You're fired -- literally: Ten evil tech companies we'd invest in

Springfield Nuclear Power Plant (The Simpsons)

Business model: An evil figurehead and incompetent employees. No, not Microsoft, we're talking about Charles Montgomery Burns' Springfield Power Plant. The century-old and impossibly wealthy Mr Burns never misses an opportunity for dastardliness, from the everyday soul-crushing of constantly forgetting Homer's name, to polluting Springfield Lake with toxic waste. His most diabolical scheme involved blocking out the sun over Springfield to create round-the-clock demand for the power required to light the town. As if that wasn't enough, he ended the day by trying to take candy from a baby... a baby who promptly shot him. Burns' corner-cutting nature trickles down to his under-motivated workforce, keeping Springfield Nuclear Power Plant constantly teetering on the edge of meltdown...

EvilSE share price: Excellent.

Zorin Enterprises (A View To A Kill)

Business model: Played by Christopher Walken in Roger Moore's final Bond outing A View To A Kill, KGB agent Max Zorin has a weird blond bouffant and was originally set to be played by David Bowie. (David Bowie and Grace Jones together as Bond villains? Brilliant!) Microchip magnate Zorin is also a genetically perfect superman. Much like Steve Jobs. Moving on from doping horses, Zorin plans to flood Silicon Valley to wipe out his competitors. And this was in 1985, so we wouldn't have iPods.

EvilSE share price: Middling. A slightly odd plan, given that competitors could just set up somewhere else. Still, at least it had an actual financial goal in mind -- and it would shut Michael Arrington up.

Cybus (Doctor Who)

Business model: Headed by John Lumic, Cybus Industries had in fact done a lot of good on the parallel Earth visited by the Doctor, Rose and Mickey in 2006. As well as airships, Cybus manufactured a ubiquitous communications device, which was then revealed to turn everyone into a mindless drone, happily marching to the corporate message... nothing at all like the iPhone then. Oh, all right, the fact that they're called EarPods means this satire is worn on its sleeve. Behind the scenes, Lumic is busy having tramps kidnapped and converted into 'human 2.0': the emotionless Cybermen. If you want broadly painted parables about the dangers to our soul of the constant aspirational desire to upgrade our technology, you've come to the wrong Web site.

EvilSE share price: Weak. Lumic attempted to get his 'ultimate upgrade' through the Ethics Committee of Great Britain first, only turning to evil when all business channels are exhausted. As if shareholders have that kind of time.