Search Results for: palo alto

My Brush with Greatness

By -

I'd like to share with you the story of how I met one of Silicon Valley's greatest entrepreneurs (and a multi-billionaire) who funded my company back in 1992. This isn't just a story about the funding, but is more about the kind of person whom I admire in this technological center of the world.

This story is from back in early 1992, when I was working at a little financial data firm in Los Altos, California. A person came into our office to buy some data, which was unusual in itself, since almost all our sales took place on the telephone. Stranger still, he said he wanted to buy everything we sold, which was something like a $4,000 sale. For a company accustomed to selling data in chunks of about $50, it was pretty cool to have someone come in and just buy everything all at once.

I was curious who this mystery shopper was, and after a little exploration, I came to learn that he worked for a man whom I had never heard of – Andreas von Bechtolsheim or, simply, Andy. Andy was one of the four co-founders of a company I definitely had heard of, Sun Microsystems, which at the time was one of the biggest forces in the Silicon Valley. I tend to be fairly proud of my knowledge of Silicon Valley history and its figures, but Andy (being pretty much the opposite of Donald Trump with respect to self-promotion) was new to me.

(more…)

Help Me With My Forthcoming Creation

By -

Frank

As an entrepreneur, the greatest compliment I ever received was from a number of my employees who, after I sold the company, told me that they would follow me anywhere if I decided to start something new.

It was really heartwarming, because it’s not like anybody got wildly rich in the process. My conclusion was that they really enjoyed the comraderie, the creativity, and the environment that I helped to create.

Well, although I’ve been involved in a lot of little things on my own after Prophet was sold, I haven’t started any other businesses. I am, however, starting a new project that I’m pretty excited about – – and which will mesh quite nicely with Slope of Hope – – but I’d like to get some of you to help me shape and test the product in its very earliest stages.

In the past, I’ve released products and features without any concern for privacy, but this time is different. If you are interested in being involved, you are going to have to sign a printed legal document and mail it to me if you’d like to be included. There’s nothing scary about it – – it’s a non-disclosure agreement which simply obliges you to keep quiet about the product and its features until such time as it’s released. It also states that if you come up with some clever feature, name, or other contribution during the course of testing that you’ll get nothing except some heartfelt appreciation on my part.

So if you’d like to do this, click here to download the non-disclosure agreement., read it, fill it in, sign it, and mail to to me (Tim Knight, 555 Bryant Street 711, Palo Alto, CA 94301).

Once I get your agreement, I’ll drop you a line telling you what I’m up to. Thanks!

Reality Drips In

By -

Greetings from it's-still-dark-outside Palo Alto.

I was pleased this morning to see that even with the completely manipulated bucket o' hokum from the government (that is, the jobs report), disappointment was the main course. With 80 positions (79 of them short), I have a vested interest in such things.

If the market were open today, I confess I'd be inclined to cover quite a bit of these, largely because 1370 has been my stated short-term target for a while. The low, as I'm typing this, was 1372 on the /ES, and that's about close enough for me.

I still think we could see 1350 in the coming weeks (and, yes, it's sad that I have these miniscule targets as my most ambitious goals, but the Fed isn't packed with fellow Methodists looking to help a brotha out). Obama and Bernanke will sell this country down the river until election day, so we have to be realistic and take our bearish morsels in small bites.

Facebook goes public next month, after all. They have to keep this house of cards standing for a while in behalf of kith and kin.

0406-es

I Know What They’ll Be Thinking

By -

As difficult as the stock market has been for equity bears over the past three years – – and as many false starts as there have been to the resumption of the bear market – – – there are a few hard truths which no sane person can deny:

+ There will come a point (if it hasn't happened already) that the market reaches a peak and begins a meaningful drop to much lower levels;

+ There will come a point (and, again, it may have happened already) that the reckless creation of new liquidity is forced to come to a halt, no matter how much the bulls want it to continue indefinitely;

+ The core changes that are coming at the end of this year in the political and legal scene will have a macro effect on the economy (specifically, much higher taxes, including far higher capital gains and dividend taxes, as well as a liberal President who will be completely liberated to do whatever he wants without any concern for any future election……….to say nothing of the debt, which has reached so many tens of trillions at this point that the figures have become meaningless)

(more…)