Hiring full time

I’m working on hiring another full time employee, because basically there’s too much to do, and too little time to do it. Yes, I’m that busy and not having additional staff is actually hurting profitability at this point.

In other news, I caught this little tidbit earlier today about my old company Clearwire. I can only say one thing.

Wow.

$600 million from Intel Capital being pumped into Clearwire. You know, they could have just written me a check and they’d get exactly the same return they’re going to get from Clearwire.

I suppose that eight years is a long time, and Clearwire has probably changed a lot since I worked there. Then again, since Craig McCaw founded the company several years after I worked there, maybe it hasn’t been that long. Incidentally, I wonder if he reset the employee numbers back at 1? Strange how the marketing department spins some things. But as I said. Eight years is a long time, and perhaps by now, Clearwire has its act together. They’ve got new leadership, some new top tier partners in Motorola and Intel, and $600 million burning a hole in their pocket.

One thing bugs me though. They filed with the SEC to do an IPO, and then pulled the plug because they could get more money from Intel Capital. Perhaps I’m being a bit naive here, but isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? I thought you did an IPO so you could get more money that if you sold out to a private investment company.

And think about $600 million. That’s up there… really really up there. That’s more than what Webvan’s IPO raised in its heyday, and Webvan was voted the number 1 dot-com flop. Somehow, this behemoth of an investment is supposed to pay off for Intel Capital. Yes, I understand that wireless networking eliminates a lot of the costs of laying cables, and in the future all of us are supposedly going to become more connected, but this is just insane.

I have pretty serious doubts about this investment. Sure, wireless technology has gotten better over the years, but they’re trying to compete with wired networks which already have lines in place. Couple that with the fact that Verizon is rolling out fiber-optic cables to your doorstep compliments of Verizon Fios while offering absolutely insane transfer speeds, and I don’t think Clearwire has a chance in hell. Here’s a chart for you, which could have just saved someone nearly a billion dollars.

Clearwire Pricing: 
VerizonFios Pricing:

For about the cost of a coffee and a bagel (or less depending on where you live), I can get ten times the download bandwidth. I’d lump this brilliant idea in with choosing AOL as your dial-up provider right about now. Did you hear that flush? That’s the sound of a lot of money going right down the toilet.