Steve Jobs has passed

[Paelos]

You can invest in what you like, everything is personal preference. I don't believe for a second that the company won't continue to make money for the next 5 years.

They missed earnings estimates for the first time in 9 years and it's causing a dip. They are extremely cash rich and sitting on it. They are trading total shares worth $720B at current price, turning a profit of $26B.

The stock was a great buy in 2009. It was horrifically undervalued and has since quadrupled reaching new high points for it's lifetime. The sales boosts are driven almost entirely by Iphone rollouts and business decisions made in July of 2008 to June of 2009.

Unless they have another revolutionary product in their back pocket like an iPhone, you won't see that growth again. It's unprecented in the lifetime of the company. Everybody knows about the successes and are buying in. It's not going to sneak up on anyone.

[lamaros]

I hate split pea soup.

We get it, you like Apple and Jobs. The pic is telling us that, you don't have to make every second post in the thread one of yours.

[Strazos]

Since we're talking stocks, allow stupid me to make a small tangent.

I'll admit - I don't know much about the stock market. One thing I've never understood is why a company necessarily cares about how much their stock is being traded for - if I sell some shares to Joe-Bob, why is this necessarily seen as a good thing? And another thing - in general, but especially during sell-offs...who the heck is necessarily buying? I'm under the assumption that SOMEONE has to buy for a sale to occur, but if the stock is toxic...

Which I guess comes around to the question of - why does a company necessarily care so much about stock prices? If they've sold off all the shares they care to sell off, and all the volume is occurring between traders, then...who cares?

Yeah, I'm no economist. 

I'm not even bringing up the question of how and why are bond yields and interest rates inversely related.

[Trippy]

Stock holders have voting power (usually). If stock holders with enough shares are unhappy they can force a change.

If the people running the company control the company (i.e. have >50% voting shares) and they don't care about their own personal wealth then yeah they don't have to care at all what other people think about the stock price.

[Strazos]

And then with the personal wealth bit...never understood how stock can be counted like that. I can't buy a soda with a stock certificate, and you only realize the worth of the stock when you sell it....and if you have enough stock to be worrying about net worth, won't it be a tad difficult to sell that all off at once, and for the price that it's all "valued" at?

Yeah, I took my mandatory econ course ages ago, but I somehow don't remember much of this being mentioned...it's entirely possible it wasn't a very good course though.

[Trippy]

If you have a lot of shares that are worth a lot yes you can't unload them all at once. That's why people like Bill Gates who want the money for other purposes sell off their shares on a regular schedule. That way people don't think they are selling cause they think the stock is going to go down.

[Furiously]

Dividends are paid out semi-regularly, so you get a "share" of the company's profits.

[Ingmar]

For the few companies that actually pay dividends, anyway.

[lamaros]

Also if you have a decent stock price you can raise capital by offering more shares and other such suchness.

If you are undervalued then someone might come along and buy the company then fire everyone and asset strip.

Yadda yadda.

[Murgos]

For the few companies that actually pay dividends, anyway.

The move away from regular dividend payments is IMHO one of the major causes of creating 'bad actors' in the business world.  It's decoupled the long terms effects of the actions of a company's officers and the shareholders ability to hold them accountable.  Having the need to pay dividends on a regular basis requires a certain amount of financial regularity and conservative action, failing to meet that need at expected levels is a fast and efficient tool for diagnosing bad behavior.

Pump that stock and dump it baby.

[Paelos]

I agree Murgos. It's why IMHO you should never buy the stock of an established company that doesn't pay dividends or have a plan to pay dividends (see: Apple). The main reason for retaining earnings is to do so in the early growth stages of a company, or when they undergo a major growth period due to new market potential.

[Surlyboi]

I hate split pea soup.

We get it, you like Apple and Jobs. The pic is telling us that, you don't have to make every second post in the thread one of yours.

Not even about that. But go ahead and say it is. And honestly, I'll post any goddamn where I please. Especially if someone's got some off-the-cuff snarky comment.

As for Murgos's point, it's a fairly valid one, because there are plenty of companies and boards that will shoot for just raising the stock price at the cost of everything else so they can pat themselves on the back and make moneyhats. That mentality is not and has never been any where near the core values of Apple, so Paelos's use of the company as an example doesn't hold as much water. There are exceptions to every rule. There are too many "good actors" in place to keep the shitheels at bay.

[Paelos]

My use of Apple as an example is perfect actually.

They paid dividends until 95 and stopped.

[Ironwood]

This is getting creepy.

[Surlyboi]

My use of Apple as an example is perfect actually.

They paid dividends until 95 and stopped.

*Edit* Actually, fuck it. I'm gonna let it drop. No more shitting up this thread.

[Engels]

I'm thinking of going as Zombie Jobs for Halloween. Mock turtleneck, iPad and zombie makeup. Too soon?

[Ironwood]

It's never too early to call your solicitor.

[Paelos]

I'm thinking of going as Zombie Jobs for Halloween. Mock turtleneck, iPad and zombie makeup. Too soon?

Work in iBrains, and you've got a winner.

[naum]

[Sand]

So according to Jobs' new authorized biography he sounds like a narcissistic personality disorder patient crossed with a conservative. Not good.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/steve-jobs-biography-obama_n_1022786.html

Some gems include:
refusing to meet with President unless Obama invited him
telling President at first meeting he would be a one term president
unions are ruining schools

[Quinton]

In the book, Jobs revealed, “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

I mean, wow, that's pretty insane.  I love that he later wasted time riling up his troops about how "Google is trying to destroy iPhone".  The only guy trying to destroy things here appears to be Steve.

I've been working on this platform for eight years, since it was a four person startup, have been through the trenches on every release and every lead device, and the idea that Android is "stolen" from Apple is laughably absurd.  Though I'd be happy to itemize all the technology we built at Danger that Apple implemented in iPhone or all the technology we've developed for Android that turned up in iOS a year or two later.

*pfft* is the sound of any sympathy I had for the man evaporating.

[Sand]

Yeah I thought you would love those lines Quinton but left them for you to find rather than taunt you with them.   

[Margalis]

Apparently Eric Schmidt was on the board of Apple from 2006 to 2009, only then resigning due to conflict of interest. Which really does look like a shitty move. That might not mean that Android is "stolen" but I'd probably be looking to pursue legal recourse if a guy who sat on my board had his own company put out basically a clone of our flagship product.

[Trippy]

Steve Jobs was infamous for holding a grudge and being vindictive towards those he believe had wronged him. It doesn't surprise me he would say such things about Android.

[Quinton]

As I understand it, when it was revealed to the Apple board that Apple was working on a phone, Eric recused himself from all discussions relating to that product, citing a conflict of interest.  I am skeptical that Eric had any insider knowledge of any specific details about the iPhone.  Android was acquired by Google in July 2005 -- the company and the project predates Eric's involvement with Apple's board.  iPhone was announced and demoed some months *after* the Android SDK launch and G1 launched about 9 months after that. 

Regardless of all that, it is an industry where successful products build on earlier designs and UI idioms... something Apple has a long record of doing.  I find it obnoxious that when Apple "borrows" features or technologies developed by other companies it's "brilliant innovation" and when somebody riffs on Apple features or technologies it's "copying" or "stealing".  Many of the amazing novel iPhone features that Steve got massively bent out of shape about being "stolen" by Android were features that existed on numerous other devices prior to iPhone.

Honestly, I would like to see the idiotic patent warfare to be set aside and for competition to return to product design, implementation, and marketing, instead of the legal departments.  It's the best thing for all involved.  Apple's scorched earth policy here basically will force the bulk of the mobile computing industry (which includes a lot of large companies with deep pockets and extensive IP portfolios) to defend themselves, and I can't see the outcome being happy for anyone involved in the mess.

What baffles me the most is even the belief that there can only be one winner and that everyone else must lose.  Apple will never own 90+% of the mobile market, Android or no, because they're a niche, premium brand and they don't offer nearly enough choice, variety, or affordability to satisfy all the areas of such a huge market.  Wide-reach open products like Android are unlikely to displace Apple from their core premium device market.  I think there's room for a number of participants here.  In a multi-billion-person market it doesn't exactly have to be winner-take-all for companies to do well.

[Surlyboi]

:facepam:

[naum]

Here is what high-end smartphones looked like in 2007:



Then this happened:



Soon after, other smartphones started looking like this:



Yeah, Apple just takes existing ideas and technology and polishes them. So does everyone else, including Google. They just, at least over the past decade, did it with much more panache.

[Quinton]

That, I believe, is exactly my point.  The entire history of computing has been extending the interfaces, designs, and idioms of products that went before. 

Should Apple not be allowed to use windowshade notifications because Google did it first, three years ago?  That'd be kinda silly, dontcha think?

Similarly, should nobody ever be allowed to ship a rectangular touch-driven computing device because Apple shipped the first highly popular one?

Apple makes very nice products.  Apple does not have a monopoly on clever ideas -- they often borrow from others just as others borrow from them.

Claiming that Android is "outright theft" is absurd and irrational and completely at odds with the reality of how the platform was developed.


I do notice that I got some dates wrong above -- iPhone was announced January 2007, Android, the SDK, and the OHA were announced in fall of 2007.   Sorry about that -- my poor memory there.

[Surlyboi]

Claiming that Android is "outright theft" is absurd and irrational and completely at odds with the reality of how the platform was developed.

Just as absurd as, "If we did not act, we faced a draconian future where one man, one company, one carrier would be our future."

That door swings both ways.

[Ironwood]

Where's that quote from ?

[Paelos]

Where's that quote from ?

Vic Gundotra from Google in 2010.

Welcome back Surlyboi!

[Quinton]

Claiming that Android is "outright theft" is absurd and irrational and completely at odds with the reality of how the platform was developed.

Just as absurd as, "If we did not act, we faced a draconian future where one man, one company, one carrier would be our future."

That door swings both ways.

Fun fact:  that quote does not refer to Apple (or at least did not, originally ^^), who were not even on the radar when Android got started.  Nobody over here, that I know of, has ever vowed to "destroy iPhone" -- Apple doesn't need to "lose" for us to "win".  Though I once was really grumpy after discovering my old iPod Nano had no music on it at 35000 feet and 2 hours into a 13 hour flight -- frickin' iTunes.

Android was, and is, a strategic move to avoid being "locked out" of the future of computing platforms (mobile) -- ending up with Netscape's fate during the "browser wars", etc -- by providing an open platform with a level playing field for app deployment.

Of course Apple also ended up in the habit of rejecting or just indefinitely not finishing the review of Google applications for iPhone.  Would that policy have changed in some alternate universe where they somehow "won the smartphone wars" and have windows-pc-era-like 90+% control of the installed base?  Who can say.

[Surlyboi]

And no one over here that I know of, sans Steve in a fit of pique, has ever done that either.

[MuffinMan]

[naum]

Android was, and is, a strategic move to avoid being "locked out" of the future of computing platforms (mobile) -- ending up with Netscape's fate during the "browser wars", etc -- by providing an open platform with a level playing field for app deployment.

I keep hearing this refrain about "open" Android, but people must have a different definition of "open" than I thought "open" meant.