Karatz never sat still

My May 2007 piece on the former CEO of KB Home has been posted on the Los Angeles magazine Web site. Last week Karatz was charged with conspiring to defraud the company through a scheme to backdate stock options. His attorney says Karatz did nothing wrong. Here's the opening:

Bruce Karatz could never sit still, and not just because he was chief executive of KB Home, one of L.A.’s biggest, most successful public companies. There were the black-tie fund-raisers, the CNBC interviews, the Sun Valley ski trips, the pro bono favors for mayors and governors—Karatz had so much pent-up energy that even when he was sitting down, his foot would shake. It was a rich, exciting life that came easy—and he knew it. “When you’re constantly told you’re great, and when you constantly justify the faith others have in you, it’s hard to escape the feeling that success is your natural right,” he warned USC law graduates some years back.

Then, in the space of a weekend last November, it was over. The 61-year-old Karatz was let go from the company he helped nurture over the past 20 years. The board, which hasn’t signed off on his severance yet, called it a “retirement” instead of a dismissal, making him eligible for a financial package that could reach $175 million. Still, the send-off was cold: Karatz was told to vacate his office and return all KB Home property within ten days. A press release that announced his departure included pro forma thanks but no best wishes from anyone at the company—boilerplate in most executive turnovers. Within hours of his exit, employees on the seventh floor of KB’s Westwood headquarters were speaking about Karatz in the past tense, as if he had died. In terms of running a public company, he likely has.