The story of king Midas is well known, but you wouldn't know it from the behavior of corporate presidents and CEOs so here is a compressed version.

King Midas loved gold more than anything else.  All he wanted was gold, gold, and more gold.  Each morning, he arose early and watched the sunrise and complained about Apollo, god of the sun, sending his golden light upon all, rich and poor, rather than reserving it for kings.  When Apollo heard the complaint, he got angry and cursed Midas, or rather, Midas cursed himself.  Apollo appeared to Midas in a dream and told the king he would grant him one wish to show he had no hard feelings.  Midas asked that everything he touch turn to gold.  Apollo, knowing what a dumb request that was, granted it. 
When Midas woke up, he went to his garden and touched a rose.  It turned to solid gold.  Midas now knew the dream was real and delighted in running around touching things and turning them into gold. 
When his young daughter came out to the garden and saw all the roses turned to gold, she ran to her father crying.  She didn't like the new roses with no scent and sharp, hard edges.  He touched her on the head to comfort her and she  turned to gold.  He was not happy that happened but said he had no time to be sad, so he continued running around turning things to gold.  Eventually, he go hungry and sat down to eat.  When he tried to eat, all the food turned to gold as soon as he touched it.  Midas finally realized his mistake shouting, "what good is all this gold if I cannot eat or drink?"  He went out to the garden again and shouted up to the sun cursing Apollo for tricking him.  The god descended from the sun and appeared before Midas.  Apollo asked Midas if he repented.  Midas did repent and begged forgiveness for insulting the gods and for being greedy.  Apollo touched one of the roses and the flowers begin changing back.  He touched the gold statue and she became Midas' daughter again.  But Apollo still felt Midas deserved some punishment for his behavior and gave him donkey ears to remind him of his errors.

The morals of this story are very obvious:

• Greed is not a virtue
• Too much of a good thing can become a curse
• Some things are more important than money or gold

Still, as I said at the beginning, many seem to have forgotten this, especially in the corporate world.