There was a time when the elite class was a reserved for industrialists, oil barons, financiers and movie moguls.  Today that class has to step aside and make way for the new elite, The Nerds.  Being a geek today is cool and more importantly they’re the nouveau riche.  For evidence look no further than the IPO world.  Before the crash of 2008, IPO’s were fashionable.  Not so much since then, unless we’re taking about the digital world.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard or read about Facebook’s $5 billion public offering.  It’s estimated that the value of Facebook will end up somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 to $100 billion.  That’s a very nice neighborhood.  Facebook is in an extraordinary success  story.  The companies co-founder created Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard.  How he ever imagined people would be willing to provide details about their mundane lives, “went shoe shopping and ate 12 boxes of chocolates, I feel like cow”, and that others might actually be interested in that, is mind boggling.  But interested they are.  The financial success of Facebook isn’t surprising.  In 1986, Bill Gates owned 49.2% when Microsoft went public.  Today, Gate’s has so much money that his full time job is giving it away.  Netscape made many millionaires in 1995 when it public.  Facebook’s will far exceed Google’s offering in 2004.  By the way, how did we find anything out before Google?  I digress but it would be interesting to Google “most successful Internet company”  and see what comes up.  Today, technology is the new economy, and one’s ability to see that can lead to riches.

I came across a story today, courtesy of my brother Tom Bozic, which illustrates that if you’re going to roll the dice the technology world may not be a bad place to put down a little money.  The story was about gentlemen named Mr. David Choe.  It appears that Mr. Choe was an artist/painter of some renowned.  His “specialty” was painting murals and graffiti art (please feel free to insert your own sarcastic remark).  He was commissioned to do some work by, you guessed it, Facebook.  Apparently he went to their office to provide a quote, and he said the going rate for graffiti today was $20,000.  Whoever commissioned the painting suggested to the artist that in-lieu of payment would he consider Facebook shares.  This was back in 2005, and the artist had not heard of Facebook.  After sitting through a demonstration of Facebook he really didn’t believe it would work, and he didn’t think many would be interested in it.  Yet for some unimaginable reason he said okay, he agreed to do the paint work for shares.  I suspect Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso are turning over in their graves because it’s estimated that Mr. Choe’s shares are worth $200,000,000 today.  Come on, you can’t help but laugh.

The lesson here is that being a dork is okay.  As matter of fact you might want to encourage your kids to be a little nerdy.  No more sports, no art’s, and for god sakes no more channel 225.  From here on its coke bottle glasses, a pocket protector and calculator.  Trust me, they’ll thank you when they’re filthy sticking rich.  And they’ll show their appreciation by letting you in on their IPO.

Until next time.

Cheers.