Google Mania
Surviving IPO Fever
They named their new search engine Google, for the biggest number they could imagine. But it wasn't big enough. Today Google's a library, an almanac, a settler of bets. It's a parlor game, a dating service, a shopping mall. It's a Microsoft rival. It's a verb. At more than 200 million requests a day, it is, by far, the world's biggest search engine. And now, on the eve of a very public stock offering, it's cast as savior, a harbinger of rebirth in the Valley. How can it be so many things? It's Goooooooooogle.
This year's hot IPO is, of course, Google. The company has everything its famous predecessors had and then some: consumer loyalty, top-drawer technology, profits, and promise. "There are good IPOs, and there are great IPOs," says Marc Andreessen, a veteran of the public-offering process at both Netscape and Loudcloud (now Opsware). "The Google IPO is the rarest kind: one that draws the white-hot glare of public attention."
This is more than what the bankers like to call a liquidity event. Already, the Google IPO seems to be heralding a great new round of public offerings - by late January, 26 tech companies were registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to financial research firm Dealogic, all apparently waiting for Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt to prime the pump. Market watchers say Google could start issuing stock as soon as this spring, and in many ways the company is behaving as though the quiet period has already begun. What hungry investors (and unemployed tech workers) really want out of Google can best be summed up by a bumper sticker out on the highways of Silicon Valley: just give us one more bubble.
Get the full story at wired.com
Surviving IPO Fever
They named their new search engine Google, for the biggest number they could imagine. But it wasn't big enough. Today Google's a library, an almanac, a settler of bets. It's a parlor game, a dating service, a shopping mall. It's a Microsoft rival. It's a verb. At more than 200 million requests a day, it is, by far, the world's biggest search engine. And now, on the eve of a very public stock offering, it's cast as savior, a harbinger of rebirth in the Valley. How can it be so many things? It's Goooooooooogle.
This year's hot IPO is, of course, Google. The company has everything its famous predecessors had and then some: consumer loyalty, top-drawer technology, profits, and promise. "There are good IPOs, and there are great IPOs," says Marc Andreessen, a veteran of the public-offering process at both Netscape and Loudcloud (now Opsware). "The Google IPO is the rarest kind: one that draws the white-hot glare of public attention."
This is more than what the bankers like to call a liquidity event. Already, the Google IPO seems to be heralding a great new round of public offerings - by late January, 26 tech companies were registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to financial research firm Dealogic, all apparently waiting for Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt to prime the pump. Market watchers say Google could start issuing stock as soon as this spring, and in many ways the company is behaving as though the quiet period has already begun. What hungry investors (and unemployed tech workers) really want out of Google can best be summed up by a bumper sticker out on the highways of Silicon Valley: just give us one more bubble.
Get the full story at wired.com
