Notes from my June 15, 2016, conversation with VLDI CEO - Part 7
Bruce said that the average radically innovative technology takes 5-7 years to emerge onto the market. Of course, that begs the question, when did that clock start ticking? I had this conversation with him in 2016 and he made his comment in reference to negotiations he had with someone sometime after the 2008 economic collapse.
Over the years he has repeatedly said that his business plan is not a game of chess, it is Mahjong. That is why he said he is trying to put together 8 or 9 things at a time before he announces any of them. Continuing with his Mahjong analogy he then said, "So, right now we have done that positioning, and I can't tell you who will be first, etc. It is fascinating. We knew the XXXXXXXX one was coming, and we were under an NDA on it. So that piece has moved. We also knew that XXX was [coming] because they are one of ours as well."
[I have masked the names of the two companies, but they are HUGE. I don't think you would believe it even if I posted them.]
He then began talking about how he convinced a creditor [I think he was referring to Leonid Frenkel] who was being asked to give up his secured notes and accept unsecured notes. He said that he has been loaning money to corporations exclusively with secured positions for about thirty years. And when Bruce asked him to give up his secured notes, he said, "I have never done it before." And Bruce replied, "But you are a man of firsts. So, you have to ask yourself, do you want to just package it and sell the company, which we can do now. Or do you want to go for it? And the worst case would be that we would have to go back and just sell the company. Don't you want to find out what we can get for the company, what we can build? Because it is primed to go. You've seen the demos. You've seen the technology."
He then said to me, "So, that was the condition of the deal, and we no longer have ANY secured debt, at all. And 2.3 million of our unsecured. And we're about to get rid of another 500,000 to 1,000,000 in the second round [sometime after June 2016] ."
TPP
Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:5)
