SiliconBeat

This morning, Reply.com of San Ramon announced it had filed its prospectus to go public. Just over the weekend, I wrote a column about how Silicon Valley would be better off with fewer IPOs.

This is just a hunch, but after reading through the filing, I can’t help but think the company is really angling for a sale, rather than an IPO. Time will tell, but this looks and feels like a company that needs an exit soon. And given the numbers and history, I’m betting they’re hoping to attract interested buyers. If they get all the way to the IPO, I’ll be a bit surprised.

Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most significant trends I’ve been watching over the past decade is the dramatic drop in public companies in Silicon Valley. Naturally, that number was artificially inflated during the dot-com bubble when it reached 417 in 2000. For our purposes, Silicon Valley includes San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and the southern half of Alameda County.

But the number of public companies has dropped for nine straight years now. Even when IPOs briefly reappeared in 2006 and 2007, they weren’t enough to overcome the net loss of public companies through acquisitions or bankruptcy.

In 2008, the number had fallen to 261. We just updated our records and the latest figure is 241.

That’s not just less than the dot-com era, that’s well below the 315 public companies the valley had in 1994 when the Mercury News started keeping track.

Here’s why I think this is a big deal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates

A few months back, I noticed a bunch of folks tweeting about the 1999 made-for-TV-movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley.” I remember hearing about the movie just as I was moving to Silicon Valley that year, but never got around to watching it. I had heard mixed things about the movie, and its accuracy, but the tweets seemed pretty positive, so I decided to rent it and see for myself.

It exceeded my tremendously low expectations. Though as far as factual accuracy, it’s hard to say where truth ends and creative license takes over. The movie hits some of the high points of the emerging battle between Microsoft and Apple as told through the stories of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And narrated by their wingmen: Steve Wozniak and Steve Ballmer.

There’s an amusing scene, about 20 minutes in when Wozniak and Jobs walk out of the famed Homebrew Club in 1976, having triumphantly demonstrated a version of their personal computer:

Jobs: “IBM is going to be loading in their pants!”

Wozniak: “Steve, I don’t think IBM even knows who we are.”

Jobs: “That’s okay. Because they’re the enemy.”

And later, in a conversation with John Sculley:

Sculley: ”Steve, I’m worried. About what’s happening. All the “them versus us” stuff. Macintosh versus Apple II.”

Jobs: “You don’t understand, John. People need a cause.”

Creative license aside, back in the late 1970s, and the early 1980s, Jobs had enormous power and the ability to impose his will. If you wanted to play with Apple, you did things Jobs’ way. And he wasn’t afraid to define his enemies and go after them (IBM, Microsoft). That is, until he was ousted in 1985 and Apple began its long, slow decline. And even after Jobs’ return in 1996, Apple was just happy to still be around, even striking a deal with Microsoft to invest to keep it going.

Apple’s clout has grown steadily over the past decade, thanks to the success of the iPod and the iPhone. With the iPad announcement a week behind us, it seems the the gadget itself may turn out to be less interesting than some of the things it tells us about the state of Steve Jobs and Apple. With the iPad, it appears that Jobs is confident that he’s once again in a position to dictate terms and define the opposition in a way he hasn’t been able to since the early days depicted in Pirates of Silicon Valley.

You could feel this renewed swagger when Apple announced it recent earnings. Jobs said in a press release:

“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” Jobs said. “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

That was a not-so-subtle reminder of Apple’s financial strength. Consider that Apple has closed the gap in terms of market capitalization with Microsoft. This is from Silicon Valley Insider last November:

“In May 2000, Apple’s market capitalization was $17 billion. Today it’s $182 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft was around $356 billion in May 2000. Today it’s around $261 billion.”

By the way, Google’s market cap is $171.73 billion as of mid-day Wednesday.

Since the release of the iPad and iTunes, Apple has had the music industry under its thumb. And with the iPhone, Apple was able to change the balance of power between device makers and phone companies. But with the iPad, let’s look at the new ways Jobs is flexing those growing muscles:

Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you thinking the IPO market is going to come roaring back this year, think again.

I just saw the post from Techcrunch yesterday that Yelp was on the verge of taking a $50 million investment from Elevation Partners. This comes after the failed acquisition talks with Google. Here’s what’s interesting:

“The size of the round is in the $50 million range, but includes both a primary investment component as well as a secondary offering for long time employees. These deals are now being referred to as ‘DST deals,’ since DST first invested in Facebook in May 2009 at a $10 billion valuation and later funded employee buyouts at a $6.5 billion valuation. They did a similar deal with Zynga.”

In other words, part of the investment will allow long-time employees to cash out options. Same deal with Facebook and Zynga. But why? Read the rest of this entry »

And lo, the mighty gods of Apple came down from their Cuptertion Mountain on Monday with invitations for members of the press to attend an event Jan. 27 in San Francisco. Though no details were revealed, the invitation contained the tantalizing phrase: “come see our latest creation.”

Of course, if that new creation is not the long-rumored, much-hyped tablet/slate thingy, there will likely be riots on the Streets of San Francisco next week.

The Apple event is scheduled for 10 a.m. PT in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. No word on whether there will be a livestream from the event for the many, many others out there who are eager to get a glimpse of this mythical gadget.

According to The Wall Street Journal, sources have told them that the device would be a 10- or 11-inch touch-screen tablet offering wireless access and sporting a price tag of $1,000.

I have a hard time betting against Apple. But what I’m waiting to see, and probably can’t really know until we have all the details, is this:

What problem will this solve for me?

Read the rest of this entry »

In my column yesterday about the Google and China mess, I explored how this rift could affect Silicon Valley’s relationship with China. But within the column, I also included this thought:

“The conventional wisdom that has been shattered was based on a kind of digital utopianism prevalent throughout Silicon Valley. This line of thinking holds that the Internet, and Web-based services like Google, Twitter and Facebook, are liberating forces. Maybe it would take five years, maybe a couple of decades, but over time as more Chinese gained access and technology, there would be the inevitable dismantling of cultural, economic and political barriers.”

That spurred some discussions on Twitter and got me thinking more about that idea. By coincidence, I was catching up this morning on my backlog of TED videos, when a talk by Evgeny Morozov came up called: “How the ‘Net aids dictatorships.” The talk is summarized as:

“TED Fellow and journalist Evgeny Morozov punctures what he calls “iPod liberalism” — the assumption that tech innovation always promotes freedom, democracy — with chilling examples of ways the Internet helps oppressive regimes stifle dissent.”

Morozov’s talk got me thinking more about this subject.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you have a Google Wave account, click to see the full post where you can see an embedded copy of our Google Wave chat:
Read the rest of this entry »

I spent last Friday night at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco watching the Crunchies. The third annual version of the tech award show was co-hosted by three leading high-tech blogs: GigaOm, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch. According to the official Cruchies description, the show aims to “recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.” You can read a nice overview of the event and after-party by Jessica Guynn of the Los Angeles Times.

It was an entertaining, if low budget, affair. In fact, the casual nature of the show in such a fancy space was quite charming. There were corporate jugglers providing entertainment and the reliably funny Richter Scales served up a nice glee-club style spoof (see video above).

You can check out the award winners here. But the mix of nominees and winners left a muddy impression of the event. What, exactly, is the point of the Crunchies? Read the rest of this entry »

Today marks my return to blogging here after taking a couple months off. I’m going to jump in with some thoughts from an event I attended last night at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

The event was a reception for students and alumni from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Each year, Sloan brings a large contingent of students to Silicon Valley for its “Tech Trek.” They meet with a lot of interesting local companies, soak up some Silicon Valley inspiration, and get to build their networks. I’ve been invited several times to this event, but this was the first year I was able to attend.

After some introductory remarks about the state of Sloan, Dean David Schmittlein interviewed Sloan alum Douglas Leone, a partner at Sequoia Capital. They talked about the state of Silicon Valley, what Leone has learned in his career, and advice he had for students.

What struck me was a comment Leone made later in the exchange. I don’t have the exact quote. But essentially, he said that Sequoia’s portfolio of companies is dominated by founders under the age of 30. That’s no surprise, and a trend that’s been discussed in the valley over the past decade.

But then, Leone came right out and said they focus on people under 30 because people over the age of 30 can’t innovate. If you’re over 30, you can still be in management, Leone said, as a kind of consolation. But  there it was. Read the rest of this entry »

Like many air travelers, I followed in bewilderment last week the strange tale of the Northwest Airlines pilots who inadvertently overshot their destination of Minneapolis by 110 miles, or so. Were they drunk? Was it terrorists?

At last, this week the pilots explained the mystery: They were looking at their laptops and just got so wrapped up, they forget about that whole landing thing. No harm, no foul.

Now, let’s not judge them too harshly. Because let’s face it, we’ve all been there. If not in our planes, then at least while driving our cars.

Distraction by technology while traveling is becoming a plague on our busy, modern day lives. I’m not just referring to gabbing on your cellphone or texting while driving. That’s kids stuff. I’m talking about the large scale distractions that cause us all to do our share of bone headed moves.

In solidarity with the beleaguered crew of Flight 188, I wanted to share my woeful tales of techno distraction in the hope that we, as a society, can collectively learn some important lessons and make the world a safer place. Read the rest of this entry »