TechBiz

By Therese Poletti

 

A floating startup incubator.

 

It is one of the more innovative and slightly crazy ideas to emerge in the last year.

 

The plan is to select 1,000 bright immigrant entrepreneurs who are unable to get U.S. visas and put them on a very large ship, 12 miles off the coast of Half Moon Bay, Calif. On this ship, technically not in the U.S., budding company founders who cannot get U.S. approval to start their companies here can launch the company of their dreams.

 

By Dan Gallagher

 

Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Tim Cook said he doesn't see himself as a replacement for the late Steve Jobs, nor does he see the iconic consumer electronics company moving into new areas like media content, or owning a wireless network.

 

In a wide-ranging interview on the stage of the D10 conference Tuesday night, Cook discussed matters like the company's massive overseas manufacturing network, as well the company's views on the TV business -- though he stopped short of sharing any details of new products Apple may be planning.

 

By Nancy Miller

Where were all those analysts before Facebook (FB) went public?

You know the ones I’m talking about – the ones who are suddenly saying that Facebook is worth less than $60 billion, or about $21 a share, and perhaps as little as $30 billion. Even after a three-day weekend in the U.S. to celebrate the sacrifices the military has made to protect our freedom, a few of us may still remember the sacrifice made on the altar of capitalism when Facebook sold shares in the public markets for the first time at a whopping $38 – or about $104 billion. That was a mere 10 days ago. 

By Merrill Goozner

There’s no shortage of losers in the Facebook IPO: Mutual funds that didn’t get the insider tip about the company’s sliding prospects; starry-eyed individual investors who jumped at the chance to buy shares above $40 in the first few frothy hours of trading; and the reputation of the investment banking industry, which gave the general public one more reason to believe the stock market is nothing more than a rigged casino favoring the house – their house.

But after searching high and low, we’ve finally turned up two big winners from Facebook (FB) going public: the U.S. Treasury and the state where Facebook executives and key employees reside – California. Those governments will reap an estimated $4.6 billion in income taxes due from insiders who received over 400 million shares of stock as part of Facebook’s 2005 equity compensation plan. Stock distributed under such plans is taxed as ordinary income. 

By Therese Poletti

 

The recent comeback of the tech IPO is over.

 

Gone, up in smoke, after the debacle that was the highly-anticipated-b​ut-ultimately-botche​d $16-billion debut of Facebook (FB)

 

As more gory details and a parade of lawsuits materialize, it is clear that the whole fiasco will likely further discourage investors -- even those big institutions accustomed to risk -- from participating in initial public offerings, especially tech deals.