Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (5828)	5/3/2005 8:26:48 PM
From: Labrador	Respond to of 5853

San Jose Mercury News (California) April 22, 2005 Friday MO1 EDITION HEADLINE: Fallen tech guru seeks comeback; QUEST PARALLELS START-UP'S STORY IN HIS NEW BOOK BYLINE: By Mike Langberg; Mercury News BODY: Technology guru George Gilder is in search of redemption. So is Foveon, the Silicon Valley start-up covered in his latest book. Gilder is trying to restore his reputation after wildly excessive optimism during the telecom bubble, which wiped out many of the most devoted subscribers to his once-influential investment newsletter, the Gilder Technology Report. Foveon has an innovative design for digital camera chips, but the 75-person Santa Clara company is struggling to turn its new idea into a profitable business. Gilder still commands at least a small audience, such as a reception Tuesday evening at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View to celebrate publication of his book on Foveon, ''The Silicon Eye.'' His story -- and Foveon's -- both speak to the valley's compulsive drive to take risks in pursuit of the next big idea. Earlier Tuesday, Gilder admitted to disappointment with Foveon's lack of customers but said his book is ''more interesting because Foveon isn't blowing the world away.'' He also readily conceded his bubble-era failings. At the same time, he pointed with pride to recent successful recommendations in his newsletter. Back in the late 1990s, Gilder seemed golden as the companies touted in his newsletter racked up huge gains. He was even briefly rated as one of the nation's best stock pickers. Then came the big crash of 2000, crushing Gilder favorites such as Globalstar and Global Crossing. Gilder, now 65, has since become something of a media pariah. Wired Magazine, which featured him in a favorable 1996 cover story, came back with a profile in July 2002 titled, ''The Madness of King George.'' Financial commentator Christopher Byron, writing in the New York Post in August 2004, called Gilder ''America's worst stock picker alive'' and said Gilder is ''pumping out the bombast and malarkey as if the tech wreck had never happened.'' Before the crash, Gilder had 110,000 subscribers -- each paying several hundred dollars a year -- to a group of newsletters, run from a small office near his home in western Massachusetts. Now he's down to a single newsletter with just 5,000 subscribers. But it's a mistake to discount Gilder entirely. Beyond his recent solid stock picks, much of what he said during the 1990s about the future of telecommunications is now coming true. Gilder first became famous in 1981 with a book called ''Wealth and Poverty,'' a justification of supply-side economics that become a cornerstone for President Ronald Reagan's controversial idea of growing government revenue by cutting taxes. He then shifted his focus to technology, informally studying physics and electronics at the California Institute of Technology under legendary Professor Carver Mead. Mead and his students were then trying to devise electronic circuits that functioned in the same ways as neurons in the brain, ultimately leading to a kind of silicon retina that became the basis for Foveon. Gilder's 300-page book is choppy and doesn't fully support its grand subtitle: ''How a Silicon Valley Company Aims to Make All Current Computers, Cameras, and Cell Phones Obsolete.'' But it would be also be a mistake to write off Foveon. The company's innovative chip, introduced in September 2000, delivers more accurate colors in a smaller package with less power consumption than established imaging technologies called CCD and CMOS. These advantages don't stand out in conventional digital cameras but could be important in emerging applications, such as cell-phone cameras, medicine and electronic surveillance. So far only Sigma, a small Japanese company, has sold a camera with the Foveon chip. The $1,000 Sigma SD9 and subsequent SD10 got good reviews but sold in quantities that would be a rounding error to giants such as Canon, Kodak, Nikon and Sony. A second project with a low-end electronics company to make a $300 Foveon digital camera under the Polaroid brand name has become an embarrassment. Delayed for almost a year because of technical hang-ups, the first of the Polaroid/Foveon cameras were recalled from stores in Great Britain last week because of bugs. Chief Executive Federico Faggin, through a spokesman, declined earlier this week to comment on Gilder's book or where the company is headed. Gilder, meanwhile, shows no inclination to stop being controversial. He's now working on a book about physics that he says will debunk current work in the field as ''high theory . . . full of bogus assurances about phenomena that aren't even vaguely understood.'' It's unlikely Gilder will deliver the definitive treatise on how the universe works. But I'm sure the book won't be dull or predictable.