Jim Bryan: M.Saylor, the Dream was nice. But the execution poor? so far?
Back to business basics?
TA
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interactive.wsj.com
March 16, 2000
Editorial Page
My Internet Dream
By Michael J. Saylor, founder and CEO of
MicroStrategy, a software and Internet company in
Vienna, Va.
When I graduated from high school, I didn't have enough
money to go to college. My family had about $10,000 in
life savings, and college cost $10,000 a year. I was
lucky. I grew up on an Air Force base, I knew about
ROTC scholarships, and I was able to finance an
education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Many others aren't so lucky; they can't afford to attend
college. That's bad not only for those denied an
education but also for the rest of us, denied the fruits of
their education. Yet technology makes it relatively
inexpensive to finance a college education for everyone
who wants one. I'm so committed to this goal that I am
putting my money where my mouth is: Today, I am
announcing that I will donate $100 million to launch an
online university.
In just the past two years the Internet
has evolved to the point where large
portions of a college education can
be automated, uploaded, and made
available through streaming video,
high bandwidth lines, and ever-faster
computers. It is possible today to
provide a decent college education
in certain disciplines for nothing
more than the cost of computer
hardware.
So why not capture an entire college curriculum via
video? Take, say, a college calculus course, which might
consist of 30 hours of lectures by a professor; 20 hours
of recitations by students; 1,000 questions asked by
students, 95% of which are the same year after year;
followed by exams. At MIT this course and a few others
like it would cost $25,000 a year, but using a computer,
it would run about $200 a year per course.
It's time to create a universal knowledge database on
video -- a cyber-library made available to everybody. It
could feature not just calculus courses taught by leading
mathematicians, but Warren Buffett on investing, Scott
Turow on writing, Steven Spielberg on how to direct,
John Williams on how to compose, Issac Stern on how
to play the violin, and Michael Jordan on how to play
basketball. All Nobel laureates on the subject that won
them recognition; all Pulitzer Prize winners on their
books.
This online library could be a resource not only for
those living in the U.S. but in Calcutta and Beijing. For
some it might replace a traditional university; for others,
it would be a supplement, allowing them to take a course
or two in a subject that interests them. There would still
be plenty of reason to attend traditional colleges, but this
would fill nooks and crannies not served by existing
institutions.
This online university can stimulate interest in education.
As a kid, I read books from the library, and if they hadn't
been available free, I probably never have would
become interested in attending college. Making
available videotaped courses from Michael Jordan and
Steven Spielberg and Bill Gates might encourage
12-year-olds in the inner city and beyond to pursue
education.
This cyber-library can also stand as a lasting historical
record. It's as though you could get all the famous
Romans to describe what they thought on the day when
Julius Caesar was killed.
To help make this dream a reality, I'm going to fund a
nonprofit organization that establishes video recording
studios to capture the coursework, sets up servers to
make it available for download and hires an
administration to make sure the curriculum is properly
designed and that students are tested and certified if they
want to be. Students who enroll in this online university
will be able to get a college equivalency degree or a
certificate saying they passed a certain course, which
they can then take to an employer and say, "I didn't go to
college, but I've taken this recognized course of study."
I've got a business to run, so why am I spending my time
and money on this effort? Because I think the most
important issue facing the country today is the people left
behind by our prosperity. The Web can't eliminate the
underclass, but it can help improve the lives of the
disadvantaged.
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Barron's Mar 20,2000
On a happier note, Michael Saylor, the 35-year-old chief
executive officer of Internet data manager MicroStrategy,
based in Vienna, Virginia, announced plans to put $100
million toward building a free university to offer everyone
an Ivy League education. Saylor, Washington's poster boy
for e-commerce, made the announcement last week at a
philanthropy convention.
And Saylor definitely has the dough to back up his words.
His newfound Ivy League buddies at Goldman Sachs have
helped him. This week they plan to take him through one
post-IPO regimen which when finished will leave him a
personal stash of well over $374 million in cash.
Saylor's windfall comes when MicroStrategy sells 6.5
million shares next week in what's known as a post-IPO or
secondary offering; 1.7 million of the shares belong to
Saylor. And this is new money. The company assures us
that Saylor has already earmarked stock and funds for the
free university.
The MicroStrategy post-IPO offering demonstrates why a
hot stock price is so important. MicroStrategy went public
back in 1998 at $12 a share, but just weeks before the
current offering, the shares enjoyed a spectacular runup.
Bullish brokerage reports and the prospect of a public
spinoff of its successful division explain some of the
enthusiasm.
With a share price approaching $220, MicroStrategy can
raise close to $1 billion with the sale of 4.8 million shares.
Goldman's fee, at least $47 million by our calculation, is a
multiple of what Merrill Lynch made when it took
MicroStrategy public.
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Message #43621 from Jim Bryan at Mar 20 2000 9:26AM
LG, MSTR hit a high of 333 just 10 days ago. I wonder how many people thought the drop to the 220`s was a buy the dip moment.
--Jim |
