We still lurch from steam-room to cool bliss as humidity plays tag; and now I have ants in my kitchen. Not many, but enough to intrigue --what prompts them to wander a 100+ feet above ground? Enterprising little buggers....next project.... colonize Mars? Nasa's little guests...
Speaking of things that rise only to be zapped by arbitrary fate .... from the FT:
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Next big thing or net's latest flop
Spotting internet winners is a game with big financial consequences - so is identifying the future dotcom failures
Published: June 27 2000 17:53GMT | Last Updated: June 27 2000 18:28GMT
The name of the game in Silicon Valley has always been "spot the winners". The players - venture capitalists, industry analysts and journalists - meet the management team of a fledgling company and make a judgment call. Is this business plan a winner? Do these guys have what it takes to make it big?
Every once in a while, the answer is obvious. It was clear that Inktomi, with its strong technology base, and Ariba, one of the first online-marketplace software developers, would become important companies.
Everyone has their stories about "discovering" winners. At a recent FT World e-commerce conference in London, Ronald Fisher, Softbank's vice-chairman, shared the tale of his first meeting with Yahoo!.
In 1995 the Japanese company had been interested in investing in an internet search service, but was leaning towards one of Yahoo!'s competitors. Mr Fisher was persuaded to take a closer look at Yahoo! by the top executive at Ziff Davis, a California publisher of computer magazines, which Softbank had just acquired.
Almost out of politeness, it seems, Mr Fisher agreed to meet Yahoo!. There, despite the garish yellow and purple furnishings, scruffy offices, and sleeping bags stashed under desks, he recognised a winner.
"But at first Yahoo! did not want our money, and it took a lot of persuasion to close the deal," says Mr Fisher.
Fortunately for Softbank, Yahoo! relented. The profits from that single investment later propelled Softbank to become one of the world's leading investors in the internet.
It is stories like this that keep the "spot the winner" game going, despite the doom-mongers.
Journalists do not take financial stakes in the winners they identify. The reward is in writing about the unheard-of company that someday might, just might, become a big name.
My latest favourite is Novalux, a two-year-old company that appears to have breakthrough technology in the emerging market for "optical chips". This is not a public company, and has no immediate plans for a stock offering, but I think it may be a name to remember.
Novalux claims to have developed the "perfect" laser chip, a device that produces a circular beam through the top of the chip. Today's laser diodes emit an elliptical signal from the side of the chip. This makes for inefficient couplings between lasers and optical fibres, because so much of the power of the laser is wasted. Novalux believes it can double the effective "bandwidth", or data-carrying capacity, of a fibre-optic network, while also reducing costs.
The high calibre of technologists at Novalux - the chief executive is a former chief technology officer at Xerox Parc and the company's technology advisers include Charles Townes, the inventor of the laser - leaves no doubt about its scientific acumen. The only question is whether this group of technologists can execute a successful business plan.
All I can say is that listening to Novalux executives describe the potential of their technology sent a shiver down my spine. I was reminded of my early visits to Intel in the 1970s, when it, too, was a scrappy little company with big ambitions and lots of smarts, but no proven business record. We shall see.
Inevitably, perhaps, the latest sport among internet entrepreneurs is "spotting the losers". It is a macabre, but popular game. Websites that track lay-offs and the financial woes of troubled dotcoms are drawing growing audiences. Perhaps this is Schadenfreude, or maybe nervous start-up employees and investors are seeking solace in the company of others in similar situations.
One such site (good taste precludes me from providing the name, but it can be located at 216.156.244.236 has become "rumour central", with message boards that overflow with insider talk about the problems being encountered by internet start-ups. The comments posted are irreverent, often crude and potentially libellous. Their accuracy cannot be assured, but they nonetheless draw crowds. This is the Jerry Springer of business news.
Similar, though less raucous, websites include dotcomfailures.com, with the slogan "Kick 'em while they're down" and startupfailures.com, which calls itself "the place for bouncing back".
To date, only about a dozen significant dotcoms have failed, but as they struggle to make their funds last, many more have laid off employees.
To Silicon Valley veterans, this is nothing new. "Business failures are a sign of a vigorous economy," they say.
Typically, half of all high-tech start-ups die, so the demise of a few dotcoms should come as no surprise. Yet with record levels of funding continuing to flow into high-tech start-ups, there would seem to be no shortage of cash for companies that can differentiate themselves from the horde. |
