really were. = ego feeding - see item 1

(4) REPEATED inability of MD to work with suppliers, partners in a fair and collaborative and trusting way for benefit of PPY. Outcome was ALWAYS disputes and legal proceeeding for self presevation of reputation and self worth due to enormous ego, and narcissism - see item 1
(classic example of the "I've done nothing wrong" syndrome).

(5) Inability of Board to grow some gonads and identify when MDs value had past it's use-by date and move him on/out/sideways.

(6) Inability of Board to gain aditional cross check info (even from management) and simply, and blindly, believed whatever MD told them - which was invariably complicated gobbledegook and half truths and misleading crap for the express purpose of self preservation



... or so I've been reliably told ....... !!! LOL