Meantime, some good stuff here and there. First, Larry Page has some comments on the Google IPO craze in a Reuters story here.
The story was filed from the TED show in Monterey, one of the few places reporters can get access to folks like Larry in a relatively relaxed environment.
(Page said) he was “dismayed” by the amount of conjecture being reported as fact.
“We’ve made no statements about an IPO,” said Page, who along with Sergei Brin founded Google in 1998. (Note: Not really true. At the SES show last August Sergey in fact admitted the IPO would most likley happen at some point in the future…)
“I have been a bit dismayed at the level of speculation that has been reported as fact. It’s pretty amazing the stage we’re at… Even when we don’t do anything in some area, people make stuff up,” Page told Reuters at a technology conference in Monterey, California.
Page also pointed toward new applications for Google’s service:
“On the more exciting front, you can imagine your brain being augmented by Google. For example you think about something and your cellphone could whisper the answer into your ear,” he said.
Hope to see you in NYC!
Schmidt was quoted saying “An IPO is not on my agenda right now.” at the end of January in the London Times. See http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209-981296,00.html
“Greenspan comment”? Loose lips? Bad reporting? Truth? Who knows.
The level of interest in this subject is worrisome — it is bubble thinking. The state of the tech economy should not depend on Google’s IPO. It shouldn’t be important to anybody except the investment bankers who are salivating at the prospect of the giant fees, and the Google employees who stand to become instant millionaires.
What was most interesting in what I heard from Schmidt Friday, and what seems to get lost, is that the internet and the information economy is booming by any measure you choose to use.
This is not just “not really true,” this is an outright lie. Two years ago Google was already advertising its forthcoming IPO to potential employees (“Pre-IPO stock options”):
http://web.archive.org/web/20020223060226/http://www.google.com/jobs/index.html
What’s making more of an official statement than the recruiting section of your website? Or were those stock options supposed to stay “pre-IPO” forever?