industry retail founded may 1999 ; 17 years ago 1999 05 headquarters cottonwood heights utah united states key people mitch edwards acting ceo april 2016 ; patrick byrne founder revenue us 1.5 billion fy 2014 operating income us 13.2 million fy 2014 net income us 8.8 million fy 2014 total assets us 376.9 million fy 2014 total equity us 129.2 million fy 2014 number of employees 1 500 website overstock.com overstock.com inc. is an american internet retailer headquartered in cottonwood heights utah 1 near salt lake city . 2 patrick m. byrne founded the company in 1997 and launched the company in may 1999 . overstock.com initially sold exclusively surplus and returned merchandise on an online e commerce marketplace liquidating the inventories of at least 18 failed dot com companies at below wholesale prices . 3 the company continues to sell home decor furniture bedding and many other goods that are closeout merchandise 4 however it also sells new merchandise . 5 in may 2002 overstock held an ipo at a per share price of 13 and after achieving significant growth and profits in some early quarters achieved a profit of 7.7 million in 2009 6 and reported its first billion dollar year in 2010 . the business started rebranding in early 2011 as o.co to simplify and unify its international operations 7 but interrupted this effort a few months later citing consumer confusion over the new name . 8 byrne took an indefinite leave of absence in april 2016 because of hepatitis c complications . the general counsel mitch edwards was named acting ceo . 9 contents 1 business model management and figures 1.1 bitcoin 1.2 awards 2 naked short selling campaign 3 see also 4 references 5 external links business model management and figures edit part of overstock.com s merchandise is purchased by or manufactured specifically for the company . among their products are handmade goods produced for overstock by workers in developing nations . 10 11 the company also manages the inventory supply for other retailers . in addition to its direct retail sales overstock.com began offering online auctions on its website in 2004 known as overstock.com marketplace and later o.co marketplace . this service was retired in july 2011 . 12 after initially relying solely on word of mouth marketing from customers 13 the company turned to distinctive television advertisements starring german actress sabine ehrenfeld . 14 15 later they would employ other advertising spokespersons . in july 2006 john j. byrne the father of overstock s chief executive resigned from the board of directors after a public airing of the elder byrne s unhappiness with his son s actions against naked short selling . 16 in august 2008 jack byrne said that after much initial skepticism he believed his son was right all along about the battle and lawsuits with short sellers and analysts . 17 in 2010 the elder byrne returned to the overstock.com board of directors . in early 2007 john a. fisher and ray groves resigned from the overstock board of directors over disagreement with the company s prime broker suit . 18 19 on january 2 2008 20 overstock announced that cofounder jason lindsey had resigned as president coo and as a director of overstock effective from december 31 2007 . byrne said lindsey had played a decisive role getting overstock back on track after i screwed it up a couple years ago . 21 overstock stock dropped to a four year low following the announcement 22 which an analyst for investment bank broadpoint capital described as a key loss . 23 in 2011 revenues dropped 5 percent over a two month penalty period imposed by google . according to the associated press overstock set up fake websites linking back to its own site . overstock said it was penalized in part for a practice of encouraging college and university websites to post links to overstock pages so that students and faculty could receive discounts . as a result of the google penalty search results for certain products dropped in google rankings . 24 25 during the same year overstock.com acquired naming rights to the former oakland alameda county coliseum renaming it overstock.com coliseum . 26 the coliseum was later rebranded o.co coliseum in keeping with overstock s then rebranding as o.co in april 2016 the name o.co coliseum was dropped in favor of oakland alameda coliseum . in 2013 overstock began promoting increased immigration . overstock president jonathan johnson told the los angeles times that his firm had struggled to hire enough computer programmers and software developers to expand the business . we pay more and they are still hard to fill he said . we need to be more free in letting people in . that helps us solve our border problem . no one goes through the window of a house if they can ring the doorbell and come in the front door . 27 in 2014 overstock began developing software that would allow it to distribute corporate stock online instead of using traditional methods like the new york stock exchange or nasdaq . 28 overstock.com s board of directors on january 9 2014 was patrick byrne jonathan e. johnson iii allison h. abraham barclay f. corbus samuel a. mitchell stormy d. simon joseph j. tabacco jr. and dr. kirthi kalyanam 29 bitcoin edit on january 9 2014 overstock.com became the first major retailer to start accepting bitcoin as payments for its goods . 30 on the first day they made sales worth us 126 000 in bitcoin . 31 this represents a 4.33 % increase in sales from their normal income of 3 million per day . 32 as of march 13 2014 overstock bitcoin income had shrunk to under 1 % of their normal daily cash intake . 33 in a community interview with social media site reddit on may 3 2014 in response to a question to the overstock ceo patrick byrne about the percentage of revenue and transactions paid for in bitcoin byrne responded that the percentage was tiny . .1 % . 34 in mid 2014 overstock.com announced that bitcoin sales were averaging 300 000 per month and that the company expected bitcoin sales to add 4 cents to the company s 2014 earnings per share . 35 on september 14 2014 overstock announced it would begin donating 4 % of bitcoin revenue to foundations that were advocating for cryptocurrency . 36 awards edit in january 2010 the national retail federation ranked the company 2 in the u.s. for best customer service . 37 in december of the same year a forbes commissioned study found overstock.com to be one of the top 10 best places to work in america . 38 naked short selling campaign edit the company has received attention stemming from ceo patrick byrne s battle against alleged naked short selling of his company s shares . beginning in 2005 byrne has contended that a number of companies including overstock.com have been the targets of this practice which involves selling a stock short but without the usual step of initially borrowing or locating the shares . byrne alleges that the practice circumvents safeguards of conventional shorting and has been used in large schemes devised to profit from driving down the prices of companies shares in many cases leading to these companies failure . with overstock byrne contends that the company s longstanding appearance on the regulation sho threshold security list an sec mandated list showing companies with a high number of fails to deliver along with high trading volumes that sometimes surpass total quantity of the company s stock establish that it has been targeted by this practice . 39 byrne s campaign has been controversial including criticism in the financial press that byrne is seeking to divert attention from overstock s share price declines and failure to turn a profit . 40 new york times columnist joseph nocera has said in 2006 that except for a few fellow traveling web sites where mr. byrne is viewed as a heroic figure most people who understand the issue or have looked into it think it s pretty bogus . 41 others have suggested that the problem is real but that the sec acts to prevent it and that it does not happen on any scale such as byrne suggests . sec chairman christopher cox called abusive naked short selling a fraud that the commission is bound to prevent and to punish . 42 overstock filed a lawsuit against the hedge fund rocker partners in 2005 for libel unfair business practices and tortious interference saying it colluded with a research firm gradient analytics in short selling the company while paying gradient analytics to publish negative reports about overstock.com and supplying pre publication copies to rocker . naked short selling was not alleged in that suit . 43 in a conference call with analysts in august 2005 a day after the suit was filed byrne said that there s been a plan since we were in our teens to destroy our stock drive it down to 6 10 ... and even a plan for how the company would then get whacked up . he said that the conspirators were part of a miscreants ball headed by a sith lord who he refused to identify but said he s one of the master criminals from the 1980s . byrne said the conspiracy included hedge funds journalists investigators trial lawyers the sec and eliot spitzer . 44 gradient countersued alleging byrne waged a smear campaign . 45 rocker partners renamed copper river management filed a counterclaim against overstock in november 2007 alleging overstatement of profits false projections and misrepresentations about the company s ventures . 46 copper river also alleges that byrne tried to silence critics by suing them . 47 48 49 50 a portion of this suit was settled out of court on october 13 2008 when overstock.com and gradient dropped the claims against each other after gradient retracted allegations that overstock s reporting methods did not comply with rules established by the fasb stated they believed overstock.com complied with gaap standards and that three directors were independent according to nasd standards and apologized . 51 52 byrne has said the apology and settlement represents a great step forward in our case 52 while copper river s attorney stated that if somehow this improved overstock s case then gradient would admit to doing something wrong and they haven t. and that he expected the settlement to help copper river s case . 53 on december 8 2009 it was announced that copper river had reached an out of court settlement with overstock . as part of the agreement copper river which closed in december 2008 agreed to pay overstock 5 million . 54 in a letter to his shareholders patrick byrne said the good guys won . copper river said in a statement that it continued to deny overstock s allegations . copper river managing general partner marc cohodes said although settlement deprives us of the ability to disprove overstock s case and prosecute our counterclaims we decided that the litigation costs did not justify passing up a practical way to end four and half years of meritless litigation by overstock . 55 56 in february 2007 overstock.com launched a 3.5 billion lawsuit against morgan stanley goldman sachs and other large wall street firms alleging a massive illegal stock market manipulation scheme involving naked short selling . among its allegations overstock stated that since at least january 2005 naked short selling has accounted for large portions of overstock stock in some cases exceeding the 23.4 million total shares outstanding . 57 the lawsuit alleged that this had created immense downward pressure on share prices over time . kerry fields associate professor of law and business ethics at the university of southern california said byrne may be able to help set new law if he