All,
Here's the response I said I'd post to a question that someone PMed me about the Rambus management.
I can't say that I was impressed with Tate or Harmon just from the annual meeting. They did a song and dance that I'll bet they do 3 times a week. And we were probably nowhere near as tough with our questions as the fund managers that want to buy a couple hundred million dollars of stock.
I'm very impressed with them, however, for all the other things that they do. I actually don't believe they should be trying to drive the stock price up (at least not through verbal actions) -- they do it through being successful with the company. And they seem to me to be doing all the right things to make this a gigantic success. Getting Intel on board (even if they have to give up 1M shares to do it). Ensuring that the spec for Rambus is sharply defined and tested so that every Rambus component works with every other Rambus component, etc. I can't think of anything else they could have done to make this move faster. Even the additional warrants for other partners was a stroke of genius. It may dilute our holdings, but even Bill Gates only owns 25% of Microsoft, right? And look where it got him. I'd rather have a slightly smaller piece of a much bigger pie, myself.
At this point it looks to me like it's out of their hands now -- it depends on Intel. But what a great problem to have. Intel is committed 100%.
I really, really don't believe that the "PR machine" is a problem at Rambus. It's not their place to tell us if Camino is slipping, it's Intel's. It's not their job to artificially try to rah-rah the price up. It's their job to build a great business that get earnings up. What good would it do to send out daily press releases about how great the company is? The stock price would still tank when the quarterly results came in. Their job is to manage expectations correctly. How far off have they been in their projections since they went public? Like, very little. I think they came in $.02 (30%) above expectations in one of the quarters, if I remember correctly. Other than that, no surprises. I'd much rather have a management team in there that can manage correctly, rather than someone trying to jack the price up and sell his stake before I sell mine.
Granted, I'm in this for the long term. If you're trying to trade in and out daily, then they're not helping. Tough s**t. No pity for you. This is a real business, folks. Go trade internuts if you want unrealistic action.
Do I sound bitter? Probably a little. From the results I've seen at Rambus and comparing them to many of the high-tech companies that have imploded here in the valley (anyone remember the sound card company that was literally putting bricks in boxes to inflate their numbers?) give me someone who's building a business anytime over someone who's hyping their business all the time. I think we should stop beating up on the management team. Who here wants them to have to deal with shareholder lawsuits. Anyone? Doubt it.
Anyway, that's my $.02. I had it lying around from the one time they came in above forecast.
Dave B
p.s. Jeff, add my congratulations to unclewest's for Mssrs. Tate and Harmon. |
