The Motley Fools
- JenL_2
- JenL_2
- JenL_2
- JenL_2
- Kirk
- Kirk
- oneputt
- Roger_Babson
- Kirk
- smile_1
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» JenL_2 - Fools No More
Interesting article on The Fools in 5/2000 Business2.0:After six years of trying to prove Wall Street analysts wrong, Tom and David Gardner aim to take online grass-roots investing a step further: turning any fool into a paid financial "analyst." But is the research worth a dime?.......
<img src="http://www.geocities.com/jeninvestor/mot..." width=150 height=198>
Tom & David Gardner
......Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» JenL_2 - Fools at the Confessional
Some great writing by Tom Gardner @ 5/22 Fool.com:Fools at the Confessional - The anatomy of mediocrity
Now that's refreshing!.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» JenL_2 - Chat during The Motley Fools Radio Show
Come join us in Weekend Chat:http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/i...
.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» JenL_2 - Motley Fool Retrenches
This from 2/8 Washtech.com:Motley Fool Retrenches
By Neil Irwin
In the latest evidence of hard times for online media companies, Motley Fool Inc. laid off 115 people, a third of its staff, part of a broad shake-up.
The closely-held Alexandria firm, known for promulgating personal-finance advice with a sense of humor on the Web and in other media, had until now resisted the dot-com doldrums that brought similar cost-cutting at innumerable other Web firms.
But company officials said the continuing weakness in the Internet advertising market—and resulting losses for Motley Fool—have forced the company to re-evaluate each of its business units. Along with the layoffs, the company yesterday killed one of its newest business initiatives, SoapBox.com, through which individuals could post and sell original research about stocks and other topics.
"By streamlining our organization and focusing our resources on products and services that our customers value most, we will ensure that the Fool continues to fulfill its unique role as the ‘trusted advisor’ for the 30 million people we reach monthly both online and offline." said chief executive Pat Garner in a statement.
Only about 10 of the eliminated jobs were tied to the closing of the SoapBox subsidiary, said a company official, with the remainder distributed throughout the company. The company is granting laid off employees severance packages that include at least one month of pay, according to a company statement.
Motley Fool was founded in 1993 as a print newsletter and rose to prominence after becoming a stock-investing area within America Online in 1994 and then as the Fool.com Web site. Its founders, brothers David and Tom Gardner and their friend Eric Rydholm, became highly visible symbols of the trend toward individuals investing directly in the stock market, an approach they champion.
In the past few years, the company has developed a growing stable of off-line media products, including books about investing, a syndicated newspaper column and a radio show.
The company is well-known for office perks aimed at making work fun for employees; its offices include a foosball table and video games, and staff are allowed to decide for themselves how much vacation they take each year, so long as they get their work done. To call someone "foolish" is considered a high complement.
Last May, the company hired an experienced chief executive for the first time—Pat Garner, a veteran of Coca-Cola. Until recently, privately owned Motley Fool hasn’t felt as much pressure to cut costs as publicly traded competitors like TheStreet.com or CBS Marketwatch.
On Jan. 30, Motley Fool announced its second round of venture funding, $30 million, from a group of high-profile investors, including Softbank Finance Group and AOL Time Warner Ventures. A company spokesman said that the layoffs had no direct connection to the funding round and that the close timing is coincidental.
Innumerable Internet media companies—including just this week CNET, Voter.com, and eCountries—have cut jobs or shut down entirely in the past year, as advertising revenues have proved inadequate to fund pricy editorial staffs and outside capital dried up.
But to some outside analysts, Motley Fool’s layoffs seemed bittersweet Thursday, as it is a company that many viewed as doing things right.
"They’re a company that had a more diverse set of revenue streams than competitors. Radio shows, online seminars, research products," said Daniel O’Brien, a media analyst at Forrester Research.
and from 2/9 Fool.com:
Letter to the Community: Fool Restructuring
They also talked about the restructuring on the Sat. 2/10 radio show......Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» Kirk - Re: Motley Fool Retrenches
In response to message posted by JenL_2:Interesting Jen. Thanks for posting that. I was not aware of this.
It will be interesting to see if the "go slow" approach at BOWG will outlast these high burn rate companies like the Motley Fool....
Their infrastructure is first rate (especially their message boards) but at a very high cost. Silicon Investor and Raging Bull have announced major cutbacks also.
Wouldn't it be something if they actually built infrastructures too large to support with the revenue they will be able to generate?
-- posted by Kirk
» Kirk - The Motley Fools are on PBS right now!
I'm watching KQED, ch9 in San Francisco and they have the Motley Fools on.One is bald and one has hair! Reminds me of one of my brothers that still has all his hair, Jeff. Some things in life aren't fair... he can't windsurf as fast with all that hair slowing him down!
-- posted by Kirk
Sorry I could not resist
» Roger_Babson - Re: Re: Motley Fool Retrenches
In response to message posted by Kirk:"...Wouldn't it be something if they actually built infrastructures too large to support with the revenue they will be able to generate?"
Kirk, you have happened upon the phenomenon that will drive the decade-long mass consolidation across the economy. Excess capacity, including IT, semis and equipment, telecom, internetworking, is now too large at high fixed costs to sustain even a fraction of the growth of earnings of the past 7-10 years, thus the reason that there will be MASSIVE CONSOLIDATION of firms within and across industries ("old- and new-economy" firms).
This is not a "cyclical" phenomenon; instead, the situation is one resulting from 16-20 years of private business and residential infrastructure overinvestment/malinvestment, which drive debt levels and debt service burdens to record levels, while household savings has gone negative.
Even a modest increase in the household savings rate and corporate savings rate (restructuring) will cause a DRAMATIC deceleration in GDP growth, investment, and asset prices from record levels
This is why secular periods of economic stagnation ALWAYS begin with the bursting of the asset bubble, a "recession" (modest in the beginning, in some historical cases), then a financial panic that ushers in a "depression". Such is the anatomy of a bubble and the early stages of a secular economic decline.
-- posted by Roger_Babson
» Kirk - Good Interview & Good advice
...but jeepers, he lost 60% of his money already!http://www.msnbc.com/news/545785.asp?0na...
...ending:
What do you think the chances are that the market could go down even further?
Probably about 33 percent. Here’s the way I come to that number: Historically, one in three years in the stock market has been a down year. Right now we appear to be in the middle of a second consecutive one, which certainly is not unprecedented. And yet we’re already down a fair amount. I see on the cover of USA Today there’s a story about how bad the stock market is. It has been suggested to us by more than one good investor that when the mass media starts putting up headlines about how bad the stock market has been, usually that’s a good time to begin buying. But obviously, at the Motley Fool, we don’t ever make predictions about the stock market because they are impossible to predict accurately.
-- posted by Kirk
» smile_1 - Re: Re: Re: Motley Fool Retrenches
In response to message posted by Roger_Babson:If excess capacity is as big a problem as you say it is, why can't I get DSL service in my area where half million dollar homes are as common place as weeds?
p.s. I am not located in CA where half million dollar homes are represented by 1 bedroom shacks 10 miles from the beach....)
-- posted by smile_1
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