Quite the altruist, that Karmazin.

But let’s be honest here. Given that the options, of which 24,000,000 were vested and 6,000,000 unvested, had an exercise price of $4.72 per share and that Sirius’s stock is trading at about 35 cents, they really weren’t worth anything. So a nice addition to the company’s incentive plan, but an ironic one in that Karmazin had little incentive to keep the Sirius (SIRI) options he’s forfeiting.

It is, as Forbes notes, “a rare look at Jobs in his own words.”

Alas, Steve Jobs in his own words–at least when he’s being deposed in an options-backdating lawsuit–is mind-numbingly boring. “Just like us!” as they say in the celebrity gossip magazines.

Forbes has taken what it says are the highlights of the transcript and assembled them into an online slideshow, but the best stuff appears to be this bit, where Jobs explains why he asked his board for a giant options grant:

At some point in 2001 Jobs went to his board and asked for a big option grant. In the deposition Jobs said he had simply wanted a pat on the back. “It wasn’t so much about the money,” The Forbes 400 member told an SEC lawyer. “Everybody likes to be recognized by his peers. … I felt that the board wasn’t really doing the same with me.” With all of his prior stock options underwater from the dot-com bust, “I just felt like there is nobody looking out for me here, you know. … So I wanted them to do something, and so we talked about it. … I thought I was doing a pretty good job.”

Wouldn’t it have been nice, he was thinking, if the board had come to him and said, “‘Steve, we got this new grant for you,’ without me having to suggest anything or be involved in anything or negotiate anything. … It would have made me feel better at the time.”

Takeaway: Even billionaires need a back-pat occasionally. But if you’re looking for insight into the psyche of the world’s most famous business leader, that’s about all you’re getting here.

I haven’t seen the deposition myself, so it’s possible that there are other great nuggets buried in the 119 pages, and that Forbes is hoarding them in order to wring out as many stories as possible.

Then again, 119 pages of boredom is exactly what Jobs was trying to produce here in order to avoid further legal trouble with the SEC. Bad for headline writers and voyeurs. Good for him.

In a regulatory filing today, the company said it has asked shareholders to approve a plan to offer employees the opportunity to swap underwater stock options for restricted stock. “Like many companies, we have experienced a significant decline in our stock price over the last year in light of the current global financial and economic crisis,” eBay explained in its argument for implementing the plan. “Because of the continued challenging economic environment and the uncertain impact of our efforts to change our business, we believe these underwater stock options are no longer effective as incentives to motivate and retain our employees.”

And this may well be the case. That said, you’d think that the widespread and fast-mounting job losses in the tech sector would be enough to keep most folks still collecting paychecks coming in to work. Nice gesture, though.

Former Motorola CFO Paul Liska thought he’d been let go because the company was postponing the spinoff of its cellphone unit. Imagine his surprise when he read in Crain’s Chicago Business that he’d actually been fired for cause.

In a recent SEC filing, Motorola (MOT) said Liska was “involuntarily terminated for cause” and therefore must repay his $400,000 signing bonus and forfeit the stock options he received when he signed on with the company.

An odd disclosure, given the way in which Motorola’s leadership handled Liska’s departure. Asked about the circumstances surrounding his exit on a Feb. 9 earnings call, Motorola co-CEO Greg Brown had this to say:

“[Paul] did a lot of good work here and helped us get a lot of the heavy lifting done around this separation and preparation for separation which–as we talked about–remains the commitment to our strategy going forward and he was also very helpful in getting after along with the businesses and the other leaders in the organization, cost reduction initiatives. That said, I think the business environment’s changed, and given the environmental changes, we thought the change was appropriate at this time as well in that position.”

If that was the case, why was he fired for cause, which Motorola defines as–among other things–”willful and continued failure to substantially perform duties” and “gross misconduct”?

We may soon find out. Liska has reportedly filed suit against Motorola for wrongful termination.

[Image credit: Someecards]

Former Motorola CFO Paul Liska thought he’d been let go because the company was postponing the spinoff of its cellphone unit. Imagine his surprise when he read in Crain’s Chicago Business that he’d actually been fired for cause.

In a recent SEC filing, Motorola (MOT) said Liska was “involuntarily terminated for cause” and therefore must repay his $400,000 signing bonus and forfeit the stock options he received when he signed on with the company.

An odd disclosure, given the way in which Motorola’s leadership handled Liska’s departure. Asked about the circumstances surrounding his exit on a Feb. 9 earnings call, Motorola co-CEO Greg Brown had this to say:

“[Paul] did a lot of good work here and helped us get a lot of the heavy lifting done around this separation and preparation for separation which–as we talked about–remains the commitment to our strategy going forward and he was also very helpful in getting after along with the businesses and the other leaders in the organization, cost reduction initiatives. That said, I think the business environment’s changed, and given the environmental changes, we thought the change was appropriate at this time as well in that position.”

If that was the case, why was he fired for cause, which Motorola defines as–among other things–”willful and continued failure to substantially perform duties” and “gross misconduct”?

We may soon find out. Liska has reportedly filed suit against Motorola for wrongful termination.

[Image credit: Someecards]

Shares in the company slid still deeper into the mud today as the market reflected on the uneventful conclusion of the company’s merger talks with Microsoft (MSFT) and its decision to–well, let’s face it–become a reseller of Google (GOOG) ads. In early trading, Yahoo’s stock, which plummeted 10% in late trading yesterday, fell another 6% to around $22. And it’s likely to fall further still, with financial analysts taking swings at it like kids at a piñata.

“This deal diminishes Yahoo’s relevance among advertisers and strengthens the hand of a key competitor,” analyst Mark May of Needham & Company told clients in a research note today.

And over at Cantor Fitzgerald, analyst Derek Brown agreed. “We remain concerned about the long-term implications of this deal for Yahoo,” he said. “While the company should reap a near-term financial windfall with Google by its side, it seems to be sacrificing its vision of becoming a ‘must buy’ for online advertisers. After all, doesn’t this deal make Google, not Yahoo!, the ‘must buy’ for online advertisers?”

Jeffrey Lindsay of Bernstein Research says the deal is a litigation nightmare waiting to happen. “We think at a minimum that the current deal will result in further lawsuits, which Yahoo will ultimately have to settle, further impacting the economics of the deal,” he said.

And analyst Laura Martin of Soleil Securities Group says it’s just a nightmare, plain and simple. “Execution issues become more challenging as talent continues to stream out the door,” Martin said in a research note. “With the collapse of the Microsoft deal, Yahoo employees lost (in addition to shareholders), and we expect Yahoo’s employee turnover to accelerate as its share price falls and their stock options are way underwater. Shareholder litigation may distract the board and senior management and will cost Yahoo shareholders more money.”

And Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst with Forrester Research (FORR), well, she reacted as I imagine many observers did–with a slow shake of the head. “It’s a great deal for Google,” she told BusinessWeek . “I have no idea what Yahoo’s thinking.”

If it was thinking at all … Said Mark May, an analyst at Needham & Co., “This just reaffirms the view that Yahoo, and particularly Jerry Yang and David Filo, blew it. It’s hard to see how this management team is going to be able to extract or create value anywhere near 33 bucks a share anytime soon.”

I am a media-relations nightmare. I never prep, and I generally say what I think–and sometimes I say things before I think. I don’t know how many times people in the company have heard me say something to a reporter and later told me, ‘Jesus Christ, that’s going to be in the paper!’”

–Henry Nicholas, July 2004

According to Forbes, former Broadcom Corp. chief and founder Henry Nicholas ranks 677th on the list of the world’s wealthiest individuals. But according to a federal indictment unsealed today (full document below), he’d rank quite a bit higher on a list of the world’s most debauched. Scattered among charges related to improperly backdating stock options while he led the computer and cellphone chip-maker are some heavy drug violations. According to the indictment, it seems that while Nicholas was fraudulently backdating stock options that resulted in more than $2 billion of restated expenses, he was also conspiring to distribute controlled substances.

Those he didn’t use himself, that is. From the indictment:

In or around 2001, Nicholas distributed and used controlled substances during a flight on a private plane between Orange County and Las Vegas, causing marijuana smoke and fumes to enter the cockpit and requiring the pilot flying the plane to put on an oxygen mask.”

Nicholas also apparently had a habit of spiking the drinks of associates and customers with drugs. Generally ecstasy. Hell of a way to close a sales meeting, eh?

As noted here before, it’s hard to believe that an entrepreneur and philanthropist like Nicholas would conduct himself like a roadie on Zeppelin’s debauched 1973 tour. But then no one probably thought he was serious about building that subterranean sex lair, either. Anyway, here’s the drug indictment. Click on the box in the far right-hand corner to enlarge:

In a regulatory filing yesterday, Google (GOOG) said that Mather was notified last Wednesday that the SEC planned to recommend civil proceedings against her. That recommendation, Google was quick to stress, arises out of her prior employment at Pixar. If Mather, who has served as a member of the Google board of directors since November 2005, approved the improper dating of stock-option grants, she didn’t do it under the search sovereign’s aegis. That said, Google doesn’t seem to think she was involved at all. Said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, “We have the utmost confidence in Ann’s integrity, as well as her abilities as a director, and we continue to support Ann’s re-election to our board of directors.”

That’s a persuasive vote of confidence. Still, the SEC presumably has some reason for recommending civil action against Mather. And Disney (DIS), though it cleared former Pixar CEO Steve Jobs and anyone else “currently associated with Disney” of wrongdoing in connection with the options backdating that occurred at the company, never did offer an explanation of how the backdating came to pass. Perhaps one will be forthcoming from the SEC.