I find it very difficult to believe this well educated man "forgot the financial underpinnings of the game" or that he simply got "carried away". Despite his public pronouncements to the contrary, I doubt Mr. Johnson ever believed that Juniper was a rational long-term buy at a 50 billion market cap. I suspect there was some other game going on, and it wasn't about making Mr. Johnson's followers rich.
I agree with you, I just did not want to be the first to say it.;) I think Mr. Johnson may have rationalized that JNPR will probably and eventually reach a marketcap of $50 billion based on fundamentals, but of course that leaves no room for stock appreciation. It is indeed sad to see those like Paul Johnson who we do put a gratuitious fiduciary trust in, make such comments. I do have an interview with him where he does state that Juniper's "market opportunity" is so great that he recommends gorilla gamers buying now, even at a $50 billion marketcap. I don't have the exact quote on me, but he in no unambiguous words made this statement.
Glad you acquired an additional perspective to keep that eloquent, gorilla game lawyer of old in check.<ggg>
It is one of the major shortfalls of biological creatures that we have to learn things a new each time and it takes experience to acquire such knowledge. But this advancement of knowledge continues.....and I'm actually quite, I guess, proud of myself, for gaining these I-Banker skills. It is a skill I really, really, tried to avoid at Duke. And one that I thought I was deficient on in comparison to my classmates. It turns out, it just took time to let the information sink in, and for me to actually start to use it in real world situations. Paul Johnson's ROIC article was one of the articles that began to put the wheels in place for me. Then I began to have thoughts of maybe working at a high-tech focused I-Bank, and did actually interview with the leading shop in regard (Broadview). The preparation I did in anticipation of the interview was enormously valuable, and I learned more from that preparation, than from any class I took at Duke - by far.
But it is a good example of how if you work at your weak spots you can turn them into strengths (and believe me, a lawyer going into Duke MBA, finance starts out as a very big weak spot). What I did have on my classmates though was a far better understanding of strategy. So hopefully I can contribute more from both sides of the coin.
I believe I heard that Duke is the first reputable university to offer an entire MBA program over the internet as an option to replace the traditional classroom MBA experience. Hope I have the right university here. With your considerable talent for rapid fire posting, I wonder if this is something you participated in, and if so, what your opinions are regarding this style of education. Is it time to short Stanford and Harvard grad schools?
I went to the traditional day time program. I know Duke has started long-distance learning initiatives, and is pushing these initiatives hard. I believe these initiatives are focused on the executive education market. Duke, last time I saw, was ranked #5 for their day time program, but ranked either #1 or #2 for their executive MBA program. So this might be where you are hearing about this. But honestly, I don't know. As a lawyer moving in with all these business people we had different ways of communicating and different channels, I often found myself out of the loop. It is indeed true, there are lawyers and there are business people, it is like one is from Mars and one is from Venus. But due to this problem I did not stay in touch with Duke's latest initiatives as I struggled to stay up to date on the more practical day to day matters.
I would say, however, that Stanford MBA is in a little tailspin with the collapse of Silicon Valley. Their ratings are going down and the great opportunities their students received have decreased somewhat. Still, it will recover. Harvard? My advice, you get in to Harvard MBA...GO! I wouldn't short the place. Too much brand recognition and too much history. Its like a MSFT API, you just can't break that old boys network.
Tinker |
