Ah, VA Linux. Their main achievement that I can remember was hiring the developers of Enlightenment. Good times.
IIRC the stock dropped before ESR sold and he did not become absurdly rich in real money.
IIRC the stock dropped before ESR sold and he did not become absurdly rich in real money.
> By the time Raymond could legally sell his VA Linux shares in June 2000, they had plunged $31 million in value to a still-impressive $5.5 million.
> Thanks to the dot-com bust -- fed in large part by big-hype, no-hope companies like VA Linux, the worth of Raymond's shares had dropped to $195,000, a loss of more than $5 million.
From [1]:
> Back at IPO time I wrote an essay called "Surprised By Wealth" in which I tried to deal with how weird it felt to have a theoretical net worth of $41 million. Am I upset that all that "wealth" is gone, at least until the stock bounces back? Well...yes and no. As a member of VA's Board, it's my job to worry about our stock price, on behalf of all of our stockholders. So I care about that.
> But personally? Nah. I wasn't in this for the bucks then, and I'm not now.
[0] http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3149/eric-s-raymond-baza...
[1] http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2001022100120OPBZCY