Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - GoogleMania: IPO Plan is Official

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - GoogleMania: IPO Plan is Official "Well, it's better than I'd expected: According to Google's fascinating SEC filing today, the company will a) sell shares in an auction rather than the rancid old-boy system that prevailed in Silicon Valley's bubble days; and b) have an ownership structure that lets the founders manage for the long term, not Wall Street's quarterly attention span.
This is great news, but it's going to mean big risks both for Google and for its prospective shareholders. Wall Street and the crony capitalists who run it will be furious. Watch them, after the IPO, as they take potshots every time Google hits any bumpy times. And anyone thinking of investing in this IPO should be very, very careful. GoogleMania could pump the stock price way beyond the company's intrinsic value.
One interesting tidbit in the filing is the number of employees -- about twice what I'd believed. As of March 31, the company had "1,907 employees, consisting of 596 in research and development, 961 in sales and marketing and 350 in general and administrative."
So Google will also have to manage its transition to Big Company, always difficult, while trying to retain the best parts of the small-company culture.
If they can pull all this off, they'll be doing good things for Silicon Valley, and for American capitalism."