The most instructive thing about this story is to understand how Ariba made money and its CFO rich. Ariba was in the B2B business, specifically doing something very boring: automating procurement inside large companies replacing paper procedures with computer systems.
One good way to make a fortune is by solving the mundane problems of the wealthy (by they people or companies).
That or just be the first to proclaim your product works on this new fangled thingy called the Internets and ride the ipo wave to the top while cashing out before the crash. But your way sounds nifty too I guess.
Your description is far closer to the truth, as it happens. It's amazing how many times that simple formula was executed in the span of about 24 months while I was living in SF. (Then again, most attempts failed, some quite spectacularly)
Don't forget to throw in some magic XML sauce when pitching it to the business types.
I wasn't being facetious, that's really what happened with Ariba. I remember seeing their ipo on MarketWatch or something and everyone rejoiced because their stock hit billions but the talking heads on tv didn't know how to explain what it was they were doing except saying World Wide Web a lot. I think they're worth like 9 bucks per share now.
I remember watching VA Linux's ipo as well. They profiled Larry Augustin and the company as their ticker went to 300 bucks. They then showed him walking on a street and asking him what he's going to do now that he's worth a billion dollars on paper and he dropped off mail into the mailbox and said he was going to finally pay back his credit card bills.
For that you may have to check a Flickr set which doesn't belong to an employee's girlfriend. All things considered, the ratio was surprisingly high :)
"Besides - where are the chicks?" -- This is sillicon valley, the bigest sausage fest ever. Smart and good looking girls are very rare. You have to go to NYC to find smart educated girls, that are actually pretty and have good fashion sense.
Yes. I lived in southern VA for 5 years, and NC. There are pretty girls there, but unfortunately 80% of the people are just fat or obese. Plus, let's just say that smart girls tend to go to the big cities, and the one left behind, are ummm..... more of the local types, and probably less traveled and less culturaly open to new things, which are very important to me (as a foreigner). I know I am over-generalizing, but that is the trend.
I have friends in all of them, and Chappel Hill is a good school, and with lots of girls, a lot of cuties too. But the trend is that they get fat after school. As an area, Raleigh-Durham is ok.
I have to say thou, even if a person is smart, if the enviroment around them is boring, then it will affect them on the long run. Raleigh-Durham has a lot of college educated people, but still, overral the whole area is a giant parking lot. You have to drive anywhere to do anything ( which makes people fat), plus people live isolated lifes. Compare with somebody living in walkable cities with decent public transportation such as NYC, SF, Boston, Chicago or D.C. where you have to interact with people all the time.
"smart" and "has good fashion sense" pull in different directions. one requires caring about interesting stuff, the other about pleasing people and fitting in.
The fact that you don't find it interesting does not mean it isn't nor that smart could like it.
I don't know if I'm as smart as you, but I think that fashion is quite interesting. I don't follow it at all, (I don't like to spend money on clothes that will be outdated in 3 months), but I like to see what the trends on the street are, questioning them and if I like some idea taking it. Fashion is a very dynamic, always changing, and quite unpredictable concept.
What do you demand on something to be interesting?
studying fashion is reasonably interesting but that's different than having fashion sense, which means taking the time to look pretty so shallow guys will like you.
I like to think of myself s not being shallow, and I have to admit that I, often subconsciously, judge people by how they look. And I think everybody else does as too.
If your goal is to interact with other people and get something out of it (everything from investor meetings to dating) you need to think about your looks to some degree. I'm not saying you should wear Armani suits, just that you need to fit in.
Think of it as hacking - just with people instead. How do you tweak the system to get the most out of it.
I agree that there's a wide range of it, from very shallow to slightly imperfect.
But what happens if you wear something that isn't pretty and people start noticing? Some won't like you. Others will notice their reaction and compensate for it. They will think you didn't do anything wrong, and they shouldn't react badly, and make sure to treat you normally.
If you don't wear clothes to fit in and be pretty, you only come off (a bit) worse with the people who aren't self-aware enough. In business, it's important to be able to get along with flawed people; they can still be valuable business partners. But in dating, if you are very smart, you don't want those people who aren't self-aware enough; you only want to go out with exceptional people.
ok, maybe should I have clarified: most people (women too), in SF just dress like they just rolled out of bed. (exception, those that work for financial companies downtown SF). It is part of the culture around here. Comfortable but not visually appealing. And yes, you can be smart and dress cute at the same time.
But at the end it boil down to numbers. I was browsing around linked in the profile of some of the area companies, (now linked in has basic stats for all companies), and everwyere the ratio was ranging from 70% male, 30% female, to 80%/20% male female ratio. So, if you are girl in the valley, you don't have to do much to get attention. In NYC, it is the oposite, lot's of girls in the city, hence more competition, so they have to try harder to get attention. That's why you have Sex and the City, Lipstick Jungle, 30 Rock, shows, all revolving around 30+ yo females that can't find a man good enough for them.
So, that party just looked like the average tech party around here. (the worst are the digg parties).
Not all Americans, just a lot of the rich ones, who spend their money to build a Hollywood image of being rich. So I guess it's just a result of financial mobility in the US, an annoying symptom of something, in itself, good :)
In the flickr set, you see a shelf of autographed baseballs and Dot-com boom books. Including one pretty awful, discount-rack one (which I've read) called 'Burn Rate'. I'm pretty sure it was just there to make the collection complete.
Great memorabilia. I have a collection of autographed books (mostly from authors who spoke at Kepler's) including: TAOCP, Generation X, The Cuckoo's Egg, American Psycho, Hackers and Painters...
One good way to make a fortune is by solving the mundane problems of the wealthy (by they people or companies).