One For The Boys!
Internet pals are happy to sail
with the Q' By Mike Drummond
STAFF WRITER
March 12, 2003
Jim Frost, from left, are now enjoying smooth financial sailing.
THE SILVER CHARM -- It' s a little after 10 on a Monday morning and the
benediction begins.
Caxton Rhodes, a lanky, cocky, now-retired 41-year-old Qualcomm
investor, cracks open the day' s first Heineken, hoists it to the sky, and
pronounces: "To the Q."
Rhodes, a Bay Area resident, and most of the nine other men aboard this
42-foot sloop moored at the SunRoad Resort Marina at Harbor Island are
meeting face-to-face for the first time.
By no means are they strangers, though.
For the last three to five years, they and a cadre of a few dozen other
investors have been talking about their Qualcomm holdings over the Internet,
exchanging information about the company, sharing hopes for its eventual
success and exhorting each other to hang on during the long months when
their stock languished while other tech stocks soared.
Those hopes paid off in 1999, when the San Diego company' s code division
multiple access technology, or CDMA, emerged as the industry standard and
Qualcomm stock soared off the charts.
Before the year was out, Qualcomm had become the most successful
company on the Nasdaq exchange, and thousands of investors -- like the men
in this group -- were fabulously rich.
Their real-world encounter, on board the aptly named Silver Charm the day
before Qualcomm' s annual shareholders meeting last week, served as a fitting
tableau of the millennium, where the Internet, guts and unfailing belief in
Qualcomm have minted numerous millionaires.
These particular men, ranging in age from 32 to 50-something, met through a
message board hosted by Silicon Investor, an online site. Had it not been for
the bond they forged on the Web, they say that in all likelihood they would
not have been fortunate enough to kick up their heels on the deck of a rented
sailboat -- on a workday, no less.
Just how fortunate are these guys? Consider:
On a day when hail is forecast, the weather remains clear, almost balmy.
With the boat in open sea, John Goren, a chatty appellate attorney from
Dallas, doesn' t realize that his wallet has dropped out of his pocket. One of
the guys later plucks the wallet, teetering on the edge of the transom, and
says, "Here, John. Lose something?"
Despite huge swells that rock the boat up-and-down-up-and-down, no one
hurls.
Oh yeah, the Qualcomm stock they have been hoarding for years jumps
2,616 percent in 1999. Their ship, in a phrase, comes in.
Yet none, from Maurice Winn, a retired oil marketer from Aukland, New
Zealand -- who made the trip for this occasion -- to New Yorker Steve
Malsin take what they have for granted.
"I remember awhile back when Maurice said he was quitting the (Silicon
Investor) thread, because his son had cancer," says Mike Doyle, a Berkeley
businessman. "His son is my son' s age. I took the news as if it were my
neighbor telling me this."
About an hour later, after motoring out toward the Navy submarine base on
Point Loma, Ramsey Su of San Diego, a retired 48-year-old real estate
broker, gives the order and the Silver Charm is under sail, heading for open
water.
Qualcomm stock has made Su and two other San Diegans so successful that
they appeared on the cover of this month' s Money magazine, a fact that wins
Su repeated barbs during the daylong voyage.
"I' m at the airport and all I see is this big rack of red and his picture," Rhodes
says, pointing at Su. "I can' t get away from him."
Su, the non-drinker at the helm, fires back.
"You' re just mad that WIND stuff you tried to get me to buy is such a dog,"
he says, referring to the ticker symbol for a company called Wind River
Systems.
Caxton gives as well as he takes. During one of the several cell-phone calls he
makes to check on his stocks -- "ViaSat' s up 11!" -- Jim Frost, a money
manager from Florida, shakes his head.
"Call me old-fashioned, but I read a company' s fundamentals before I invest,"
he says. "Caxton' s more, how do you put it, impulsive. Plus, I think he' s got
all his money tied up in stocks. I mean, what happens when there' s a bear
market?"
One observer suggests shorting the market, that is, betting that shares in
certain companies will go south.
Frost frowns.
"Short? I couldn' t do that," he says. "I' m not built that way. It' s
un-American."
The playful banter lends surreal aspects to the voyage. Here is a group of men
quite at ease with one another, despite never before having seen or heard
them in person.
"Nobody looks like I thought they would look like, and nobody' s as old as I
thought they would be," Doyle says.
As a bucket of shrimp and slabs of smoked salmon are passed around, Rich
Kerr, a Del Mar resident who designed Qualcomm' s Internet-
ready pdQ Smartphone, begs to differ.
"I thought for sure Caxton would be a crotchety old man," he says.
There was little doubt, however, about Winn' s general age. The New
Zealander, who had lobbied Kerr to code-name the pdQ Smartphone after
his daughter, Anita, is known affectionately as "The Mouth from the South."
(As a matter of record, the pdQ was code-named after the Thumper, the
rabbit in Bambi, the Disney film. Thumper was the first cartoon creature "to
communicate digitally" by pounding out Morse code, Kerr explains.)
Indeed, Winn' s acerbic wit has landed him in trouble with "SI Bob," a
message board moderator at Silicon Investor. Winn was once banned from
the site for 48 hours for failing to curtail verbal attacks against a certain trio he
felt contributed little substance to the discussion.
Getting the boot didn' t dissuade him too much. Last month, after SI Bob
offered an explanation as to why he kicked Winn off, but didn' t when another
member threatened others with gun violence, Winn had this retort:
"That' s an interesting idea. I' ll watch with idle curiosity and see if you agree
with yourself."
All those aboard agree that Silicon Investor mistreated Winn, but they also
say that had it not been for the site, they wouldn' t be sitting here today.
"The quality of analysis in those days was the best anywhere," says Goren, the
Texas attorney who attended court sessions of Ericsson' s ill-fated patent case
against Qualcomm and posted dispatches to the Silicon Investor message
board.
Malsin, the New Yorker, says the early online repartee went beyond quality
analysis.
"The faith we had in each other " he begins. "Silicon Investor was the glue. If
we had been doing this alone, I think many of us would have bailed (out of
Qualcomm stock) a long time ago."
Back inside the safe confines of the harbor, as Su takes the boat for a
pleasure cruise, talk continues to revolve around Qualcomm. All aboard
remain bullish on the company despite its 27 percent slide since January.
They' re true believers in the Q and forecast more good times -- despite
ominous warnings of a coming bear market.
Such stowaway thoughts quickly vanish, blown from the mind like the puffs of
Marlboro Lights several have been smoking all day.
Doyle lounges on a cushioned seat and sips from another of his potent
margaritas. The marina is within sight, and he sighs what might as well be this
group' s mantra.
"Ahhh, life is good." |
