Re: Change is inevitable, but the timing sucks

[<puff -at- guild -dot- net>]

> puff -at- guild -dot- net wrote:
> >      As far as what the issues may have been, the most likely thing is
> > that the company plans they made were predicated on a sequence of
> > funding rounds which were likely (at the time) but which have become a
> > lot trickier since the market tanked.  

Bruce Byfield wrote: 
> That's a strong possibility, and your summary of how venture capital
> funding and the stock market works is  a very accurate one. But,
> another reason may simply be that the dot.com mania saw a lot of
> ideas being marketed that ordinarily wouldn't be taken seriously. 

     Well, sure, but I'm assuming based on Maggie's "Most of the dire
warnings I was given did not apply in this case" that this company was
not one of those silly ideas.

> Whatever the reason, what's happening now is a necessary corrective.
> Realistically, very few internet stocks were worth what they were
> trading at last spring.

     Also true, but I would say that there are indeed some that may be
worth a heck of a lot of money.  I think a lot of the reason for the
mania is that this is the fourth or fifth time a new media has come
along in (relatively) recent history; printing, radio, TV, cable, all
of them became the foundation for truly vast fortunes.  Everybody is
seeing the internet as their shot to get in on the ground floor of the
next big thing.

     I just wish it was possible to buy stock in in a technology in
general, not in a specific company.

> Leaving out the technology giants, the companies that are surviving
> are those that a little removed from last year's main: a little less
> in a hurry, a little slower to toss money about, and more concerned
> with building a solid structure over a couple of years than in
> striking gold in four months.

     Yup, and I've been at _two_ of those so far this year, one of
which is now defunct and the other of which is having to work hard to
avoid becoming defunt, because fo the OVER reaction of the VCs.
 
> None of which is much help to Maggie. It's rough feeling like you
> have to watch your money over Christmas, when everything and
> everyone is urging you to spend. 
> 
> Still, January can be a reasonably good time to find writing work.
> Some companies have finished year end, and others are trying to use
> up their budget before year end, so the New Year can be a
> mini-employment boom. 

     Yup, in the past I've found January is the best time to job hunt
(or to nail down a lucrative contract). 
 
> And job security is a myth, no matter where you go. When you end in
> the wrong place, all you can really do is curse and move on.
 
     True;  my favorite Somerset Maugham quote is the one that
runs something like "There is no security.  Life is either one grand
adventure, or it is nothing."

Steven J. Owens
puff -at- guild -dot- net


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