[TriLUG] Red Hat + IBM, good or bad?

[Pete Soper via TriLUG]

With my first startup in the late 70s, the option price was 1.5X the
book value of the stock (was still private and not traded in a market).
With the second startup in the 80s I cleared about $160 for several
thousand hours of extra work over a 9-5 job. With the third startup,
bought by Sun, I paid off my first house but was too stupid to execute
all the shares before the dot com bubble burst and the options were
under water from that point on. Sun was on the down elevator from that
point on, doubling down on innovation and development while setting a
new high water mark for managerial incompetence. Since in late 2007 1/3
of Sun's business was with big finance, the crash hit them right over
the head and the layoffs accelerated as they started shopping the
company and they shed me the following year (just a few days after Steve
Goldman's unexpected death).

Quick story: Sun came within a single weekend of being bought by IBM. My
buddies at the local Sun office in Cary said it was a done deal on a
Friday and it would be announced the following week. Rumor had it later
that Schwartz pulled a bone head move with IBM over that weekend,  IBM
called his bluff, the deal was off, and then Oracle came in and offered
an extra dime a share. My ex-coworkers at the time were dazed and
confused at the prospect of being absorbed by IBM before that weekend.
Of course what came next made purchase by IBM look like a free ticket to
Disneyland.

-Pete (dad worked for IBM 1957-1987)

On 10/30/18 11:25 AM, Ric Moore wrote:
> On 10/29/18 4:32 AM, Pete Soper wrote:
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Ric Moore via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org>
>> Date: 10/29/18 1:07 AM (GMT-05:00)
>> To: trilug at trilug.org
>> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Red Hat + IBM, good or bad?
>>
>> On 10/28/18 10:39 PM, Israel J. Pattison via TriLUG wrote:
>>
>>  > I think IBM will work out just fine, and the many Red Hatters and
>> IBMers
>>  > who are TriLUG members can keep us apprised of how things are going.
>>
>> I wonder if our old employee RH IPO options are worth a damn? I left RH
>> in 2000 with a pile of options hanging. No idea if they still exist. Ric
>> -------------------
>> Typically if you leave you have a short time (like 30 days) to
>> exercise options before you lose them.
>
> RedHat had tanked to about $35 while my options were above $150. 1.500
> shares of no gain are still nothing, ergo no loss. <sobs like a
> grandmother> Ric
>
>