The anti-portfolio
A lot of business reporting involves talking to companies and their representatives seeking coverage about the firm’s successes. So I give it up to any business that will shine a light on its failures.
Bessemer Venture Partners in one of the nation’s oldest venture capital funds, which invest in developing companies. it’s a high-risk, high-reward proposition, and Bessemer has cashed huge checks from early investments in companies like Staples, Verisign and Skype. But, they admit, other decisions have been less lucrative.
This long and storied history has afforded our firm an unparalleled number of opportunities to completely screw up.
Over the course of our history, we did invest in a wig company, a french-fry company, and the Lahaina, Ka’anapali & Pacific Railroad. However, we chose to decline these investments, each of which we had the opportunity to invest in, and each of which later blossomed into a tremendously successful company.
Our reasons for passing on these investments varied. In some cases, we were making a conscious act of generosity to another, younger venture firm, down on their luck, who we felt could really use a billion dollars in gains. In other cases, our partners had already run out of spaces on the year’s Schedule D and feared that another entry would require them to attach a separate sheet.
Among the companies Bessemer passed on: eBay (”Stamps? Coins? Comic books? You’ve GOT to be kidding,”), Google and Federal Express, which the firm rejected seven times.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
AT&T Subscribers Still Cutting the Wires
More evidence surfaced today of the continued migration to wireless communications from wireline. AT&T released its first quarter earnings, and virtually all of its growth was in the wireless segement of its business.
For instance, the company now claims 71.36 million wireless subscribers. That’s up 14.7 percent from the 62.21 million it claimed a year ago.
I would assume that much of that growth was generated by a huge number of iPhone buyers who ported their wireless service over to AT&T from another carrier so they could use the Apple technology.
Apple reported that first quarter 2008 sales of the iPhone totaled 2.3 million. That’s in addition to the 2.3 million it reported that it sold in the fourth quarter of last year.
The wireless segment earned AT&T $2.9 billion in income for the quarter, up a whopping 95.5 percent over the 2007 period.
By contast, the number of ”switched access lines” AT&T provided at the close of the quarer was 60.4 million, down 7.7 percent from the 65.4 million claimed in 2007. Wireline earnings declined 2.1 percent to $2.83 billion from $2.89 billion a year ago.
Other tidbits to glean from the earnings report: The total number of U-verse television service subscribers now stands a 379,000, almost all of those signed up in the past year.
Jim Stafford
Business News Reporter
All the news that’s fit to wear
CNN has instituted a new and rather curious feature to its Web site. We can now buy T-shirts that display headlines from breaking news stories. I’m not entirely sure why we would want to do this, but there you are.
The more compelling feature of CNN’s new clothing store is the ability to play with the URL and produce ever more interesting headlines and T-shirts. Alas, these creations cannot be purchased.
EDIT: CNN apparently has disabled the ability to change the URL in the address bar to create your own T-shirt designs. Alas and alack.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Mapping the news
A map that shows by size of each state the level of news coverage by examining datelines from about 72,000 wire-service news stories published from 1994 to 1998.
Oklahoma dwarfs Kansas and all of the High Plains states and is nearly as large as Texas, but note that the survey is based on stories printed in 1994-98, a period that included the Oklahoma city bombing and its aftermath. In the same way, events likely skewed results for Colorado due to the Columbine school massacre, and Georgia, which hosted the 1996 Olympics. The blogger also theorizes that CNN’s Atlanta headquarters could artificially boost Georgia dateline frequency.
Don Mecoy
Business News
Awash in e-mail
I’ve been online long enough to remember the giddy feeling on the rare occasion when an e-mail would appear into my inbox. At that time (before I had even ventured onto the World Wide Web) my e-mail address was something like 72066.6022@compuserve.com.
Now I spend more time deleting e-mail than I used to spend online. For many of us, hours of what used to be semi-productive work time are consumed reading, responding and deleting e-mail. The New York Times recently ran a story that doesn’t break a lot of new ground on the issue, but includes a little historical analogy that I found apt.
Today’s advice from time-management specialists, to keep our e-mail software off, except for twice-a-day checks, replicates the cadence of twice-a-day postal deliveries in (H.L.) Mencken’s time.
Ms. Rodgers said that Mencken was acutely disturbed by interruptions that broke his concentration. The sound of a ringing telephone was associated in his mind, he once wrote, with “wishing heartily that Alexander Graham Bell had been run over by an ice wagon at the age of 4.”
Blogger Rex Sorgatz suggests we’re making it more complicated than it needs to be:
Listen people, I get a lot of email too. Probably something like 500 missives per day. But this really isn’t that difficult to fend off. Let me help… Tactic #1: Delete unnecessary items as they come in. Tactic #2: Reply to items when you have free time in elevators, meetings, subways, etc. Tactic #3: Don’t leave work until you’re down to five items. Tactic #4: Stop writing about how much email you get. Done.
If you’re looking for email productivity tips, Lifehacker is a good place to browse.
Lamest e-mail I’ve received lately came from an outfit called “Write It Well,” which offers a book designed to help companies boost their employees’ abilities to write and handle email. An example:
Wasted time affects a company’s overall productivity and financial statements and in today’s increasingly global economy, companies rely on e-mail to allow large teams across various time zones to work together efficiently on projects.
Want to see more? It continues:
When extreme time differences are combined with various languages, poorly written e- mail can be detrimental to a project’s results and deteriorate team dynamics, both of which directly affect a company’s bottom line.
I would argue that blather like this is nearly as much an obstacle to me getting my work done as spam. Just get to the point.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
The middle seat’s not so bad, honest
Attention US Airways passengers:
That aisle seat you requested for your flight will cost you a minimum $5 “choice” seating fee beginning May 7. Same goes for a window seat.
The airline’s Choice Seats program will include the upgrade charge for requesting window or aisle seats for the first few rows in coach and will be prorated for length of flights.
A story that I saw Friday said that for long flights the upgrade could be as much as $30.
US Airways/America West serves Will Rogers World Airport with flights to Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Hope you enjoy that middle seat.
Jim Stafford
Business News Reporter
Free WiFi: I’m loving it
While my daughter was at her dance class last Thursday, I drove over to the McDonald’s on Danforth in Edmond and fired up my laptop. The wireless connection is great from the parking lot of the restaurant.
Anyway, I was surprised to discover that I didn’t need a credit card or a password to log on to Mickey D’s WiFi network. Now I know why. McDonald’s is giving away its wireless service for a limited time.
I saw this sign blowing in the wind this morning outside the McDonald’s along Britton Road.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Business News Reporter
Ready, set, spend!
Sears and Kmart have unveiled a promotion to give a 10 percent bonus to folks who convert their entire economic stimulus check from the government into a gift card. Keep in mind that most of us will be getting at least $600, and some getting more than $2,000. This is the first major retailer I’ve seen offering incentives to consumers to spend their not-yet-received economic stimulus checks but I’m sure it won’t be the last.
From the news release:
“In this tough economy, we know that our customers are focused on how to make their money work harder for them,” said W. Bruce Johnson, interim CEO and President, Sears Holdings. “Every day we at Sears, Kmart and Lands’ End are intent on bringing our customers the value, quality and style they deserve — and our stimulus check program now provides even more value.”
My question would be: do I have to spend every dollar of that gift card in the store, or can I make a purchase and cash out the remainder? If it’s the former, I’ll pass. However, if you’re in need of a big-ticket item like a dryer or a dishwasher, this may be just the ticket for you.
Of course, the idea behind the payouts is to stimulate the economy, but that doesn’t mean you’re being unpatriotic if you decide to keep the money. Nevertheless, prepare to bombarded in the coming weeks with stuff like this:
Sears Holdings also recently pledged support for a resolution in Congress introduced by Rep. Brian Baird to encourage Americans to spend their stimulus checks to invest in energy-efficient products to save money and energy.
Most of the investment and financial folks I’ve talked to have suggested the best way to use the windfall is by paying off high-interest debt like credit cards, or building an emergency fund if you don’t already have one.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Starbucks Throws T-Mobile Out with the Coffee Grounds
The promised WiFi provider switch at Starbucks coffee shops appears to be under way. Both Engadget and Gizmodo are reporting tonight that AT&T WiFi is now available at a San Antonio Starbucks not far from AT&T’s corporate headquarters.
Starbucks is replacing T-Mobile’s wireless service with AT&T at its many stores nationwide.
Maybe more interesting than the news item on the Starbucks changeover are the comments to the items on Engadget and Gizmodo. It seems that dozens of readers have already sniffed out the new AT&T wireless at Starbucks locations nationwide.
I’ve only used the Starbucks WiFi service one time, and that was because I was in Philadelphia three years ago in dire need of a WiFi connection to send a story to the newspaper. I paid $6.95 for the privilege. Now AT&T DSL subscribers can take their laptops into Starbucks and surf the Web for free. Oh, and customers who put some cash on a Starbucks card also can log on for free.
What about the Oklahoma Starbucks locations? Don’t know. I’ll have to take my laptop in and give it a try.
Happy surfing.
Just a note
Nothing to do with business, but because we now can embed YouTube videos.
