Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

club386.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 132 posts

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#41

Post by notreallyserio »

0des wrote: post #30
jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

How do we stop this cycle where it's a (well-deserved) reluctant goodbye every time a company we like seeks to go public and IPO? It's like the writing's on the wall and we already know what's going to happen.. We're in a segment of time where companies are so over-valued by VC that when they go public they have no choice but to engage in egregious practices to maintain the stock price. It often alienates the custome…

It's the inevitable outcome of enough cases that we should celebrate those that don't take this route. I'm thinking of orgs like Debian here, but there are many others for whom profit is not a or the sole motivator.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#42

Post by jws »

I wonder why they want the capital? They are wholly owned by the charity, so it’s not like they are enriching early stakeholders.

I’ll hope it’s so they can drive a more open SoC and peripherals.

I suppose it’s also possible the charity sees “tiny affordable computer” as done, has checked it off their list and plans to use money to purse their goals in other ways.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#43

Post by gchadwick »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #19
gchadwick wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to wait for further details. RPi has been structure as a for profit company owned by the charity for a long time. This IPO may result in a huge amount of money for that charity. It also doesn't say how much of a stake their selling. The charity may retain the majority share and so continue to have control along with a vast capital reserve to continue doing what they're doing plus a lot more.

The for-profit company has been raising money from investors in order to finance growth. I'm sure that an IPO would result in the charity getting cash but the aim does not seem to be that. Now, the good thing is of course that the accounts of the foundation are public [1]. I am not impressed that only about 10% of their income goes to "charitable activities". [1] https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk…

If you spend a few minutes digging into the accounts (https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFounda...) this appears to have a reasonable explanation.

The other 90% gets classed as 'fund-raising', what is actually is is money going into raspberry pi trading. rpi trading made a profit of around £10m which goes back as income into the charity and has mostly been spent on charitable activities.

I'm not an accountant and don't have time to go over the details to check but it appears that the charity gets all sales income. This then goes to the trading arm to pay for its expenses, leaving a profit which goes straight back to the charity. The majority of which is being spent on their charitable activities, which moderate sums presumably being kept back to aid reserve building.

Trading exists to make the charity money, money the charity then spends on its charitable aims.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#44

Post by door103 »

robomartin wrote: post #35
jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

> The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission. You cannot have any kind of a company without profit. Period. I am not sure where the vilification of profit comes from (not addressing you in particular but rather the general concept), its just silly. Companies have layers upon layers of costs in their financial equation. Employees and ongoing operational expenses being the…

> you have to care about them making a profit or watch them evaporate.

There is a difference between making a profit and maximizing profit. A publicly traded company is legally bound to do the latter.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#45

Post by ignoramous »

jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

> I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes?

That's BBC Micro: https://microbit.org/

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#47

Post by brighton36 »

0des wrote: post #30
jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

How do we stop this cycle where it's a (well-deserved) reluctant goodbye every time a company we like seeks to go public and IPO? It's like the writing's on the wall and we already know what's going to happen.. We're in a segment of time where companies are so over-valued by VC that when they go public they have no choice but to engage in egregious practices to maintain the stock price. It often alienates the custome…

Imo, it's a flaw in our model. If 'fighting them' failed, then, we should join them. Here, that would mean participation in the ipo, in the style of gamestop. Push the p/e ratio to something completely absurd. Maybe it'll fail as a result. (Thus begetting a libre office, response to an open office initiative.)

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#48

Post by IshKebab »

jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

This sounds like the same thing Mozilla does. There's a non-profit foundation that owns the commercial subsidiary. Otherwise it's difficult for them to do commercial deals that benefit the foundation (like the one with Google which basically gives them all their income).

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#49

Post by MarcScott »

jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

That was the original idea. However, as well as producing a board that was great for education and hobbyists, it turned out it was great for a whole range of applications, and the bulk orders started coming in from companies all over the world.

The Foundation is funded on the sales of Raspberry Pi hardware, government contracts and charitable donations. More sales directly benefit the charity. This allows us to:

- Run the world's largest network of coding clubs for children, for free.

- Produce educational resources for schools and clubs all over the world, for free.

- Conduct research into CS pedagogy.

- Provide Pi 400s and monitors to disadvantaged learners in England.

- Support educators all over the world with free physical and digital publications.

I know nothing about an IPO of RPTL, other than what I've read in the media, but I can guarantee you that RPF will continue to be a non-profit charity, and continue with it's mission.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#50

Post by behringer »

jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

This is the end of RPi. I wonder what's coming next though!
Post reply on HN