The latter. Basically the missing $2b of cash equals the sum total of all the net income the company claimed to have earned over its entire history (which was t

The latter. Basically the missing $2b of cash equals the sum total of all the net income the company claimed to have earned over its entire history (which was the basis for its $27b market cap at its peak). As for why, who knows, they probably would have gone under during the financial crisis in 2008 and lost their jobs if they hadn’t cooked the books. Then once you start doing that you’re on a treadmill to keep it going, similar to the Madoff fraud. And in the meantime, the CEO gets to be the big man of the German tech scene and enjoy the perks of being a billionaire on paper. It must have been pretty stressful though, that’s for sure! These kind of people have some way of compartmentalizing things so they can function on a day to day basis.