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Technology Stocks : Softbank Group Corp -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: andreas fauler who wrote (3029)	1/4/2000 2:31:00 AM
From: Yamakita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6018

It is indeed hype, and nothing more. We don't NEED no steenkin' hype folks, it's actually bad for Softbank. The story will take care of itself. Ain't no such thing as a market seer/diviner who can't rationally explain his/her actions. If a person doesn't explain WHY he's buying something, you might as well just put a bunch of tickers into a hat, and pull one out, you're bound to get lucky in bull market. It seems that every thread of every successful company has its micheldas. I'll take rationality and articulateness any day. This is not meant as a personal swipe, though it sounds like one; I would just like to keep this board as great as it's been without having to wade through countless posts looking for the ever-more-elusive gem. There are only so many hours in a day. Yamakita (who is doing his best to snap out of his back-pain-induced sour mood--time for a bottle of Chimay and a nap!)

To: andreas fauler who wrote (3029)	1/4/2000 2:35:00 AM
From: Yamakita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6018

Check out this extraordinary piece of writing. I think it fits Son to a T (well, except the part about leaving a mess). Man would I LOVE to get in on the myCFO IPO! ~~~~ The New New Entrepreneur Challenges Wall Street: Michael Lewis New York, Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) I spent most of the last couple of years writing a book about Silicon Valley called ''The New New Thing.'' Actually, the publisher marketed it as a book about Silicon Valley; I never thought of it as one. From the beginning I assumed that I was writing a story about the American gift for commercializing new technologies and new ideas, and thereby imposing change on other people. Silicon Valley just happened to be the capital of this activity. And the main character of my story -- Jim Clark, the entrepreneur who started Silicon Graphics Inc., Netscape Communications Corp., Healtheon Corp. (which changed its name to Healtheon/WebMD Corp. in November) and, most recently, myCFO -- just happened to work there. If you could call what he did for a living ''work.'' I wouldn't. I'd call it glorified troublemaking. Shrewder readers understood that ''The New New Thing'' not only wasn't about Silicon Valley; it wasn't even exactly about Jim Clark. Clark was just the vehicle to get across the message: a new character had arisen in our midst. He possessed a gift for selling new ideas, a knack for living with chaos, and technical aptitude, or at least the appearance of it. In many ways, he made for an unlikely leading economic man. For instance, he had none of the usual corporate leadership skills. Serious people often thought him a flake. He had no ability whatsoever to build a big company; all he could do was start new ones, and leave the messes behind for others to clean up. Economic Consequences The rise of this character -- call him the New New Entreprenur -- had all sorts of economic and social consequences. Some of these were distinctly gloomy for Wall Street. First, and most obviously, the New New Entrepreneur fails to understand why he should pay financiers lots of money for simple transactions. More to the point, he now has the power to undermine Wall Street's core businesses. A few months ago, Clark -- to stick with my favorite example -- created myCFO, which was, ostensibly, no more than an Internet- based tax management service for rich people. But of course it was more than that. The prominent people in Silicon Valley who joined myCFO's board of directors -- Cisco Systems Inc. Chief Executive Officer John Chambers, former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, venture capitalist John Doerr, and At Home Corp. CEO Tom Jermoluk -- understood that they might invent a new kind of financial institution, if they piled up enough money in one place. They might, for instance, negotiate for Wall Street's services from a new position of strength. New York Calling ''You control 80 percent of the wealth, and everything else follows,'' Chambers told me. ''This thing has the potential to change financial services forever.'' Wall Street seems to understand its predicament. Moments after Clark formed myCFO he had calls from the heads of both Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and Goldman Sachs & Co., asking to buy a piece of the new venture. They had perceived the threat to their interests. They were buying not merely profits but protection -- or trying to. Interestingly, Clark declined to sell it to them. That single transaction speaks volumes about the shift in power and influence away from the Wall Street establishment and toward offbeat individuals and their ideas. We are living through one of the most individualistic periods in the history of capitalism. People with ideas actually pose serious threats to deeply entrenched interests. Different Times At other times, and in other places, the New New Entrepreneur would most likely have wound up a failure. He would have been forced to succumb to established interests. Even in America a generation ago, for instance, a man like Jim Clark would have wound up either an embittered, failed inventor, or the frustrated middle manager of some giant corporation, or in jail. Now, suddenly, he is the catalyst for change for the entire society. It would take a book to explain why all of a sudden this character is so potent. An unprecedented access to capital, the greater mobility of highly trained people, the credulity of a credulous society -- all encourage him in his reckless creation of the new. Whatever the ultimate causes, the New New Entrepreneur has replaced Wall Street Man at the top of the financial heap. And that, I'll bet, is just the beginning of his story.

To: andreas fauler who wrote (3029)	1/4/2000 12:20:00 PM
From: Seeker of Truth	Respond to of 6018

I agree with you. Michelda may be a genius or a lucky hypester but, either way in the long run, guru directed guidance is a hindrance rather than a help because we lose the opportunity to learn. Gurus sooner or later fade away or mislead, anyway. Our own skills at acquiring the relevant data and judging its significance determine how well we will do. Recently we learned eight aspects of the usefulness of Japan Nasdaq to 9984, that's insight!!