Facebook, Groupon, LinkedIn and Zynga: When an IPO Is Like a Bar Mitzvah

Every new day seems to bring fresh news about Internet companies mulling, planning, or avoiding initial public offerings. Facebook, LinkedIn, Groupon, and now Zynga–the list goes on. “For many of these companies, an IPO seems more like a bar mitzvah,” an anonymous social media investor told the New York Times, in today’s piece about how Zynga is in no hurry to go public. “It’s not very life-altering in the end, but rather something to get through.”

What are the varying IPO strategies of each of these companies? When is an IPO a simple rite of passage, and when is it something more? Is an IPO really like a bar mitzvah? An investigation.

Facebook

The largest IPO-related news of the last week has come from Facebook. As the privately-held company has grown and become more profitable, a shadow network of trading in its stock has sprung up, prompting investigation by the SEC. (If a company is deemed to have more than 499 shareholders, it must go public). With last week’s news of Goldman Sachs’s $450 million investment in the company, analysts have said the company is on its way to a Goldman-managed IPO. [read]

Effective action: Advice from Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat and writer. He lived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, a time when Italy consisted of a large number of independent cities, all in a virtually perpetual state of war. As Machiavelli navigated through this complex and dangerous environment, he learned the skills needed to survive and thrive. Among his writing, the most famous and important work is The Prince, in which he outlines the mental attitudes and strategies necessary for achieving security and being successful in a hostile environment.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

Today, we tend to associate Machiavelli with being self-serving – the mercenary and those who seek to achieve power at any cost. In a sense, we (meaning those of us living in the ‘first world’) do live in a more civilized kind of society, where competition is not so obvious or so brutal. And yet, under the surface, there can still be a strong current of rivalry. As the world becomes more connected, competition is becoming more obvious and we need to be skillful in navigating through the many dangers we might encounter. [read]

Muslims Defending Christians – Diverse religions work together for protection

Here’s a great article that I found on the Captain’s Blog:

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea. [read]

Narrative and the Grace of God: The New ‘True Grit’

I’ve not seen the remake yet, I can’t really speak into this article.  But, I’ve grown weary of Christians who put a ‘spirituality’ on a movie that is just meant to be entertainment.  What say you all about the article and the movie?

“Movie critic Dan Gagliasso doesn’t like the Coen brothers’ remake of the Henry Hathaway-John Wayne “True Grit.” He is especially upset because the moment he most treasures — when Wayne, on horseback, takes the reins in his teeth and yells to Lucky Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall), “Fill your hand you son-of-a-bitch” — is in the Coens’ hands just another scene. “The new film,” Gagliasso complains, “literally throws that great cinematic moment away.”” [read]

Fiji Water Sued Over Carbon Credit Greenwashing

It has been a difficult few months for Fiji Water. First the bottled water company threatened to pull out of Fiji, potentially leaving the country even more economically unstable than it already is. Now the company is being sued in a class action lawsuit complaining that Fiji’s statements about producing carbon-negative bottled water are false.

According to Reuters, the lawsuit alleges:

Defendants convince consumers to buy their “FIJI” brand of bottled water–and to pay more for FIJI than for competing brands–by advertising and labeling FIJI as “The World’s Only CARBON NEGATIVE bottled water.” In other words, Defendants claim that they remove more carbon pollution from our atmosphere than they release into it. In reality, however, FIJI water is not “Carbon Negative.” Instead, Defendants justify this claim by employing a discredited carbon accounting method known as “forward crediting.” Thus, Defendants do not remove more carbon pollution than they create; they simply claim credit for carbon removal that may or may not take place – up to several decades in the future. [read]

Growing a Debt-Free Business

Venture capital, business loans, and lines of credit: all this and more exists for businesses that need to grow, to purchase equipment and inventory, or expand their facilities. Much of the initial growth for small businesses is funded on borrowed money. It’s the way things are done. But it comes at a cost.

In the last few years, however, many small businesses have begun to move away from acquiring business debt either by choice or — and this is something which is occurring more frequently — by circumstance. The tightening of credit, loss of access to capital, and the general skittishness among potential investors and lenders has made the prospect of boot-strapping a business a much more attractive option. Sometimes it is the only viable option. [read]

You Should Take a Digital Break (and 6 Steps To Do So)

We live in a highly digital world today. Our work requires us to use the internet in one way or another. We readily turn to emails, social media and chat messengers for daily communications, sometimes more so than face-to-face contact. Not only that, with 3G and wireless technology, we can now be connected even when we’re on the go.

I’m probably a good example of what you’d call a web junkie. I’m connected to the web almost all the time, whether I’m at home, working or on the go. For one, a lot of my work is based online. I run a personal development blog which I update regularly; [read]