OK now I know where you are coming from, I had the same experience and lost between $300k to 500k on various companies, but it was my decision to invest in them and I lost money, it happens, those comapies had to stand on their own. The odds of a startup succeeding are probably 99 to 1.
By now you guys know that if I have a question I try to get the answer the best that I can and Before anyone freaks out let me tell you that in February of 2009 I went to UCMT sat down with Mike to discuss sales of Lightwave, he was open and honest. He called across to Teresa and she printed out the spreadsheet with the history of their sales and handed it to me. I went through it with Mike and discussed the sales. As information we briefly discussed this on the Yahoo board. As info the first sales took place in March of 2007 that is about 3 years after they hit the street so it is not like they crushed the company out of the box which is never a good thing for an investor on an IPO
Revisionist history is what it is, but what I saw was that there is no way the Goetzs, Fred, Andrewi.e. Lightwave could have survived without them, did they give up a lot of shares to UCMT yes, the good thing is that the UCMT company itself does not currently hold very many shares but I’d bet that Mike, his acquaintances, and his family still hold upwards of 5 Millions shares. If they haven’t sold them in 8 years then we shouldn’t drag Lightwave History through the mud. Now if you want to talk about those other companies, I’d agree they were bad investments.
I hope this helps. Someday the entire story behind Lightwave will be written and there will be quite a few chapters on the initial startup during the first 5 years.
Trying to be honest and above board, I cannot fault someone for selling shares that they were paid with for services and cash that was outlayed 3 years prior. There is bad blood between many here but you can bet that when Fred took a turn for the worse some of his friends cared enough to visit him.
Bob did you sit beside me at the shareholders meeting?
Oh and just so everyone knows, 80% shoot probably 90% of the heavy hitters (probably not Leonberger)that you see working for lightwave Shoot, even the new lab,,,, (same complex 3 years prior), were a direct result of UCMT's efforts. I'd bet that 80% Cash for the first 5 to 7 years came from UCMT's efforts.
Did I loose a boat load of cash with them, You Bet but it does not change what I saw.
I've gotta run
Yep Bob there were quite a few mistakes from hype made back in the day but it appears that What Fred told Mike and what Mike told us was right.
