Silicon Investor - Systemsoft Inc. (SYSF)

[90sInvestor] Thanks for the kind words and God bless you too. I met my wife in Boston while...

90sInvestor — 6/4/2020 1:47:13 AM

Thanks for the kind words and God bless you too.

I met my wife in Boston while we were in college in the mid 90s, she was 22 and I was 23; I was crazy about her from day one and still am just the same. We used to stroll down Allston st in Boston near Commonwealth Ave by BU and I used to get into fist fights with morons hitting on her. Irish Massholes were wild and crazy. Drunk all the time. I was crazy even more. Cops knew me back then, I was a regular. They used to break up fights. They didn't shoot you, arrest you, insult you, harass you or club you. They were almost friends. Almost... These were different times. Everything changed after 9-11; we lost our spirit, we lost our drive and everything turned sour. Look at what we've become.
I just thank heavens that we lived in an era without these horrible smart phones with all these intrusive apps and constant footage taking and posting. People now are looking for misery rather than living happily. As a country we lost our family values and that certain je ne sais quoi we used to have in the 90s. Now everyone is stuffed home away from everyone else avoiding this horrible virus. In our house our two kids were supposed to be in college but instead they're home facing uncertain futures.
I'm wishing for better days.

Thanks for the financial tips,and yes maybe I wouldn't have held Amazon that long, who knows. I'm just thrilled with what happened; I don't miss the stresses. my wife now is handling our investments and she has us in the through Schwab safe whole market investments and we're doing OK.

Best of luck my friend!

[Jimbo Cobb] That is a great story and God bless you and your wife. She sounds like a good w...

Jimbo Cobb — 6/3/2020 4:59:33 PM

That is a great story and God bless you and your wife. She sounds like a good woman.
On the bright side, if you'd bought Amazon, you probably wouldn't have held it 25 years or whatever. :)

Giving up on investing in individual stocks doesn't necessarily mean you have to give up on investing altogether though. In order to take a lot of the stress out of investing, most people should probably just follow Warren Buffett's advice and dollar-cost-average over time into a S&P 500 fund (or I guess buy SPY). If you own the whole S&P 500, you don't really have to spend time stressing at night over companies going to zero. Of course, some of the S&P 500 will fail over time, but the winners will more than make up for the losers.

Even the S&P 500 can drop 50% in a big crash (financial crisis, etc), but over time it always seems to come out in pretty good shape (at least so far). :)

Take care yourself!

[90sInvestor] Good for you! Unfortunately that wasn't the case for me, I lost every last penny...

90sInvestor — 6/3/2020 3:23:42 PM

Good for you! Unfortunately that wasn't the case for me, I lost every last penny.

That year I was a contractor for UUNET (it was famous in the 90s before it was bought by Verizon) and I was clocking so much over time that year as a kid out of college it was physically painful. I was working crazy hours even when it was my first year of marriage. I made about $200k that year just working non stop. From that salary I invested $40k cash straight cash and doubled that to $80k within 6 months! It was only on buying and selling penny stocks. Then my dead end was Systemsoft.
I remember the day I told my wife while she was pregnant that I lost the whole $80k (it was over time but that day it was just permanent); I remember it and it was a huge wake up call. She put her hands on my shoulders, bent over with her head touching my head and I can still see her big stomach being pregnant, looked at me with her amazingly beautiful eyes, whispered and said "did I just get married to a gambler?". I almost died! I still choke up to this day every time I remember it. It never gets stale...
From that day on I never wanted to have anything to do with the stock market or dealing with stocks. It just was never going to be for me any way shape or form.
The reason why I reached out on google to see if I can find out what actually happened to the company is because I hear in the news about Hertz going under and I thought what if I had bought Amazon and made hundreds of millions then bought Hertz and went completely under like Systemsoft?! That would really kill anyone!
Anyway that was my story and thank you for replying.
Best of luck and stay safe during these tough times.

I learned my lesson that family is much more important than all the money in the world.

[Jimbo Cobb] Wow, that's rough. Yes, I invested in Systemsoft. I made some money and was up...

Jimbo Cobb — 6/1/2020 1:00:21 PM

Wow, that's rough.

Yes, I invested in Systemsoft. I made some money and was up big but ended up losing most if not all of the profits. I don't remember all the details, but I think I sold all my shares well before it went to zero but not before a lot of damage had been done.
Fortunately, I was pretty well diversified, so I was able to survive and move forward.

I think the company went completely under:

nytimes.com

bizjournals.com

I guess Microsoft pretty much put them out of business by incorporating changes into Windows that Systemsoft was doing separately before that.

[90sInvestor] HEY!!! That's awesome... I wanted to ask if you had invested in Systemsoft. I'...

90sInvestor — 5/27/2020 12:32:49 AM

HEY!!! That's awesome...

I wanted to ask if you had invested in Systemsoft. I'll tell you a story, a sad one but who cares that's life; I was living in DC back then and had doubled my money investing in penny stocks. My fortune was about 80K which I VERY foolishly invested all of it in systemsoft. Yup the whole nine yards.

The sad story was that while I was pulling out of a parking spot out of the CompUSA parking lot I had heard on the radio that a company called Amazon had just went IPO and the stock was around either $18 or $40 I don't remember, but back then I remember I instantly thought very seriously, should I buy this stock? Then right after I pulled out the parking lot I had decided NUH it's too expensive, I wanted to make money quickly. Then systemsoft went under and I lost every last penny of that $80k...

I stopped buying stocks from then on.

I wanted to find out on this board if you have any idea of what happened to that company.Did they restructure and get back on track on did they completely go under? I'm scarred of that experience and too disgusted to dig deep and thought the experts might have quick answers...

Cheers!

[Jimbo Cobb] Sam: Wow, a post from 24 years ago? Time sure flies by! Not sure I'll remembe...

Jimbo Cobb — 5/26/2020 12:06:02 PM

Sam:

Wow, a post from 24 years ago? Time sure flies by!

Not sure I'll remember enough to answer questions about those days, but I can try.

I'm not really "active" on these boards, but I normally login once a year or so. :)

Jimbo

[90sInvestor] Hello there Jimbo Cobb, I know it's 2020 and it's a 1996 post but I'm desperatly...

90sInvestor — 5/24/2020 2:12:42 AM

Hello there Jimbo Cobb, I know it's 2020 and it's a 1996 post but I'm desperatly trying to see if someone went through what I went through back in the 90s and wanted to ask some questions... Are you still around? Please reply if you are active.
Thanks!
Sam

[90sInvestor] Hello Bill, this is 2020 replying to 1996 can you hear me? I have a question abo...

90sInvestor — 5/24/2020 1:57:33 AM

Hello Bill, this is 2020 replying to 1996 can you hear me? I have a question about SYSF if you can read me... If you're still on this platform please reply.
Thanks

Sam