Pubdate: Wed, 10 May 2000
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001
Fax: +61-(0)2-9282 3492
Website: http://www.smh.com.au/
Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/
Author: Malcolm Knox

PRIOR DOPE, THIS CEO NEEDS A VERY AUSTRALIAN SALVATION

Chris Tyler is hardly the first emancipated convict to try to reinvent 
himself on these shores. Nor is he the first to be treated with suspicion. 
The architectural legacy of our most famous emancipist, the forger Francis 
Greenway, would never have arisen without the dogged patronage of his 
governor, Lachlan Macquarie, overriding those who doubted a criminal could 
ever come clean.

Tyler's Solution 6 is relying on a similar kind of patronage, from 25 per 
cent shareholder Telstra and other investors whose support has wavered 
recently, cutting its share price by 70 per cent. A merger with Sausage 
Software may collapse, and Telstra yesterday withdrew its nomination of 
executive Ted Pretty to the Solution 6 board. Just as Greenway needed 
Macquarie's protection, Tyler sought yesterday to enlist patronly support 
to shoo away those who doubt his integrity.

For his press conference, Tyler adopted the predictably relaxed posture of 
the e-businessman, appearing in faded jeans and open-necked shirt and 
perching on a desk rather than taking the podium. Indeed, he seemed almost 
too relaxed. Dry-mouthed, he guzzled water. Was he ...? Could he ...?

No, he said, his marijuana experiences were a thing of the past. After his 
conviction in 1985, for illicit activities at his Dark Horse Saloon in 
Belle Fourche, South Dakota, "I turned my life into a different direction".

But the issue is not drugs, just as the issue facing Greenway was not 
forgery. Tyler is accused of a pattern of high-risk behaviour. His 
"youthful excursion" into the speculative end of the marijuana market, and 
then at the speculative end of the venture capital market in North America 
with his failed Lessonware company, were failed gambles. Is Solution 6 
another big risk, or is Tyler being crucified for his mistakes?

He was also asked if he should have disclosed his drug conviction to Telstra.

Tyler: No.

Reporter: Why didn't you?

Tyler: I didn't.

Reporter: Why?

Tyler: I was never asked.

Whether or not this matters pivots on how you perceive the market. The 
hardliners, wary of this cycle's Skase, expect something akin to a Catholic 
confessional. Tyler only receives absolution by disclosing all his sins.

Tyler, whose business is to court investors, would argue that only fools 
show off their warts. Hence his continuing fogginess over his dope 
conviction: he can't remember the specifics of the sentence, nor the amount 
he was caught with, dismissing it as "a couple of garbage bags". The drug 
was not something he smoked or dealt, but "was part of the recreational 
scene that I got involved with".

Solution 6 will live or die on weightier issues than the CEO's past. But 
will Tyler build a technological equivalent to Greenway's sandstone legacy?

That depends on his patrons. After Macquarie left town, Greenway fell into 
poverty. For now, Tyler's shareholders are relatively quiescent. 
Yesterday's meeting reserved its loudest applause for the man who said: 
"I'd rather a CEO who stood up and admitted to his mistakes than one who 
never made any mistakes at all."
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