Exactly how was BW "prescient"? Normally, when one urges fuller disclosure, the inference is that something crooked may be going on. If you have any information whatsoever that Gilder received sweetheart deals or in any other way "sold" his endorsement to any of his listed companies, let's have it. I'm sure Mr. Gilder's creditors would be grateful if you could expose the repository of these unknown ill-gotten gains.Gilder's analysis of the investment implications of the technology revolution in telecom was indeed seriously flawed, but neither you nor BW nor anyone else has produced a single shred of evidence that his company selections were bought, or otherwise derived through a tainted process.
I'm really tired of seeing this man being castigated as a cheap hustler, when in fact he was guilty of no crime other than having a vision of the future which did not occur within the expected investment horizon. Those who smugly level such allegations expose their tendency to parrot conventional wisdom without exposing their own views to critical analysis. Reminds me alot of myself in the later stages of the bull market.
The man was simply wrong. And the character assasination which has followed is eerily similar to political sentiments these days, which is to criminalize business failure. Such an environment is not one to encourage innovation, or risk taking. Rather it rewards the capitalists who finance the existing order, which order is as a result allowed to thrive in a sclerotic state for much longer time horizons. We more closely resemble socialism in such a setting, and lionize the likes of Warren Buffet as responsible while we criminalize the dreamers, the creators, the thinkers.
And for all those who looked at the state of physics in the latter half of the 20th century and designed millionfold productivity increases in the way we communicate; who by doing so took the enormous risk of taking on entrenched regulatorily protected dinosaurs; and who in many cases may have been business failures but who nonetheless in the process dragged telecom kicking and screaming into the new world, they deserve our admiration. Irwin Jacobs, Kevin Kalkhoven, Simon Cao, Andrew Viterbi and their like do not deserve to be lumped with Andy Fastow and Scott Sullivan.
The world is forever different for what they have done. Even Global Crossing, an investment disaster if ever there was one. Nonetheless, that worldwide self contained fiber optic network, even languishing in bankruptcy, has obsoleted forever the vastly less efficient gov't consortium model. In strong hands it will benefit consumers across the globe.
Sorry for the rant. |
