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Technology Stocks : Silkroad -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Srexley who wrote (360)	4/19/1999 2:38:00 PM
From: Kachina	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 626

I hope my suspicions are wrong. But if you look back up this thread, you will see that I originally came into this because I had some big time red flags raised on this company. I backed off of that after it looked like they weren't transparently a con. And I gave them the benefit of the doubt, considering that at least a basic validation checked out. I have said several times that to go further would require going in and looking around and talking to the people at the company. I would want to talk to Palmer at this point. And his central cadre. And I would want to take along one of those little voice stress meters, and record the conversation. I'm real suspicious now. But - that said - I have participated in a con before. And I learned, after that, what red flags are. This company has a lot. That last post from Groksoup has raised my suspicions way, way back up. I think that the the fact that L3 people would probably never even consider the possibility of a con would be something that would throw them off. And the fact remains that there is nothing to that demo that could not be accomplished with currently available technology. Look - I could build a box that would fool lots of very smart people myself. The task of diagnosing exactly what is going on takes some sleuthing and access to the equipment in a lab environment over a period of time by trained technicians. Most of these guys who do technology review are a little on the light side in that department. Nobody would expect a con under these circumstances. Nobody. And that is what works in the con's favor. It just seems way, way too much to believe. And if anyone has dollar signs in their eyes, they will not want to believe it. Powerful enemies? Who cares about that? And what are they going to do if the principals have built up their offshore bank accounts and just decide to go bankrupt? It fails - who will look? And if the equipment got destroyed somehow, nobody could ever prove anything in court. This was pointed out by somebody else on this thread - not by me. No jury would be likely to be convinced. Look at this thread. Some very sharp people here, and nobody can figure it out. What group of regular folks could do it? What are they going to do if the principals skip to Brazil? Even given a meltdown, I doubt that they would even have to do that. They could likely stay here and tough it out just fine. Given all that, this looks to me like a "perfect crime" scenario - or it could be. No I don't know for sure. No - I don't KNOW that they are. I am not saying that. But I have had my suspicions re-aroused, big time. There are a lot of very weird things about this company. Now - to get some clue as to their burn rate: How many employees do they have Groksoup? 10? 20? 100? Let's do a strictly theoretical example: Multiply each employee by about $50K. You can get the costs down that low in a startup scenario by paying people stock options. At 10 people x $50K you have a rough $500K per year burn rate. Add in another $100K and you have a pretty nice looking facility. That is only 12 minimum investor blocks per year at their known minimum of $50K per person. And I know that they are taking $50K investments from small time people who borrow from the house. (This is based on personal contacts with an investor. It was his description of the way he invested that started me investigating.) That is not very many guys. If you bring in 50 or 60 investors a year that plunk down only the minimum - that gives you an awfully wide margin from the burn rate. So - let's say 50 - 12 = 38 $50K investment blocks per year. 38 x $50K = $1,900,000 per year that can be salted, split among maybe 2 or three principals? That's conservative. Very conservative. Usually, you get repeat business. I could easily see that figure up at double or triple what I just stated. Salting away 1 to 2 million bucks per principal is quite a reasonable proposition. No - I want to repeat - I DON'T know what is going on with the Silkroad Company. But there are a lot of red flags, and I am really curious. Why do I see them fitting the profile over and over? Why? We probably will never know. I would guess that these guys will likely fade off into the sunset. Maybe not. If they are for real, I am rooting for them. But why all the weirdness? I would like to answer that. But probably never will.