My dad once told me a story:
an obscure computer stopped working, so they called in a specialist. The guy came in, looked around for a long time, pulled out stethoscopes, took off panels, put probes in, but hadn't done anything yet. After an hour of this or so, he took all his diagnostic equipment off, put the panels back on, put his black bag back together, put the computer back together, then went over to it, and kicked it. It started right up. The people were overjoyed, "send us the bill". He nodded silently and left. A couple days later, the bill showed up, for $10,000. "What?!?" "You said send you a bill, I sent you my bill." "Uh, could you at least itemize the bill?" "Sure." A couple days later, a second bill came:
Kicking the computer -- $30. Knowing where to kick the computer, $9,970.
I don't think Mikhail is off wildly spending those tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, I suspect he's using it to get by, wastes too much time doing R&D when he should be doing QC and warranty work, and buying gilt electroplating and obscure tubes. I doubt he could return the money, but I bet he has enough that, were he to put his nose to the grindstone and fix and deliver all the amps, he probably could. The question is whether or not his nose is going anywhere near the grindstone.