Could Michael Brown, Facebook's corporate development manager, have been fired for the equivalent of insider trading?
Brown is believed to have purchased private Facebook stock on secondary markets, something the social network considers insider trading and grounds for dismissal, according to TechCrunch. The reports vary from that Brown's alleged buy was a "naive mistake" to it happened last year before the Goldman Sachs investment valued Facebook at $50 billion.
Either way, it wouldn't matter to Facebook which takes a strong stance on such behavior and makes it a firing offense. That stance is probably because at a public company, buying stock would have violated federal insider training laws -- and eventually Facebook wants to become a public company.
Now I wonder if $25 billion Groupon has that same policy in place?
