Ho hum CB, every time you write something you get it wrong. I think it's western women's disease. They go to assertive training school and figure that being assertive and having great gender replaces thinking and knowledge. You are also getting a bit too personally demeaning, hence, I reply in kind, which is always fun. People who can't argue a case usually get to attacking the person - which is also a good game to play.
Anyway, I will explain for you.
<you didn't do anything innovative.>
At the risk of boring readers, I did maths umpteen decades ago during which I learned about Fourier transforms. In 1989, I read about spectrum shortages and since I was looking for ideas to pursue [since I'd retired from my oil career], I was curious. I figured that a way of fixing that would be to encode cellphone signals, transmit them across the whole bandwidth and decode at the cellphone using those hot stuff little ASICs which were increasingly sophisticated.
I couldn't do it by myself, but by a total piece of luck, happened to meet a guy who told me he worked for a developmental phone company [cellphones]. I was interested and told him my idea. He said that that was what they were doing. Well, blow me down! What a stroke of luck. Anyway, they were raising capital, so we put in our life's savings [some shares issued directly by the company and some we bought from those selling in open market]. That was a good move.
So, it's true that I don't actually hold the patents, but without my [and other people's] money, they would not have been able to develop the technology. You might think investing is a kind of dumb boosters' game, but in fact, investors have to be as innovative as the companies.
<All you are is a bagholder. You're very similar to a football fan, rooting for your favorite team, living vicariously, consoling yourself that your humdrum life is more interesting and exciting because you paid for a souvenir.>
Maybe CB, maybe! But without me thinking of how to use maths to code and decode the photons, and without me using my creative energies to get the money in the first place and buying the company, that money wouldn't have gone to them. Each person who plays a part in developing, managing, selling and otherwise creating CDMA technology is just part of the totality. Even Irwin Jacobs didn't create mobile CDMA. He played a part - a huge and vital part. But just a part. My little bit was not even a byte, but it was something. I'm proud of my part.
<The money you spent went to another investor, not the team. They don't even know you exist.>
Actually, you are wrong on both of those statements. One of my investment aims is for my money to go to the people who actually produce the goods, not somebody selling their shares. Of course I don't always do that, but generally, that's my aim.
I buy when the company issues shares [if I can get hold of them, but of course do not limit myself only to directly sold shares - underwrites buy shares and need to sell them on too, as do institutions sometimes - it's called a market].
Also, there are quite a few people in both QUALCOMM and Globalstar who know I exist. I've spent thousands of hours studying and thousands of dollars travelling around the world to check out my investments, try phones, discuss becoming a service provider etc.
I arranged and attended a meeting for QUALCOMM to sell CDMA to Telecom New Zealand and played my little bit, maybe even a byte, in having CDMA adopted in New Zealand. Telecom was going to dramatically expand their TDMA network and they knocked it on the head in favour of CDMA. Heck, that's even being a little bit innovative wouldn't you say?
<If you wanted to help the team out, you should have sent them a check directly>
I did that CB.
Please stop with the wacky comments.
I'm not a bagholder. I don't live life vicariously. I don't need consoling. I sometimes think I should make my life more humdrum. I don't like souvenirs.
I think, therefore I exist, I hope.
I had and have a lot more than money riding on CDMA in Globalstar and QUALCOMM.
Mqurice
PS: If you like, we could drop the third parties and go for purely personal comment. But probably we should do that by PM [unless we could make the ad hominem stuff amusing].
Also, I'd rather help build telecommunications systems than play do-gooder. I plan on making telecoms so cheap and universally available that do-gooders will be out of business because everyone will be able to buy a phone. That will also require political activity. Do you want the details? [warning, you could save yourself some reading time by saying no]. |
