Re:Is this a Silicon Valley New York City thing?
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I think here in the Valley, convincing someone to come in to a job and pull the 60-hour week is harder to do. I think people are much wiser, and won't jump as quickly at new startups unless they have a top-notch management team, and/or impressive VC backing.
At my "elder" startup, there has been an ongoing backlash against long sacrificial workweeks. 40 hour weeks and 2 hour lunches are more the norm now. No chance to go IPO IMHO, but hey, I have lots of free time outside work and the salary is pretty good. No complaints here.
There will always be freshly minted graduates willing to go to a dubious startup dangling the promise of riches and 50,000 option shares, but there's too many stories of failure around here to not have heard at least one and be concerned.
It's obvious that the math works in the favor of living somewhere like Broomfield as opposed to Palo Alto, if the work's there. But one thing you get being in the Valley, better than the perks, is the feeling that you're at the epicenter, the place "where it all happens." It sounds cheesy but it's true. It's a sexy feeling. You feel it walking around Palo Alto at night, when you go to Fry's, when you drive by the big corporate HQ's. And people are willing to pay through the nose for that.
I figure in a few years I'll be satisfied and be done with the meager living (I choose to rent a 5BR home with 3 other people, to not buy the BMW etc.) and move somewhere else with what I've earned. But for now I'm happy. Not to mention that there are options that need to vest...
Easy PC looks like a rehash of Intel's Connected PC thing a couple of years back. It was a reaction to the whole Network Computer craze. The non-Intel/MS approach was no local storage, and Intel countered with a low-cost box with a local hard drive, but it was sealed with the intention of just swapping it out with a new one if there were problems. Perhaps with this network computer hype behind us, Intel is putting their work to use elsewhere.
Nonetheless, good luck. The name of this initiative is inherently bad, even Grandma knows that PC's are NOT easy.
Boy, am I getting bone tired of mustard and light yellow on Web sites. But we're stuck with seeing those colors on big web sites for a while. There's a reason we keep seeing that combo.
Ideally, Web sites have to be sensitive to users of 256-color bit depths on monitors/laptops etc., even in 1999. The cube/palette holds colors that are equally spaced apart (mathematically) to best represent all visible colors. This helps people with 256-color bit depths set. Don't quote me, but I think the "cube" was done first by Netscape (heard that at a Macromedia user group once-the cube is a best intersection of the different 256-color palettes of Windows and Macs).
If a color falls outside this palette, it gets re-mapped by the browser to the nearest "cube" equivalent. In the case of a real light non-cube color like champagne, it gets mapped to a nasty salmon color on 256-color monitors.
I've noticed the problem is the cube is very sparse on attractive, light colors. It's heavy on the dark colors. Despite the even mathematical spacing, in the dark range, there are a half dozen dark dark greens that are indistinguishable from each other. But at the light end, the light yellows are hugely different. Which gives us only a few "palatable" light colors.
The 256 color palettes of the aforementioned OS's needed to be designed with a greater representation of light than dark colors from the get go. We're paying for this lack of foresight with the way way overused mustard.
I agree with your rationalization, especially where Red Hat's service organization is concerned. But I remind myself about such IPOs as Ebay and Yahoo. What do those stock prices have to do with logic I ask?
I was a speculator who unfortunately bought and sold Ebay on its IPO day. Bought at 50, sometime later checked out Ebay website and panicked when I realized that I knew nothing about the company except for the media hype, went back to Fidelity and sold at 48.
Yep, I'm a schmuck, and everyone who's dabbled has these kind of stories.
But I think for Red Hat's IPO I am armed with a few things: 1. Linux media exposure is large and growing, 2. Linux acceptance in business is growing, 3. Company that has or is headed toward a monopoly in a facet of the Internet (like Oracle, Verisign, etc.) 4. Strong, strong branding. 5. New, fresh place for investors to place their attention (comptetitor to MS).
I'll be the first to say I have middle-tier sophistication in this stuff, but I've seen lots of opportunities go by where I took a rational approach and lost out because I talked myself out of it (Ebay, Yahoo, the list is long).
I also think that they still have time to build a great support organization, esp. with all that cash. Is there a clear leader yet?
Therefore I'm appropriating some speculative capital that's either going into RHAT or into choice "dirty" domain names:)
I'm certain I want to own RHAT, although I don't know much about how strong their service division is and is going to be, the marketing is certainly there.
I plan to try to get the 100 pre-IPO shares that will be offered to select E*Trade members. I believe E*Offerings is co-underwriting the IPO, and will offer up shares to E*Trade customers on a "lottery" basis.
Chances are though that I can't get that magical "$10-12" price that almost no one get. So do I buy at IPO or wait?
The IPO Edge analysis might be interesting to anyone considering this IPO. RHAT is given an "unfavorable" (-4) rating (range from -5 to 5). The rating appears to be a combination of metrics about how well the lead underwriter has performed in the past, and similar deals/IPOs. The overall rating is a guess of how strong your investment performs after a year.
In general, it looks like the people who "flip" a Goldman Sachs IPO get an average return of 53%, but if the hold on a year the average is 1%.
I am left wondering, however, the performance of Goldman Sachs-underwritten Internet IPOs.
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I think here in the Valley, convincing someone to come in to a job and pull the 60-hour week is harder to do. I think people are much wiser, and won't jump as quickly at new startups unless they have a top-notch management team, and/or impressive VC backing.
At my "elder" startup, there has been an ongoing backlash against long sacrificial workweeks. 40 hour weeks and 2 hour lunches are more the norm now. No chance to go IPO IMHO, but hey, I have lots of free time outside work and the salary is pretty good. No complaints here.
There will always be freshly minted graduates willing to go to a dubious startup dangling the promise of riches and 50,000 option shares, but there's too many stories of failure around here to not have heard at least one and be concerned.
For the record, his name is Haley Joel Osment (why do child actors all have 3 word names?) and already has a notable career.
I think the daytraders have gotten hold of this thing. Intraday range 63-75 today with high volume.
I wouldn't expect RHAT to settle down in the forseeable future. It's officially an "Internet Stock."
It's obvious that the math works in the favor of living somewhere like Broomfield as opposed to Palo Alto, if the work's there. But one thing you get being in the Valley, better than the perks, is the feeling that you're at the epicenter, the place "where it all happens." It sounds cheesy but it's true. It's a sexy feeling. You feel it walking around Palo Alto at night, when you go to Fry's, when you drive by the big corporate HQ's. And people are willing to pay through the nose for that.
I figure in a few years I'll be satisfied and be done with the meager living (I choose to rent a 5BR home with 3 other people, to not buy the BMW etc.) and move somewhere else with what I've earned. But for now I'm happy. Not to mention that there are options that need to vest...
Does knowing how TCP/IP works get you a date? Not yet, at least not with the women down at TGI Friday's.
Easy PC looks like a rehash of Intel's Connected PC thing a couple of years back. It was a reaction to the whole Network Computer craze. The non-Intel/MS approach was no local storage, and Intel countered with a low-cost box with a local hard drive, but it was sealed with the intention of just swapping it out with a new one if there were problems. Perhaps with this network computer hype behind us, Intel is putting their work to use elsewhere.
Nonetheless, good luck. The name of this initiative is inherently bad, even Grandma knows that PC's are NOT easy.
Boy, am I getting bone tired of mustard and light yellow on Web sites. But we're stuck with seeing those colors on big web sites for a while. There's a reason we keep seeing that combo.
Ideally, Web sites have to be sensitive to users of 256-color bit depths on monitors/laptops etc., even in 1999. The cube/palette holds colors that are equally spaced apart (mathematically) to best represent all visible colors. This helps people with 256-color bit depths set. Don't quote me, but I think the "cube" was done first by Netscape (heard that at a Macromedia user group once-the cube is a best intersection of the different 256-color palettes of Windows and Macs).
If a color falls outside this palette, it gets re-mapped by the browser to the nearest "cube" equivalent. In the case of a real light non-cube color like champagne, it gets mapped to a nasty salmon color on 256-color monitors.
I've noticed the problem is the cube is very sparse on attractive, light colors. It's heavy on the dark colors. Despite the even mathematical spacing, in the dark range, there are a half dozen dark dark greens that are indistinguishable from each other. But at the light end, the light yellows are hugely different. Which gives us only a few "palatable" light colors.
The 256 color palettes of the aforementioned OS's needed to be designed with a greater representation of light than dark colors from the get go. We're paying for this lack of foresight with the way way overused mustard.
I agree with your rationalization, especially where Red Hat's service organization is concerned. But I remind myself about such IPOs as Ebay and Yahoo. What do those stock prices have to do with logic I ask?
:)
I was a speculator who unfortunately bought and sold Ebay on its IPO day. Bought at 50, sometime later checked out Ebay website and panicked when I realized that I knew nothing about the company except for the media hype, went back to Fidelity and sold at 48.
Yep, I'm a schmuck, and everyone who's dabbled has these kind of stories.
But I think for Red Hat's IPO I am armed with a few things: 1. Linux media exposure is large and growing, 2. Linux acceptance in business is growing, 3. Company that has or is headed toward a monopoly in a facet of the Internet (like Oracle, Verisign, etc.) 4. Strong, strong branding. 5. New, fresh place for investors to place their attention (comptetitor to MS).
I'll be the first to say I have middle-tier sophistication in this stuff, but I've seen lots of opportunities go by where I took a rational approach and lost out because I talked myself out of it (Ebay, Yahoo, the list is long).
I also think that they still have time to build a great support organization, esp. with all that cash. Is there a clear leader yet?
Therefore I'm appropriating some speculative capital that's either going into RHAT or into choice "dirty" domain names
-Blanco
Followup:
E*Offering doesn't seem to have any info on Redhat in their IPO Calendar. E*Offering does have some other interesting stuff though.
The Red Hat IPO press release does in fact say that E*Trade is one of the underwriters.
I'm certain I want to own RHAT, although I don't know much about how strong their service division is and is going to be, the marketing is certainly there.
I plan to try to get the 100 pre-IPO shares that will be offered to select E*Trade members. I believe E*Offerings is co-underwriting the IPO, and will offer up shares to E*Trade customers on a "lottery" basis.
Chances are though that I can't get that magical "$10-12" price that almost no one get. So do I buy at IPO or wait?
I have been keeping an eye on this in Silicon Investor's site (search for Red Hat) and at Quote.com's IPO Edge.
The IPO Edge analysis might be interesting to anyone considering this IPO. RHAT is given an "unfavorable" (-4) rating (range from -5 to 5). The rating appears to be a combination of metrics about how well the lead underwriter has performed in the past, and similar deals/IPOs. The overall rating is a guess of how strong your investment performs after a year.
In general, it looks like the people who "flip" a Goldman Sachs IPO get an average return of 53%, but if the hold on a year the average is 1%.
I am left wondering, however, the performance of Goldman Sachs-underwritten Internet IPOs.
Go to http://www.nominalia.com and register fuckamazon.com.
;)