But his billionaire father, insurance industry legend and current Overstock chairman John "Jack" Byrne, wants his son to engage less in that holy war and more in managing of the Salt Lake City-based Internet closeout retailer Patrick founded in 1999.

Jack Byrne says he would rather step down as chairman than strain the father-son friendship with continued wrangling about how to run Overstock - and what windmills are in need of tilting.

"I have told Patrick this and mentioned it to the board," the elder Byrne says. "We will discuss the matter at our April board meeting. There are many strong business [people] on the board, anyone of whom would make a fine chairman."

Bottom line, Jack Byrne adds: "The son-father thing is getting in the way."

Maybe the Byrnes can take comfort from other father-son teams who have made it in business without tearing apart familial bonds.

"It has been a privilege and honor to have worked with my children and to build a family business," says billionaire Utah industrialist Jon Huntsman Sr. "It's been the joy of my life."

His son, Huntsman Cos. CEO Peter Huntsman - brother of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. - echoes the sentiment, but does not deny that he and his father have periodically differed, in private, before hammering out decisions they could both accept.

"You have to be able to differentiate between a boss and a father. A boss will say things that a father would not, and vice versa," he says. "The corporate world can be extremely hard and challenging. Most father-son relationships I've come across in business have failed."

Peter Huntsman adds: "If I was just a 'yes' man in this position, then I'd be the wrong man to have in this position. . . . That said, I've never forgotten whose company it is."

Joe Reger says it was rough going when he and son Joe Reger Jr. launched their Houston-based Frogfire Technologies more than a decade ago. The father-son relationship, for them, meant competition to see who would be in charge.

"Eventually, each of us learned to listen better than we ever had. That's what made it all work, when we respected each other enough to really listen," the senior Reger says.

Reger Jr. says that is true, but flare-ups are not entirely unknown.

"After so many years we simply know that a fight is a short-term affair, give each other some time to cool down and then get back to business," he says. "Of course, there was the Headlock Incident of 1993," an impromptu wrestling match that Reger Jr. won.

"Senior says it was a fluke," he said, "so I'm waiting for the rematch."

The 74-year-old Byrne, credited with resurrecting GEICO car insurance from near-insolvency in the late 1970s, is not as enamored as his son with the idea that hedge funds and some financial media are in cahoots to drive down the stock prices of companies like Overstock.

Short selling is the practice of selling borrowed stock on a gamble the shares can be repurchased at a lower price, allowing the borrower to profit upon return of the initial shares. Naked shorting involves selling stock without first borrowing it; the short-seller then hopes to acquire the needed shares in time to deliver on the sale.

Overstock maintains naked shorting is painfully obvious in its share transactions. Where it has recorded sales of 19 million shares, for example, roughly twice as many shares often show up as having been "traded."

The elder Byrne doesn't dispute that, but he argues Patrick Byrne's time still "would be better spent improving the execution within his fine company.

He "has brilliantly gotten this exciting vision to $1 billion in sales," he adds. "Now he must perfect the vision and turn it into a good business."

The senior Byrne believes that with focused leadership and cost controls, the never-profitable Overstock's books could go from red ink to black within two years.

Patrick Byrne believes he can do both - pursue the Wall Street cabal he blames for keeping share values down, and pilot his company to profitability.

"We agree on many things, but like any father and son, or any chairman and president, we have our disagreements," he says. "Nevertheless, we remain close. This is not the family feud that reporters are making it out to be."

The younger Byrne remains convinced that naked shorting in Overstock has skewed his company's market value by flooding daily trading with essentially "counterfeit" shares that illegally go unredeemed. He has pressed government regulators to take notice of the practice.

Last year, when he became convinced that the Arizona market research firm Gradient Analytics and the Rocker Partners hedge fund had conspired to drive down Overstock share prices, Byrne sued for libel and unfair business practices.

On May 9, Marin County (Calif.) Superior Court Judge Vernon Smith refused Gradient's bid to have the suit dismissed.

Overstock, noting the judge had found sufficient evidence to support its claims, hailed the victory; Gradient immediately gave notice it would contest the ruling before the California Court of Appeals.

Byrne is no longer alone in his quest. The SEC recently launched its own investigation of Gradient's practices, and the independent research firm also has been sued by Eugene Melnyk, chairman of the Mississippi-based drug company Biovail.

Like Overstock, Biovail charges Gradient, another analyst and the New York-based SAC Capital Management hedge fund conspired to release negative reports to drive down stock prices.

Gradient and its co-defendants all have denied any wrongdoing, counterclaiming the suits are everything from malicious and defamatory to ham-handed attempts to shut up critics.

My father "would prefer that I not be in the fight to expose systemic Wall Street fraud," Patrick Byrne says. But "he's the one who instilled in me the values that drive my jihad - and he's the one who taught me that Wall Street is a cesspool of greed and corruption."

Still, analysts respect Jack Byrne's experience as an important counterbalance and seasoning agent for the zeal and intelligence of Patrick, a former boxer who holds a doctorate in philosophy.

"It was clearly a difficult year operationally for Overstock in 2005," said Rebecca Kujawa, senior vice president of the Stanford Group. "The company would be best served if its president were to focus substantially all of his time in 2006 working through the problems with his team."

Patrick Byrne believes his focus is just fine, thank you. He can speak of long hours spent addressing Overstock issues, with longer evenings devoted to his "jihad."

The latter is not a fight the younger Byrne is likely to abandon; after all, this is a 43-year-old cancer survivor, trained boxer and tae kwon do black belt whose devotion to Overstock has seen him go without a salary three years running.

Neither does he want to lose his father as chairman, a position from which the son acknowledges he reaps a lifetime of experience, insight and, yes, a temperamental balance.

"I take him at his word. [But] I hope he will not step down," Patrick Byrne says. "My father is a tremendous asset."

bmims@sltrib.com