he gained renown as the Silicon Valley venture banker behind Netscape’s breathtaking IPO. As head of Credit Suisse First Boston’s technology group, he helped bring scores of technology companies public, and is often identified as the investment banker for Cisco and Amazon.
But he fell from grace in the years following the tech wreck. When Quattrone added his endorsement to an e-mail urging his staffers at Credit Suisse First Boston to “clean up those files,” federal prosecutors interpreted his act as an attempt to hinder their investigation into whether the firm was soliciting kickbacks from investors seeking access to hot stock offerings. Prosecutors charged Quattrone with obstruction of justice. His first trial ended in a hung jury. The re-trial, which resulted in Quattrone’s conviction, was reversed by an appellate court and ended in 2006, with a deferred prosecution agreement that amounted to a dismissal of charges.
Quattrone was able to resume his career, and has continued since then to support the non-profit Innocence Project, which is dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people—primarily through DNA testing. Quattrone was sharply critical of the “overzealous” prosecutors and “biased” judge who presided over his case, and also spoke pessimistically to the San Diego crowd about government regulations that clamped down on Wall Street practices of the late 1990s.
The former CSFB banker remains a favorite of Silicon Valley, and of the tech industry in general. But he didn’t show much introspection during
