Ariba had much further to go in the short period before the dotcom bubble deflated in 2000 – at one point it was worth a heady $30bn. But its longevity, before finally being snapped up by one of the companies it successfully challenged, demonstrates the durability of its underlying offering. Ariba’s early potential was obviously hugely overrated at the peak of the internet boom, but it grew into that original valuation.

Compared with some other recent trials of Wall Street figures, such as Bernie Madoff and Raj Rajaratnam, the turnout was modest. The man that Reed Brodsky, the prosecutor, described as “the ultimate corporate insider” was mainly surrounded by friends and family.

Judge Jed Rakoff’s courtroom on the 14th floor of the court building filled up sufficiently to require some of the press and lawyers to decamp to an 11th floor overflow room (in which the sound quality was abysmal).

In general, however, it felt like a private affair in relation to other landmark Wall Street cases. Given the status of Mr Gupta –  the most senior figure from the US corporate establishment to face charges since the 2008 crisis – that is odd.

Mr Daunt – who had previously called the etailer a “ruthless, moneymaking devil” – spoke at a roundtable in early May to launch the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. You can listen to a podcast of his initial interview in which he pointed out that all bookshops had to find ways to make the environment for book-buying attractive again. He added:

Facebook’s sputtering IPO is drawing scrutiny both to the role of Nasdaq, which has admitted to “embarrassing” mistakes  on Friday, but to the price stabilisation tactics that the banks, led by Morgan Stanley, had to employ.

It’s nice to see a well-meaning billionaire sparing $142m in small change for the hard-hit community newspaper trade, particularly one who still likes to talk about the lessons he learned on his childhood paper route. As he sang to the Omaha Press Club a few weeks ago, “I’m only a paperboy.”

But look a little closer and it becomes clear that Thursday’s deal for most of Media General’s publications is as rational and opportunistic as any of Mr Buffett’s bigger deals.

That sentiment was brought on by looking (in old media fashion) at the front of the print section of the New York Times today. The lead article is about Madison Avenue’s scepticism on whether Facebook is a good advertising medium and underneath that is a piece on Dish Network’s new ad-skipping digital video recorder.

Facebook’s advertisers have been struggling with whether display ads on the social network will produce results, with General Motors pulling its $10m Facebook ad budget ahead of the intial public offering.

Meanwhile, Dish has upset US television networks in the “upfront” season where they show off their next season wares to advertisers but producing a box that automatically skips all the commercials between network shows.

I’m not here to write about Facebook – for expert insights, read the analysis of my San Francisco-based colleagues or the FT Lex team – but the IPO overshadows most discussions. What strikes me is how entrepreneurs, technology executives and analysts I’ve met are reluctant to talk publicly about Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Ask them what they think about him and they tend to preface their remarks with a polite request that this part of the interview should be off the record.