December 2022 – Middling Management

Software Valuation Math Check for 2023

December 15, 2022December 15, 2022M.C.Management

I think we’re all trying to figure out what our private stock options are worth, especially after the volatility that was 2022. That magical floating target somewhere between $0, the 409a valuation, and our wildest retirement dreams. There have been a few great recent signals in the public & late stage private markets that are beginning to give us an indication of where the trend is headed as we turn the page to 2023. And by trend, hopefully, we mean bottoming..

There Are Sick Unicorns Out There

December 9, 2022December 9, 2022M.C.Management

I used to work in downtown Palo Alto near the Hewlett Packard garage. The birthplace of Silicon Valley they called it! The beauty of it is it’s really not that impressive. It’s just a garage that could be plopped at the end of any driveway in America. Except now it’s surrounded by arguably the nicest suburb in America. Kind of because of what came out of that garage. The reason I bring it up is that there is a famous quote from one of the garage’s workers, titan David Packard, reflecting back on the meteoric growth of his time period where he said “more companies die of indigestion than starvation”.

Things Seem Bad. Fine! What’s Next?

December 1, 2022M.C.Management

I had a couple posts teed up about how bad things have seemed with all these layoffs and a couple ways you should try to support your team in the midst of this torrent of negative news. Corporate restructurings, crypto bankruptcies and daily Twitter drama – the company and the content. But do you really need to read any more of that? I pulled my quill out a couple times but the ink ran dry. Frankly, like many of you I’m sure, I needed a couple weeks to rinse off the negativity. And then we ran face first into Thanksgiving.

To summarize, things are not great in tech land. You know this.

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