"It does seem obvious that I was fooled by Walter Forbes, but so were most people. He was the Jeff Bezos of his time. He had a big-four accounting firm who signed off on their financials every 90 days. Henry Silverman (Avis, Howard Johnson's, and many other companies) believed in him, as did everyone. He had been on Sierra's board for five years. I thought I knew him well. I also thought we had structured the deal such that the software business couldn't be screwed up. And, I had so much faith that Sierra's market dominance was so strong that no one could ever screw it up. As you might imagine, I've looked back on the crash many times, and still believe I made the right move based on what I knew at the time. The problem was that I was dealing with snakes and didn't know it. MANY people lost their jobs and had their net worth wiped out. It was indeed a sad event, but I wasn't the only person fooled by CUC. Tens of thousands of people directly or indirectly were hurt by the financial scandal."
There are others, too, that are worth reading for the interested.