someone has to to pay for the m&ms, piano player, and the subsidized lunches.
Also being reported on WRAL now, just what you said.
āCEO Goodnight says SAS not for sale ā One day after the Wall Street Journal reported that semiconductor maker Broadcom was in talks to acquire Cary-based software company SAS Institute, SASā founder and CEO Jim Goodnight sent a message to employees on Tuesday stating that the company isnāt up for sale.ā
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Iām surprised they donāt go with a subscription model. Broadcom is a terrible fit so selling to them might as well be just pulling the plug. The question is where do they go from here. They have some large strategic problems, and now the cat is out of the bag that the current value is only about $15B-$20B. If revenue continues to decline and they continue to lose market share, that value will be even lower in the next overture. They are a private company with 2 major shareholders so itās easy to say no to potential buyers. But this is just now a dragged on slow death if they donāt somehow turn it around.
Funny story: when I first started at SAS I signed up for a ābreakfast with Jimā thing where we sat in a conference room with Goodnight and we could ask questions, and have breakfast from the cafeteria. I very inappropriately asked if customers ever complained about their support dollars going into the lavish campus. There was an awkward silence. His response was that he thought customers liked being associated with a successful company. That probably has some merit, but maybe not to the degree he thinks.
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Whoever buys the company wants the IP and customer base. And the top engineering and sales talent still there. Beyond that a lot of folks will be let go. No pubicly traded company can likely maintain the costs SAS has, IMHO. Kinda sad because it has been a uniquely great place to work, but itās hard to see that maintained in a future scenario.
Like @Deekay93 and @GucciLittlePig said, though, SAS isnāt for sale and the potential deal fell through. The TBJ also published an article saying just that, too.
Before this gets lost in the noiseā¦
You have my respect for asking that 
when thereās an opportunity, someoneās gotta bring up the elephant in the room.
Speaking of business models, now that a lot of VC people are keeping their eyes on this thread, I have a question:
So many tech companies (and startups in general) see IPOs or SPAC mergers as their endgame, but it sounds to me like this just incentivizes them to become obsessed with short-term gains instead of long-term outlooks or brand development. Why is there such a cultlike culture over companies going public?
At least from a public interests point of view, I get that itās helpful to see public companiesā SEC reports. Still, that doesnāt seem like much compared to how quarterly financial reports incentivize companies (via their shareholders) to only focus on short-term growth above all else -even if it makes companies act worse in the long term (whether itās on capital investments, worker wages, environmentalism etc.). Soā¦ what makes the business marketās selfishness worth it?
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Now thereās an idea for improving the SAS experience: elephant riding! I mean, if thereās already an elephant in the roomā¦
Donāt think we talked about this one.
NC ranked by CNBC as the #2 state for business.
Full top 10
- Virginia
- North Carolina
- Utah
- Texas
- Tennessee
- Georgia
- Minnesota
- Colorado
- Washington
- Ohio
Up from 3 in 2019 and 8 in 2018
Our one ding spot from the TBJ article " But North Carolina scored low in the life, health and inclusion category (No. 37), which may be why the top spot was unattainable. Why? Because itās one of just five states without statewide public accommodation laws to protect non-disabled residents against discrimination."
Also spoke to VA getting #1 because of their port system which led me to this thought. Why doesnāt NC leverage itās coastal position more? GA has a couple of huge ports. VA obviously has a few. Quick GoogleEarth scan showed one near Wilmington but thatās about it. A solid ports investment and maybe some inland port terminals could go a long way. We have a huge industrial prescience in Eastern NC, might as well take that to the next step.
https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2021/07/13/north-carolina-cnbc-top-states-for-business-2021.html
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There are only three ports in North Carolina, the two main ones being Wilmington and Morehead City, as well as an inland port in Charlotte. Fast Facts - NC Ports
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An inland port somewhere near Smithfield or Benson or Rocky Mount would be an instant bread winner
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I think Wilmington is trying to up their port game. IIRC not too long ago they invested in some larger cranes to load/unload container ships.
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I think it has something to do with the āGraveyard of the Atlanticā. Our coast is notorious for sinking ships so Wilmington was the only port.
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A new $160M intermodal terminal is under construction now in Rocky Mount. Will be operated by CSX.
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Wilmington was NCās largest city until 1910. But aside from World War II when the shipyard was very busy, Wilmington was basically a zero-growth city until I-40 opened.
The Georgia ports enjoyed easy access to I-95 and, in the case of Savannah, I-16. Jacksonville had I-95 and I-10. Charleston had I-26. During the years when those ports grew rapidly, Wilmington was a slow drive on two-lane highways.
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itās just a matter of geology and how population developed. NC coast just does not have a good port location. Norfork and Charleston where developed as ports while eastern NC was still out in marshes. Still no good port locations both of sea ports in NC are severely limited in ship size for starters.
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Oh I am sure. As a kid, 40 was open to Wilmington but my parents would take Hwy 50 instead for the nostalgia. It would drive me crazy but looking back it was nice to travel through all of the little towns on the way.
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A story on the Pamlico Sound aired this past weekend on UNC-TV. As massive as this sound is the water is very shallow and even the ferry boats that only have about 6 feet of hull below the surface have to monitor the continuously shifting sand bars. Small fishing boats have to be careful so as not to run aground in some areas. This was noted as the main reason large deep water ports are in Virginia and South Carolina.
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All of the NCās beaches are shallow and have a deep drop off pretty far from the coast.
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Let me see if I can answer your question. Iād actually say that if a company doesnāt have to go public, itād choose not to. Being a public company comes with a lot of headaches that a private company donāt have to deal with. Extra regulations aside, as a public company you are kind of at the mercy of the street in a lot of ways. It limits how you can invest as you have to constantly balance growth versus return, all for the world to see at the same time.
Now, why would a start up want to go public. It really depends on how that startup is funded and their business model. Think of IPOs as basically a financing event for the company. It allows a massive infusion of capital to fund scale, something that chances are you wonāt be able to find investors to do privately. It also allows for a return for the investors of that company. If you are a lucky startup that didnāt have to take on a ton of investors and VC money to get to scale (SAS being an example), then you will choose to remain private.
But most startups are not in that position. They take on VCs and other investors who for their investment and financial risk expect a level of return. Many companies get that return by being bought by a larger company (or a SPAC), as either they are small or they donāt work long term as a standalone company. Others get to a level where they realize they can massively scale, this is where the IPO comes in.
The troubling trend in the last 10 years is that tech companies these days are not using IPOs to fund scale but only as a return to their VC backers. In essence, they are taking on massive investment to reach scale, and use IPO to pay back those investors (think AirBnB, Tesla, WeWorks). What you end up at is these lopsided valuations in the market, and can lead to disaster (WeWorks). But more and more, unless you are one of those type of companies, there is a trend of companies staying private, or going back to being private to not having to deal with the headaches of being a public company.
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Quite frankly, a lot of these new tech start ups operate with a loss, and never making a profit. with the hope that if they get enough users, they will figure out how to make money on it later. At some point the VCs want their money back, so they sell or try for an IPO.
Iām no insider, but that is my impression.
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