Forbes has a cover story on how Steve Jobs got himself in hot water with the SEC over stock options. The magazine is part-owned by former Apple CFO Fred Anderson. Do the math.

It may be time to put a cork in Silicon Valley's most famous law firm. Wilson Sonsini is no longer celebrating its new attorneys with champagne. That trimmed perk is just the beginning of its woes.

So much for Silicon Valley's latest get-rich-quick scheme. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has cancelled a plan to let employees cash out their shares early.

Through the golden heart of every world-changing startup pulses an avaricious get-rich-quick scheme. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the billionaire-boy cofounders of Google, established this doing-well-by-doing-good myth. But Mark Zuckerberg hasn't been able to make the same magic happen for his employees. In his efforts…

Being a public company isn't all it's cracked up to be. Granting stock options is more expensive than it was before accounting rules changed. Sarbanes-Oxley regulations make reporting financials a miserably bureaucratic process. And investors are afraid of all kinds of risk. Computer makers Cray and Sun and software…

Connected Ventures cofounder Zach Klein — the guy who spread a rumor that the Mormons were trying to buy Facebook — continues his stay in San Francisco. The latest phrase he's learned from the natives: "vesting in peace."

Nancy Heinen, former general counsel for Apple, has reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She neither admits nor denies wrongdoing over charges that she forged board documents to backdate executive stock options — instead, she gets to avoid a trial. Heinen also agrees to pay $2.2 million…

Stock options are meant to encourage employees to stay. But Facebook's skyrocketing valuation has created a perverse incentive: It actually encourages employees to quit. That's because ex-employees can sell their shares at any time, while employees have had to seek permission directly from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who…

Last Friday, shareholder plaintiffs filed suit against San Jose District Court against Apple CEO Steve Jobs, former CFO Fred Anderson, ex-general counsel Nancy Heinen, and members of the company's board of directors looking to reclaim the $7 billion in lost stock value when the company restated its financials in the…

After the SEC accused Henry Nicholas and Henry Samueli, founders of chipmaker Broadcom, of illegally backdating stock options for five years, Samueli stepped down as board chairman and CTO. Nicholas had stepped down from his post as CEO in 2003 amidst allegations of having a drug habit and flying friends and…

Federal prosecutors allege former Monster.com president and COO James Treacy bolstered the value of his company stock options through illegal backdating, which is when executives retroactively fix the books so it looks like they were granted company shares at a lower value than where they actually traed, increasing…

The stock-options backdating scandal, which bored Silicon Valley the day the SEC first announced its investigations, continues. The latest to disclose a brush with the law: Google. Google has not been accused of misleading investors by moving up the grant date of stock options, making them more profitable for the…