So why exactly are IT investors so utterly clueless? Are you thick or what? No, really, how else can you explain why you invest vast sums of money on daft schemes that nobody wants? Long-time readers of this column may remember my little Tech City adventure a while back, in which I managed 2,000 sq ft of chic hipster office floorspace in the heart of London’s so-called "silicon …
if I lost a million bucks, I think that the fact that the loss would be tax deductible would be more like a kleenex on a 3rd-degree burn
Yeah, but you're imagining it's your money. Private equity and seed capital investors are generally playing with other people's money. Often people who don't know what's happening with their money, because they've taken financial advice, and invested part of their pension funds into something called, for example, the "Ledswinger Perpetual High Growth UK Technology Investment Fund 2 LLP". Sounds sensible and innocuous, n'est pas?
And because tracker investment funds can be listed (hahahaahahaa! FFS why?) you even have situations where regular Joe's have their money invested in fractally nested investment funds, and were you ever to get far enough down amongst the cockroaches and poo, there you would find the investment vehicles like LPHGUKTIF2, and below that its investments in toilet seat raising apps and other IoT and smartphone idiocy.
All the dumb investor knows or sees is the aggregate value of all the investments of the Fund, less Ledswinger Prudent Financial Corporation's extortionate "management" fees. In turn, all LPFC actually does, is farm out big parcels of cash to other investment funds, where the cash buys a "limited partner" share. The people running these funds are the "general partners", and they usually get preferential treatment when things go sour, they have near absolute say in the management of the invested cash, and they also screw a generous "management" fee. They'll have big fat financial sector bonuses for doing jack shit, and the contract will disproportionately share any upside that might occur to their benefit.
So, there's winners here: Anybody screwing a management fee for putting retail investor money at risk will be pulling down a package of at least £500k after tax each year, and usually a lot more. Other winners include the bearded hipster twats (BHT) who get to burn through one or two rounds of financing, paying themselves a six figure salary, before walking away from the smoking wreck. Minor winners include institutional investors like LPHGUKTIF2, because our fee structure will make us money regardless of whether our investors do.
And then there's losers: Retail investors, who as noted above probably have no idea why LPHGUKTIF2 has actually lost them money, and then charged them for the privilege.
Welcome to the world of fund investing.
Post script: I'm beginning to worry that I should be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority to offer this sort of useful and accurate financial advisory. Better add the universal caveat emptor: "Remember, the value of retail investments can go down, or down a lot, it's only the big boys that get the gains."
Right here: and below that its investments in toilet seat raising apps and other IoT and smartphone idiocy.
And IoT device to raise/lower the seat and a smartphone app. It can't possibly do any worse than an IoT lightbulb. The ladies of the house will embrace it as they know the seat will be down upon entering the Room of the Throne. The males... it will be raised.
Start the LLP, man....
The ladies of the house will embrace it as they know the seat will be down upon entering the Room of the Throne. The males... it will be raised.
But blokes going to see a man about a dog with some haste will always find the seat in the wrong position. And if they're fiddling with tightish jeans and button flies* as well, then things could come to a head**
I suppose a fitbit-type of affair might be able to detect the racing pulse and rising blood pressure of a Man On A Mission, and alert the toilet seat to lower at maximum speed, but like all IoT stuff, it's looking like a solution searching for a problem. But....tell you what, we both grow goatee beards, don trousers that are too short whilst forgetting our socks, you write an investment prospectus that talks of a $14bn market by 2020, I'll act the sullen, Asperger's afflicted, sociopathic, withdrawn technical genius in front of the investors, we drink coffee for nine months on six figure salaries, then we start all over again.
* Which knob-head designers think button flies are a good idea? We invented the zip a hundred years ago, and some tossers keep putting buttons on trouser fronts. W*nkers.
** A turtle's head
> button flies are a good idea?
Well at least there's no risk of skin/fly interaction injuries. I rock both varieties and have no strong preference, although braces do make a lot of sense with button flies; you've to undo the waistband button to siphon the python.
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
Hold on, you may think I'm taking the piss but I have a formal spec for a male urination app:
IF ( user.is_outside() || toilet.is_already_disgusting() )
user.urinate(standing_mode)
ELSE
user.urinate(sitting_mode)
assert(urine_aerosol_visible(uv_blacklight_mode) = false)
ENDIF
Seriously guys, the seat lifts for cleaning purposes. It is quite clear, logically, that if you lift it you are happy to piss on the rim because if you could piss without splashing the rim you could piss without splashing the seat. If you doubt me, you can get a UV light from Amazon or Fleabay and check for yourself.
"Which knob-head designers think button flies are a good idea? We invented the zip a hundred years ago, and some tossers keep putting buttons on trouser fronts.
Trousers with button flies are a very good idea for people who don't like wearing underpants. Getting your pubes caught in a zipper is, uh, kinda unpleasant. And with the mental images just riggered, I whish you a nice weekend.
It's idiots who don't wear underpants.
I agree, sounds bizarre. I suppose these people also don't use bog roll, as the carelessly trimmed fabric edges on the inside of a typical pair of jeans would go a good job scrubbing an unprotected nipsy. After a few days use those jeans might be a bit, well, musty, but I suppose the glamour of going commando has its own unique price.
You know how old pants get farted out? I presume that's the hydrogen sulphide reacting with some sweat to form sulphuric acid, but if you're depositing neat clag on the jeans, is that going to rot them through in no time? Have you seen the price of a pair of Levis?
Post script: Don't read this post whilst eating your dinner.
I've just had an epiphany!
Speaking of which, the one Kickstarter project I put money into (Adapteva's Parallella board, with embedded Epiphany* chip) did actually deliver on everything except the cables to link the boards in my cluster together.
So far, so ho hum. More interesting, I thought, was how the CEO of that company later said that he wouldn't go with Kickstarter again, even though it seemed like it was a success. He also had a follow-up here
* see what I did there?
Sort of – losses in one investment can be offset against profits elsewhere but you generally don't want all your investments to flop (unless you're Goldman Sachs selling mortgage-backed securities…).
The tax-advantages are important only as part of the bigger picture: borrow someone else's money (obviously, you don't want to carry the risk yourself) at the current artificially low interest rates (cheap credit is being paid for by screwing savers) and invest it instead of your own money. Any profits can be funnelled out via the most tax effective means. Publicly listed companies are currently doing this: borrowing money to buy their own shares instead of paying dividends Private equity has a few more tricks up its sleeve such as preferred stock which virtually eliminates risk for the privileged few. Inflating the value of RsWyp is important in sucking in other people's money to allow the scheme to run to fruition. Here again those artificially low interest rates play their part as suckers looking at returns of 0.5% (at best) on safe assets are attracted by RsWyp's potential due to its phenomenal growth. And their goes your pension…
Brilliant!
Thankfully, the people I work for and with are a decent lot, so the desire to do this to them has never crossed my mind, but I know others are not so fortunate and would jump at the chance of doing such an act.
What that, you say, you want to develop an app that launches apps for running apps? Sounds cool, take £1m!
Why does this bring running Android apps under WIndows Mobile to mind? Other than the price tag would probably have been more than a mil...
Oh and doesn't filing this Friday gem under the Jobs category seem slightly odd to anyone, rather than the normal home of bootnotes or suchlike?
Wasn't that a popular shoot-em-up from irem corp.?
No, you're thinking of Turdican (the first was OK but number two stank). Or possibly Ratchet & Clagnut.
I didn't play either of them, but just went through the motions.
...Also, this whole topic is just, eww. I'm decamping to a more salubrious comment thread.
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