I remember one such occasion back in a previous tech boom (late 90s) and it turned out the reason I couldn't talk to the guy who wrote this particular pile of Italian nutrition was that the Feds had shown up one day and taken him to jail (something to do with pump and dump market manipulation via a faked analyst report [edit: actually a faked press release I now remember. "SmallCapCorp (NASDAQ: SCC$) announces they have received a record breaking order for their next gen product / aquisition offer / something like that from RandomIsraeliCompanyThatMightNotEvenHaveExisted"]).

A lot of software engineers would spend a portion of their day tracking their volatile stock / options etc. in those years.