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The Almighty Buck Businesses The Internet

Google Chooses An Underwriter For Upcoming IPO 300

Posted by timothy from the money-in-the-bank dept.
PenguinSix writes "Bloomberg and a bunch of others are reporting that Google has hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to arrange its initial public offering. This follows literally years of rumors and stories about a Google IPO. About a third of Mountain View, California-based Google may be sold in the IPO, giving the company a market value of about $12 billion, the bankers said." Google has become so invaluable to many people (like me) that they could probably raise just as much money with a blackmail scheme.
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Google Chooses An Underwriter For Upcoming IPO More

Google Chooses An Underwriter For Upcoming IPO

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  • Blackmail.. maybe worse... (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:40PM (#7886414) Homepage Journal

    ..they could probably raise just as much money with a blackmail scheme.

    I was thinking along the lines of:
    Dearest Sir or Madam,
    Our names are Sergey Brin and Larry Page. We created
    Google. This letter may come as a suprise to you
    being as we have never met. A mutual friend, however,
    suggested we contact you. There is an impending IPO
    which will make our firm worth 12 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS
    ($12,000,000,000). To release this money, we ask that
    you join us in a business partnership....

  • This is so 5 years ago (Score:3, Funny)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:40PM (#7886415) Homepage Journal
    I'd buy that for a dollar!

    • The problem is (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @09:06PM (#7887070) Homepage Journal
      Unfortunately once they do this the companies worth will be based on its stock price instead of vice versa. And its stock price will be based on public opinion instead of tangible assets and the like..

      Thus, while the original owners will maintain the appearance of control, the value of the company will fall into the realm of public opinion. As a result, in order to maintain company health it becomes necessary to start bullshitting (considering public opinion is based heavily on marketing)...

      Et tu Google.

  • Now all we have to do... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lasmith05 ( 578697 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:40PM (#7886419) Homepage
    Is figure out a way us regular mortals to get in on the IPO. :D
    • Very simple - wait for the first day run up in price, then sell it short like hell... Has worked for every other Internet IPO I have tried (RedHat, Netscape, yada yada yada)

      Just kidding of course - they tend not to let you short the stock for a couple months until after the insiders are selling out

    • Be Careful: Use Buy Limit Orders (Score:5, Informative)

      by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @08:07PM (#7886650)
      If you do buy Google on day 1, don't use a market order (especially in the first minutes). If the IPO becomes a feeding frenzy, you could easily end up paying 2 or 3 times what you expected (and yes, your broker WILL hold you to that price, no matter how bad it is). Instead, use a buy limit order [investorwords.com] to ensure that you pay no more than your target price for the stock. With a limit order it is possible that you will get no shares (if the stock blows past your price). On the other hand, you are ensured that you won't get shares at some outrageous price.

      • Re:Be Careful: Use Buy Limit Orders (Score:5, Informative)

        by Frisky070802 ( 591229 ) * on Monday January 05, 2004 @09:05PM (#7887063) Journal
        You never know... I put in a limit order for Akamai [yahoo.com]'s IPO at 100, and was excited when I saw it was at 114 until I realized my order never executed. So I cancelled it and stewed, and watched it keep going up the 1st day, only to jump in an hour later at $145. I saw it go up to maybe $345 and put in a stop loss order to sell at $245 on the way back down. (I'd have sold earlier but my wife insisted we not bail too early).

        Obviously things have changed since 1999 (or whenever this happened). But while I agree with you completely that a limit order is good for ensuring your exposure is limited, people may want to place that limit pretty high, depending on how desperate they are to buy in. And anyone who is risk-averse should of course stay far away, or at least wait to see how the wind blows.

    • Re:Now all we have to do... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @08:50PM (#7886934) Homepage Journal
      Regular mortals will be in on the IPO. Somebody has to pay for the fall.

  • Now all they need to do (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    is weed out the search engine spam links, and we'll be set.

    Of course, IPOs have destroyed more companies than helped, in terms of the customer experience, so I'm not counting on it.

  • IPO: It's Probably Overpriced (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:40PM (#7886425)
    "IPO: It's Probably Overpriced"

    Then again, if offered a chance to buy some, and assuming it's not being done by auction, sure, I'll take some. And I'll flip it the first day. Without shame. Bring it on!

    • "IPO: It's Probably Overpriced"

      That would have been funny five years ago.

  • I think I'll buy some (Score:5, Funny)

    by arnoroefs2000 ( 122990 ) * on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:41PM (#7886427) Homepage

    "On any given day there would be a line of 200 investment bankers that would kill their mothers to get the Google deal,"
    said Reed Taussig, chief executive officer at Callidus Software Inc., a San Jose, California based company that plans to sell shares in an IPO.

    I think I will be SELLING my mom to buy some stock :)

  • say good bye (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GoatPigSheep ( 525460 )
    Google will cease to be of any use once they have to satisfy a bunch of share-holder's demands.

    Guesse it's time to find a new search engine

    • Re:say good bye (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:45PM (#7886471) Homepage Journal
      Google will cease to be of any use once they have to satisfy a bunch of share-holder's demands.

      They are only selling 1/3 of the stock, which means they will be maintianing full control themselves. I think we have much more to worry about from all the people trying to spam googles page ranking system. And even then, they seem to be making some progress with that.

      Jedidiah.
      • 1/3 of the companies value, or 1/3 of the available shares will be floated?

        Or both?

        If they are not floting all the shares, then whats the point, your value will be reduced by 2/3 when they float the rest of the shares considering most people wont be paying much attention until the shares hit the open...

      • Re:say good bye (Score:3, Informative)

        by beta21 ( 88000 )
        You mean like the search term miserable failure [google.com].

        If are to lazy to look it's dubya's page

    • Re:say good bye (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:50PM (#7886521)
      > Google will cease to be of any use once they have to satisfy a bunch of share-holder's demands.

      Only a third of the company is being sold. The principals who made Google what it is will retain a controlling interest.

      And since they'll have enough money to buy anything they could ever want for the rest of their lives, up to and including sending a probe to Mars, so long as they retain a controlling interest, it's highly unlikely that any price will cause them to fuck up the wonderful thing that is Google.

      The management of Google is responsible for seeing to the best interests of Google's shareholders. So long as that team holds 51% of the shares, the interests of Google's geeky management are the interests of the shareholders.

      It's called shareholder democracy. You vote what you own. If the thousands of fund managers and people who buy stock in the market (who will, collectively, own 33% of the company) try to change the direction of Google against the wishes of the few dozen founders and managers (who own the remaining 66% of the company), the owners of the company can tell the fund managers to go straight to hell, and there ain't a damn thing the fund managers can do about it.

      It's strongly rumored that Microsoft made a buyout offer to Google, and was turned down. The founders of Google aren't in it for the $12B because there's not much that Google does that requires $12B of paid-in capital. They're going IPO to make sure they, and those who helped build the company with them, get a good payday out of it. They built something wonderful, and they're now being rewarded for their efforts, and they're doing so without compromising a damn thing. To all three of those things, I say more power to 'em.

      • the owners of the company can tell the fund managers to go straight to hell, and there ain't a damn thing the fund managers can do about it.

        Then what's all this about shareholders suing companies because they don't act in their shareholders' best interests?

      • Re:say good bye (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You're naive. That works if there's one person with 66% and the rest of the world with 33%, but in reality, it's more like 33% for the world, 10% for director A, 15% for director B, 20% for director C, etc. All the 33% has to do to get their way is present an idea that C likes too and they are the majority.
        • You're naive. That works if there's one person with 66% and the rest of the world with 33%, but in reality, it's more like 33% for the world, 10% for director A, 15% for director B, 20% for director C, etc. All the 33% has to do to get their way is present an idea that C likes too and they are the majority.
          You idiot. The 33% owned by the rest of the world is even more fragmented than the 66% owned by the current shareholders.
      • >> They built something wonderful, and they're now being rewarded for their efforts, and they're doing so without compromising a damn thing.

        Not quite... with a huge payout like that, they're probably setting up a good portion of their key staff to retire. I'm not sure how much that staff is key to the continued success of Google, but it sure as hell was key to them getting to where they are now.

        If any of the instant-millionaire-retirees is crucial to the business (continued growth, etc.), then th
        • Google management will have 6 months after the IPO to find ways of keeping anybody important to their operation that is about to become rich. There are SEC rules that employees are not allowed to sell their shares for 6 months after the IPO. Here is a very good explanation. [invest-faq.com] It is possible that people who "know too much" may not be allowed to sell their shares for years.

          The other side is that while most full-timers at Google have either shares or options, they probably did not amount to much compared to
      • And since they'll have enough money to buy anything they could ever want for the rest of their lives, up to and including sending a probe to Mars, so long as they retain a controlling interest, it's highly unlikely that any price will cause them to fuck up the wonderful thing that is Google.

        The argument that people become good when they become rich is oxymoronic.
      • google was reaching the point where they pretty much had to

        http://news.com.com/2100-1030-5119504.html
        A private company must report its finances once it has more than 500 common shareholders--or stock-option holders--and $10 million in assets, according to section XII(g) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. That means a private company must file quarterly forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that disclose operating expenses, profits, partnerships, shareholders and many other detai

  • Wonderful. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vegetablespork ( 575101 )
    Now they'll have to "monetize" the search service. Then the pay for ranking results move up and webmasters start blocking the crawler because they charge. And it goes to shit.

    • Re:Wonderful. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 )
      Now they'll have to "monetize" the search service. Then the pay for ranking results move up and webmasters start blocking the crawler because they charge. And it goes to shit.

      I gather Google does quite well with it's present money making schemes: text ads, and licensing the search technology. They aren't exactly printing money, but they are comfortably in the black from what I hear. As long as it only stays at 1/3 of stock sold and the current people remain in control, I very much doubt Google will hav
      • Public companies are operated in order to maximise revenue quarter on quarter. Google's decision making process around, eg, dealing sanely with revenue streams that would erode long term value of the search engine (selling rankings and so on) will have a head on clash with the requirements of being a publicly owned company.

        Ivestment managers don't give a shit if maximising their investment in your company thise quarter has long term repercussions that cause you to go broke in a year's time. By then they

    • Re:Wonderful. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jrockway ( 229604 )
      Before you know it, they're going to sell ads at the top of the page that come up when you type keywords. Then they're going to add some to the side of the results pages! Then everyone will stop using google because it sucks so much.

      Oh wait. They did that, and it works wonderfully. Google is already profitable. They don't need to (and won't) screw themselves with fake results (*) :)

      (*) Actually sometimes the results are pretty bad because of annoying people link-spamming things. Like getting Bush's

  • Google - "Pineapple-Upsidedown-Beans" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:41PM (#7886433) Homepage Journal
    Buy Google Stock!

    I'd prefer to see Google sell shares right over the internet through their website, maybe allow you to buy via an online payment service or other immediate means, such as credit card (with a validation period or something like that to prevent fraud.) I'd probably buy a few shares just 'cause I think they'd look cool in frames and would make great geek gifts! :-)

    Google's geek following is strong, it would be a shame if a bunch of suits were owners. Good idea to keep it to only 1/3, but how long will that last?

    GOO appears available as a stock ticker symbol.

    Regarding blackmail, how so? Hasn't Google already been under the scope for fixing searches? Seems a dodgy thing to do once you're publicly traded, but fine as long as you're privately held.

    • I'd prefer to see Google sell shares right over the internet through their website, maybe allow you to buy via an online payment service or other immediate means, such as credit card

      There are a lot of SEC type problems with that sort of scheme. Being practical, most investors are institutional, mutual funds, etc, not geeks that might buy 1 share. If you want, there are various services that will sell you 1 share, but it usually costs $25-$50 to have the share issued to you.

      Regarding blackmail, how so?

    • I'd probably buy a few shares just 'cause I think they'd look cool in frames and would make great geek gifts! :-)

      ah, idiot investors--the boiler room of modern economies. Once thought extinct after 1999, it seems they were just hiding. And I don't mean the garden variety idiot investor that ran from stocks to mutual funds because they were 'safer'--I mean hard-core idiot investors who yearn to buy stocks online!

      Unless, of course, the parent post was entirely in jest.. but i dont see any evidence of th

  • I want it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ActionPlant ( 721843 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:42PM (#7886436) Homepage
    I'd buy some.

    Even at the possible 7% mentioned, I'm sure it wouldn't take long to make a lot of money considering how ridiculously well-established google is in so many homes and businesses. One wonders how inflated they could wind up looking though. Could the google stigma raise their own market value above what it will be able to maintain? I guess this is why they're selling that 33% and not 49.

    Damon,
    • Even at the possible 7% mentioned, I'm sure it wouldn't take long to make a lot of money considering how ridiculously well-established google is in so many homes and businesses. One wonders how inflated they could wind up looking though. Could the google stigma raise their own market value above what it will be able to maintain? I guess this is why they're selling that 33% and not 49.

      Unfortunately high usage does not immediately equte to high revenue. Not that Google is doing badly - I expect they do q
      • Unfortunately high usage does not immediately equte to high revenue.

        Very true. I have a feeling though they're counting on that geek factor to carry them through any potential tough times (like perhaps a downswing after some fast initial sales). The trick now is to simply stay true to their roots. Don't worry about impressing investors. It was those decisions from the gut that got them where they are today.

        Damon,

  • Please stay private... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:42PM (#7886438) Journal

    Is there anyone else here who is thinking that having such an invaluable internet tool now subject to the whims of public investors is not such a great thing? I would have rathered that Google stay private forever. That way they can make decisions based on what they think is best, not what will increase their stock price the most next quarter.

    GMD

    • They're only selling 1/3 (Score:5, Informative)

      by astrashe ( 7452 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:54PM (#7886558) Journal
      They're only selling a third of the company.

      The current owners will have absolute control, and won't have to follow the whims of anyone else.

      • Re:They're only selling 1/3 (Score:4, Insightful)

        by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @08:05PM (#7886638) Journal

        They're only selling a third of the company.

        The current owners will have absolute control, and won't have to follow the whims of anyone else.

        That only works if the current owners always vote together as one entity. I doubt there is company that has ever put up more than 49% of their stock in an IPO. They always figure that they have 'absolute control'. But things never stay that way indefinitely.

        Going public basically takes power out of the hands of employees and private investors, who probably care about the long-term health of a company, and puts it in the hands of the public (including market timers and mutual fund managers) who may not care what the hell happens to the stock price two quarters into the future.

        GMD

        • If you want to retain ownership, but still raise capital you can always keep super voting stock. Ford, Comcast, Liberty Media, Viacom, and a whole host of other companies maintain very tiny holdings of the public stock, but will remain family owned basically forever.
      • There was a predatory dentist/venture capitalist/litigator who was able to do terrible things once he owned any percentage.

        Dunno if Stephenson messed up or not, but that seems like the kind of Valley detail he'd get right.
      • They're only selling 1/3 in the IPO. That doesn't stop the VCs and insiders from exercising and selling their options. The primary motivation for an IPO is often because the early investors want to cash out and get a return on their investment. The employees will certainly be dumping some shares in the name of diversification, too.

        It won't happen immediately, but in time more than 50% of the company's stock will be available on the public markets. Go look at Yahoo [yahoo.com]. Look at the percentage held by insi

      • Until the current owners start selling shares or end up fighting with each other and a few of them use the public's 33% to get control.

        In the long run, it will only require 25% of the shares to control a large company like Google. See for yourself how this is done in other big companies.

        Don't forget that some of the current owners will want to cash out, and that will make the 33% public shares go even higher.

        You guys are SO optimistic it makes me sick.
    • hat way they can make decisions based on what they think is best, not what will increase their stock price the most next quarter.

      Fortunately, those are one and the same most of the time. If a company cannot make money consistently, it will go out of business, and thus fail itself, its employees, investors, and customers.

      If Google-- or any public company-- makes a mistake, its stock price will drop, middle managers will get fired, and the company will (hopefully) learn and do better.

      Private companies of
      • The stock market is not about making a profit, that isn't good enough. There needs to be ever raising profit for the stock to grow. Which is where the problems everyone is worried about are coming from.
    • I'm guessing a lot of people are thinking that. But knowing Google and their "Don't Be Evil" motto, the downward greed spiral should be much slower than most.

      Anyway, Google won't last forever, IPO or not; I still think distributed search will win in the end.

      --

    • I would have rathered that Google stay private forever. That way they can make decisions based on what they think is best, not what will increase their stock price the most next quarter.

      Nice, but not realistic. Google has come to thrive under our glorious capitalistic marketplace that rewards entrepreneurial efforts. People who have the fire in their belly to sweat and claw to build the #1 search engine on the Internet are rarely the sort altruistic souls who will suddenly stop short of fully reaping th

  • Probably a solid investment (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wingchild ( 212447 ) <brian.kern@gmail.com> on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:43PM (#7886450)
    While it's been our experience that a lot of tech companies run IPOs for fast cash and then wind up dying shortly afterwards (think of the dot-com bubble bursting), Google is more like investing in your infrastructure; it's an invaluable tool used by a huge segment of the net-aware population, and thus is probably a very safe bet.

    For contrast, you can ask yourself how badly those investments in Yahoo! turned out, years after they started themselves as a category-based alternative to the search engines available in the mid-90s.

  • Who knows.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by phaetonic ( 621542 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:43PM (#7886453)
    For those who remember how crazy the IPO prices were back in the dot come era, do you think google's IPO will be as crazy as, lets say, RedHat? I can't even recall the last IPO I've heard about.

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by mgcsinc ( 681597 )
    Anyone have any idea about the validity of the earlier rumor about the IPO taking place with an online auction-type offering? This is what had always intrigued me about this potential IPO - it would seem to open up the possibility of early investment to the average Joe and I bet it would guarantee a pretty penny for Google...
    • > Anyone have any idea about the validity of the earlier rumor about the IPO taking place with an online auction-type offering? This is what had always intrigued me about this potential IPO - it would seem to open up the possibility of early investment to the average Joe and I bet it would guarantee a pretty penny for Google...

      I've heard nothing either way.

      Note that if it's done traditionally, there'll likely be a huge opening pop. GS and MS will price the shares high, but there'll be enough ret

  • Dammit Google, I love you (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:53PM (#7886552)
    Dear Google,

    I have been seriously evaluating our relationship, and I've concluded you are not offering me what I need to be happy. I feel it is time for me to move on.

    Yes, I know it's hard. We did have some good times together. Remember those times when you had "beta" in your name? Then came the time you bought and saved the Dejanews archive. I will always admire you for that. Then there was the time you added News search and Froogle. And all those times that you put those funny little cartoons in your name on holidays and on the birthdays of famous artists? Ahh, those were the days.

    But those days are gone. Lately, you have been neglecting my needs as more and more results are being skewed by "link farming."

    Then your eyes started to wander, and you started to pursue this illicit "shareholder love." You were wooed by this new lover that had a big wad of cash in his pocket.

    Dear, no person can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. There are just too many search engines piled on the heap who whore out search results to the highest bidder. They think that they will never be caught, but eventually they are always found out.

    You are just scaring me too much for me to take it anymore. I think it's best for both of us to find some therapy and move on.

    Love,

    eclectro

  • Law of nature (Score:4, Interesting)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:54PM (#7886555) Homepage Journal
    It is the law of nature that no one can keep a lead for ever. Bigger/better always comes along and looking at recent news coverage (it was posted on here too), Google might hasten the plans of going public before the next google shows up.....
    But maybe I will still buy some if I had the money to spare...

  • Now is the time to sell some of my NVDA thats been in the doldrums and buy GOO!

    This has the potential to make a ton of money if you can get in. I bought and traded NVDA a bunch in the ipo and during the time the news came out they were being put in the xbox. It was easy making money when the stock would swing 10,20,50 points.

    Oh and before the other posters get it---

    "I for one welcome our new google overlords"

  • They might as well... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:54PM (#7886557)
    According to silicon.com [silicon.com]:A private company must report its finances once it has more than 500 common shareholders - or stock-option holders - and $10m in assets, according to section XII(g) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. That means a private company must file forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) each quarter that disclose operating expenses, profits, partnerships, shareholders and many other details - a laborious process that can cost as much as $2m annually.

    In other words, since the SEC is forcing them to behave like a publicly held company and publish quarterly reports, they might as well take the money and run -- much as we'd like them to remain privately held.

  • The article doesn't list the planned exchange for the trade of Google Stock, but how'd you like to have the ticker GOO?

    "I'll take 20,000 shares of GOO please!"

    Common... it SOUNDS funny people!

  • $12 billion? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nuggz ( 69912 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @07:57PM (#7886581) Homepage
    Uhh what makes google worth $12 billion dollars?
    Unless they have hundreds of millions in profit, you're better off buying a bond.
    I don't get why it makes sense to buy google.

  • Blackmail unnecessary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lurker412 ( 706164 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @08:01PM (#7886614)
    I don't know about you, but I would certainly pony up 10 bucks a month if Google switched to a subscription model. For me, it is the most useful site on the Web. I sure hope the new corporate overlords don't screw it up.

  • Who are they planning to buy? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JonMartin ( 123209 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @08:03PM (#7886628) Homepage
    Myself and a few co-workers were just talking about this. You see, Google's financials are excellent. By all accounts hey are making serious profits, all while doing R&D and maintaining infrastructure. So why the hassle of an IPO? We came up with two possibilities, one boring and one intriguing.

    First explanation, their VCs have decided that now is the time to make some money and move on (markets looking up and such). Boring, but very likely.

    Or... Google wants to buy somebody. They see an opportunity to do something big. We thought maybe they want to buy a big media company and become the defacto place to buy digital media. Everybody and their cousin seems to be starting online music stores. Maybe Google figures they can leverage their infrastructure and search market share to sell people music in the same place they search. But just another online music store is also boring. What if they bought MGM? Or a big slice of Vivendi? Music and movies.

    Think about it.

    • They could also be looking to buy an ISP [earthlink.net]. Google is an on-line destination. What brings people to Google? ISPs! EarthLink [earthlink.net] looks like a good candidate. Both companies seem to have similar philosophies in terms of striving to give their users what they need.

    • Google must IPO (Score:5, Informative)

      by solprovider ( 628033 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @10:24PM (#7887576) Homepage
      Google has remained private as long as possible. If their VCs were looking to cash out, they could have done it before the crash. And everyone has been asking them to IPO for the last 2 years to kickstart the stock market. It was smart of them to wait until the DJ was above 10,000, but probably unnecessary.

      They probably are not worrying about buying somebody either.

      The reason they are going public is because SEC rules force companies with a certain number of owners to go public. The companies have to file all the costly paperwork as if they were a public company, and they lose most of the advantages of staying private, such as not releasing all that information about their activities. There is little reason to stay private, and the extra cash from the IPO is handy for paying for all that paperwork.

      The famous case of this happening was Microsoft. Too many employees were exchanging shares privately, and the SEC forced them to go public. They did really well, and you cannot blame their decline on being a public company since the prior management is still running things. OTOH, because MSFT is public, the shareholders can insist on new management, but they will probably wait until the stock goes under $10, and that will be too late to save the company, if it isn't already.

      Google is being forced into going public. There is no need to look for extra motives from their investors and management.
  • First, I'm guessing that a upper-lowerclass $$$ maker such as myself will not be able to buy any stock. The price will most likely be prohibitive, and access will be tough (my prediction). (50+ bucks a share??) I don't know, as IANASB (I Am Not A Stock Broker). Then, with a zillion shares out there, how can the price go up as...

    Google's results have been biting the big-internet-searching-cock-in-the-sky recently, and I haven't seen much improvement. Linkfarms and blogs are wrecking the results.

    I reca

  • Financials and dutch auction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0WaitState ( 231806 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @08:30PM (#7886813)
    It will be interesting to see the financials in the prospectus. Everybody "knows" that Google is profitable, but by how much? How long? What are the main sources of income?

    Another thought, the smart thing to do would be a dutch auction, where every interested party posts blind bids in advance for lots of stock, with the highest bids being filled first, then next-highest, etc, until all the stock is sold. This means Google gets every penny they should and prevents investment bankers from underpricing the IPO to create a first-day "pop" in share value, where the IB and favored clients get to flip the stock for the difference between IPO price and pop price.
  • but I say it's a cashout by the Google boys.

    They know they have new engine types on one side of them and the ominous spectre of Omnicron, Devourer Of Planets - excuse me, I mean Bill Gates, on the other.

    I say they're cashing in before they either sell out to M$ or hit the silk when the company craps out.

    OR it might survive anyway. Either way, they win.

  • Google has become so invaluable to many people (like me) that they could probably raise just as much money with a blackmail scheme.
    Uh, timothy, in a capitalistic society, that's called "charging for services," not blackmail.

    I've said many times over the years that I would be willing to pay at least $1K-$5K per year for deja.com, which Google has since taken over. I would be useless at my job without it.

  • Google is slipping (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Monday January 05, 2004 @08:40PM (#7886880)
    I hope these problems I've seen recently are just temporary, but Google (or at least, google.ca) is having problems. A friend of mine noticed this too and in fact we were discussing this earlier. These can be show-stoppers, so they'd better iron it out before IPO:
    • The search engine stalls and introduces delays longer than any I've experienced in the past
    • There is more and more garbage in the index. In particular, sites that appear to have figured out the google algorithm and are using sites with similar content and mutual links to rank higher
    • Sometimes, pages I know are there appear to be dropping into blackholes. As in, they disappear and there are no search results -- but a few hours later, there are thousands of results

  • Time for alternatives (Score:2, Informative)

    by 1ini ( 629558 )
    Well it was good while it lasted! My boss suggested that i start using something other than Google so i found Teoma [teoma.com]. Seems like a nice engine.
  • ...not far off, with the way IPOs are currently allocated and priced. But then the institutional investors get the money, not the company.
  • This is great. I myself will be buying Google shares the instant they go IPO. I might turn around and sell those share a day or a week later but I will make money off of them.

    However, Google's IPO is expected to unleash a slew of other tech IPOs. Not like back when the bubble was forming (POP!) but a Google IPO will make other companies follow suit thus creating another smaller bubble.

    Investors probably won't be as dumb this time as they were last time but 2004 has been predicted as a good year for t

  • Sure, I agree Google is very useful, but I still can't figure out where the heck they are getting this kind of valuation from. [Except for the usenet archives, and only sort of there] Google doesn't own any of the information that they help people access. They are just a kind of middleman there. At least in theory, anyone else can access the same information.

    Sure can't be their hardware. Supposed to be just a big pile of PCs and mass storage devices.

    Actually, Google might even wind up in a serious liabili
  • WEll it was a good run. Google will suck within 2 years of going IPO.

  • How about a P2P search engine? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @09:47PM (#7887337)
    Imagine a distributed P2P search engine with no central control that can spider faster than Google. Imagine some form of authentication so only known good software can participate as part of it. Not sure how the system knows what is a valid upgrade yet but hey. You run the search engine in the background, it scans the net at whatever rate you set and maintains a small part of the DB. Naturally it would have to be Free software (not just OSS) to prevent someone getting control. I just had to throw this out there in the hope someone can figure out the hard parts and build it.

  • Google going downhill already (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acomj ( 20611 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @09:52PM (#7887368) Homepage
    I tried searching for reveiws of some products this holiday season. I have a method of keywords I used to get me past the ads. This used to work great. The google slammers (or whatever they're called now) are getting much much better as a lot of what looked to be reviews were just sites selling. Uggg. Often I would have to go to page 2 and 3 to pick up real review. I ended up using sites recomended by a friend and searched there postings.

    I've started looking for/using other engines already. Sometimes when you get too big everyone tries to trick the service into selling.

    Like open source preaches options are really important to keep things going.

  • Three quarters of the investment-advice posts in this thread are based on a completely mistaken understanding of how IPOs and the stock market function.

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