Mercury News is reporting that Silicon Valley produced a single, solitary IPO in 2008. Since taking companies public is primarily what the valley is set up to do (OK, they sell them too but they all want an IPO and selling is the consolation prize), this is a pretty scary statistic and does not bode well for the health of the various venture funds operating on Sand Hill Road.

“IPOs are a closely watched barometer of the valley’s unique economy. The current paralysis is in stark contrast to the IPO frenzy during the so-called “irrational exuberance” of the late 1990s, when several e-commerce startups raised millions of dollars without turning a profit. The bursting of the dot-com bubble vaporized investments and caused about 200,000 jobs to disappear”

The company, ArcSight (NASDAQ: ARST) has actually done pretty well in this era of 40% declines in the index as they are almost trading at their IPO price. We all should be so lucky.

I’ve been watching the circus going on in New York with regard to Hillary Clinton’s pending open Senate seet with some fascination. Not having any real opinion one way or another as to who should get the seat, my interest has been more for the comedic value than anything else.

I do find it rather atrocious though that despite all her education and experience, Caroline Kennedy doesn’t seem to have learned how to speak the English language.

In the latest experiment of what people will actually buy on eBay, John Harris, a staff writer for The Onion is selling a brand new, never used…joke. As of this post the bidding was up to $110.50.

Hello,

My name is John Harris, and I am a staff writer at The Onion, America’s Finest News Source. I am selling a joke that I can’t find a contextual home for. To be fair, it’s less of a joke and more of a dated, Capote-esque cocktail party bon mot, but decidedly more feeble. The best one can reasonably expect from this item is a self-satisfied chuckle, such as can be observed issuing from someone wearing a turtleneck while reading the Harper’s Index. If that didn’t make you barf, please continue reading.

The item in question will be clearly hand-printed on a 3×5 index card and mailed to the winning bidder upon receipt of payment. It has never been used, and the buyer assumes all responsibility for any consequences that might stem from sharing this joke, including the dissolution of friendships and romantic relationships due to loss of respect. The bidding will start at $0.57 so I can at least recoup the cost of the stamp and the eBay listing charge.

Please keep in mind that, due to the nature of this item as well that whole aphorism about accounting for taste, this is very much a caveat emptor-type transaction. In other words, no refunds.

Thanks and happy bidding,

John harris

[UPDATE]  It is now at $365. Wow!

I spend a lot of time working with large financial institutions and right now a lot of banks are looking internally to try and figure out what went wrong with their risk control processes and how they can fix them. There is nothing like losing billions of dollars to cause you to question your priorities.

Having grown up in Canada, it is kind of fun to see articles that suggest that the Canadian banking system should be looked to for solutions to the global financial mess we all find ourselves in. I remember when I first moved to the US how antiquated the banking system seemed. Despite being the land of mining, timber, oil shale and lots of snow, Canada seems to have figured out a banking model that works.

The rest of the world should take a good look.

I cannot remember being so glad to see the end of a year before but 2008 definitely gets chalked up to being one of the worst I can remember. As someone who should in theory be in his best earning years, I sure feel a lot poorer. Even 2001 wasn’t this painful.

The grand total is $6.9 trillion…ouch.

“After months of tortuous trading, Wall Street rang out its worst year since the Great Depression yesterday, leaving shareholders $6.9 trillion the poorer. The losses in 2008 were so broad and deep that every sector in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index took a double-digit hit, and the financial sector lost more than half of its value.”

Welcome to the party 2009. I certainly hope you are more fun than 2008.

Happy New Year everybody.

Talk about unintended consequences of living your life online. Apparently a mob of over 500 attempted to crash a birthday party at a club in South London when they saw it profiled on Facebook.

“More than 500 youths were caught up in a mass brawl as they tried to gatecrash a girl’s 18th birthday party advertised on Facebook.Up to 50 police officers were scrambled to disperse the bottle-throwing louts after the group was refused entry to the bash at Club 791 in Thornton Heath, South London.”

Pretty amazing. Welcome to Web 2.0.

Den of Geek has done a solid job listing the top 50 movie special effects of all time. They range from the latest and greatest computer effects to meticulously executed model work from movies that were produced long before even the most rudimentary computers.

It almost goes without saying that my favorite effect is the one from Blade Runner, but there are some pretty amazing shots listed among the 50 in the post. Definitely worth a read.

Back in school I took econ 101 just like everyone else seems to have and although my memory of those days is getting a bit fuzzy, I seem to recall one of the main premises of economics is that as something becomes more commonplace and mass market, the cost of producing that item should, in theory, fall as more and more options exist to manufacture and purchase it. OK - perhaps it was econ 102 but you get the idea. The more of something that is available in the market the cheaper it should be.

Apparently that is not the case in the wireless market where despite all of sending over 2.5 trillion messages this year the price is actually rising from 10 cents per message to 20 cents per message (I think that works out to a 100% price increase…not bad in a recession).

From the New York Times:

“All four of the major carriers decided during the last three years to increase the pay-per-use price for messages to 20 cents from 10 cents. The decision could not have come from a dearth of business: the 2.5 trillion sent messages this year, the estimate of the Gartner Group, is up 32 percent from 2007. Gartner expects 3.3 trillion messages to be sent in 2009.”

The best thing is that the cost of delivering all those messages is nearly zero as they use bandwidth dedicated to control messages within the wireless network itself. Of course the wireless cariers are pseudo monopolies so that might have something to do with why they can get away with this but 100% price increase?!? Sounds like the fees on my checking account.

A recent article from the WSJ indicates that even in amongst all the economic doom and gloom there is evidence that retailing has truly moved online.

“While online spending was down just 2% from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve compared with a drop of 5.5% to 8% for retail as a whole, e-commerce strength wasn’t widespread. Instead, it was clustered around several big-name Web sites such as Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Online sales were also fueled by discounts that aren’t likely to continue.”

It just goes to show that more and more people are reaching for their computer when they need to buy something. I cannot remember the last time I actually got in my car to buy something that was available online.

In today’s world of massive consumption, it is refreshing to run across a story of a hand built toy that someone really put a lot of effort into.

My great uncle built this boat for my cousin. I sure wish I had one when I was a kid. My smile would have been a mile wide.