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

111–120 of 132 posts

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

#111

Post by robomartin »

ceejayoz wrote: post #85
robomartin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have self-funded, founded and run multiple businesses in the last 40 years. What I post does not come from a 30 second google session. It comes from having had significant skin in the game, succeeding and failing. Most people think they understand business. And most people have never run a non-trivial business. It's like trying to explain what it is like to fly like a bird without being a bird. Most simply can't ge…

OK, but none of that really qualifies you to arbitrarily redefine the term "profit" to fit your argument. https://www.google.com/search?q=uber+first+profit https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+first+profit make it fairly clear how people use the terms.

Simple example:

A nonprofit wants to donate $600K to feed children.

It will cost $400K in operating expenses to be able to do this.

They need to generate $1MM in revenue and $400K in profits in order to be able to make use of $600K in support of their cause. Without this "profit" there is no nonprofit and no support for the cause. It is profit.

One way to define profit is something like what you have left after delivering a product. This hypothetical nonprofit takes in $1MM, delivers $600K in product and has $400K in profit that is used for operating expenses and (likely) to put money away for future needs, growth, etc.

Profit is necessary. We might not call it profit when it comes to these types of organizations, yet they cannot exist without this part of the equation. Call it what you want. They have to make more than they spend --a lot more-- or they cease to exist.

Also, in the US nonprofits are not banned from making what one might term conventional profit. They just can't distribute it. This means they can put money away and grow like crazy. Look at the mega-churches in Texas as a perfect example. If that not profit, I don't know what is.

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

#112

Post by maxerickson »

robomartin wrote: post #111
ceejayoz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but none of that really qualifies you to arbitrarily redefine the term "profit" to fit your argument. https://www.google.com/search?q=uber+first+profit https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+first+profit make it fairly clear how people use the terms.

Simple example: A nonprofit wants to donate $600K to feed children. It will cost $400K in operating expenses to be able to do this. They need to generate $1MM in revenue and $400K in profits in order to be able to make use of $600K in support of their cause. Without this "profit" there is no nonprofit and no support for the cause. It is profit. One way to define profit is something like what you have left after deliv…

Profit (especially as people commonly use it) is the stuff left over after you pay overhead, not the overhead.

Salaries of people doing the work are costs, not profits, and so on.

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

#113

Post by robomartin »

SirSourdough wrote: post #96
robomartin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have self-funded, founded and run multiple businesses in the last 40 years. What I post does not come from a 30 second google session. It comes from having had significant skin in the game, succeeding and failing. Most people think they understand business. And most people have never run a non-trivial business. It's like trying to explain what it is like to fly like a bird without being a bird. Most simply can't ge…

If you had just Googled for 30 seconds to learn the definitions of literally the most basic business terms when someone told you you were wrong, maybe you wouldn’t have had to mortgage the house.

I truly do not know how to respond to this other than to say that the only kind of person who can make such a mean-spirited comment is one who has never experienced the deep dark hole some entrepreneurs experience when things go the wrong way. Some don't come out of the other side. What happened to me took place during the 2008 economic implosion. To put it in the simplest possible terms: All business came to a grinding halt. The music stopped and there were no chairs.

A friend of mind died in 2009 from the sheer stress this moment in history caused him as his business crumbled. That December I penned an email from the darkest place I have ever been. One that was prompted by a revelation I had that day: I experienced a level of clarity I had never before experienced. In a moment, I understood, in no uncertain terms, why someone would commit suicide, jump off a bridge, walk in front of a train or shoot themselves due to undue business pressure and financial troubles. I emailed a friend to let him know I now understood this. I wasn't quite there, but, for some strange reason, I had to share. He drove to my office and spent the rest of the day with me.

So, yeah, I don't know what to say to someone like you. My less-than-intellectual impulse is to deliver the most vile insult I could. Yet, that would mean descending to a level I am not interested in visiting.

I'll leave you with this: I hope you never get to experience some of what many entrepreneurs have to live through when things take a turn for the worse. If you do, I hope the experience humbles you and you become a nicer person.

Be well.

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

#114

Post by robomartin »

ceejayoz wrote: post #92
robomartin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they pay for salaries, operating expenses, building rent, vehicle purchases, electricity, marketing, etc? They take a percentage of their income and use it to cover these expenses. Right? Well, this is semantics. A conventional business does exactly the same thing. They take a percentage of their income and use it to cover the cost of doing business. Laws for non-profits generally allow for such things. Which…

> How do they pay for salaries, operating expenses, building rent, vehicle purchases, electricity, marketing, etc? They take a percentage of their income and use it to cover these expenses. Right? Sure. Revenue minus expenses = profit/loss. "Net income", "bottom line", etc. Make more than you expend, and you've got a profit. Spend more than you make, and you've got a loss. Equalize them, and you've got no profit and…

Absolutely on point. My argument is simply that, as you put it, making more than you spend is a necessary element for any organization to exist and grow. In the case of a conventional business everyone calls this profit. Somehow, magically, in the case of "nonprofits" we don't.

The term "nonprofit" is a misnomer that might be the reason for this distinction, at least in the US. The term implies the idea of zero profit, which could not be farther from the truth.

You are right to highlight churches. I remember the first time I went to Texas on a sales call at one of the mega churches. The only way I can describe it was a campus with several buildings the size of a Home Depot and more. You do not do something like that without profit. People might want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that it isn't, because we legally call them "nonprofits". All we are doing is lying to ourselves. They make a ton of money. And we don't tax them.

I am sure there are churches and religious organizations who do a lot of great value for their communities. I also know there are tons who are there for "management" to live the life of the rich and famous. Not to go too far, my wife's mother worked for a church for a while. The head pastor owned several luxury cars, went on amazing trips to expensive resorts all over the world --all paid by the church-- and more. Profit.

Note I am not saying profit is inherently bad. We would not have most of the things we enjoy in modern life without profitable business pursuits. From clothing to medicine and everything in between, without profit, it would not exist. Can it be abused and misused? Of course. That is true for almost anything that is part of the human experience. We abuse food, power, the environment, other people, position, etc. All good things until they are abused, including profit.

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

#115

Post by crossroadsguy »

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.

RPi is easily and affordably available everywhere. Even in my country and their models get released here real fast.

I am not sure, I can only hope; but I would really love them to be a Frame.work competitor with their established logistics and reach. Possibly cheaper as well. Maybe not as high end.

Because it might be years before something like Framework reaches places like my country (if they don’t go bust by then)

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

#116

Post by LegitShady »

hnaccount141 wrote: post #108
LegitShady wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately theory once it hits reality is often found to be untenable. The aggregation of power into some kind of central authority system for the good of the people always ends up bad for the people.

> The aggregation of power into some kind of central authority system for the good of the people always ends up bad for the people. You will find that this sentiment is quite popular among communists these days. The idea of achieving a classless, stateless society via the use of a central state is inherently contradictory. (Though that's not to say that the alternatives are necessarily more realistic)

It's obvious to anyone who has read history, or can see the 'communist' countries of today.

It's just the wannabe communists who are still silly enough to think they'll get it right this time.

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

#117

Post by bullen »

This needs to be seen in the broader context of peak everything and peak Moore's law in particular.

Windows 11 can't run on Skylake from 2016, Windows 7 can't run on Kabylake from 2017.

The model is broken because it is based on eternal growth, the lightbulb needs to break after 1000 hours!

So when the foundation released the 4th version at 2 Gflops/W it was the end of the model. Apples M1 pushes this to 2.5 Gflops/W at 5x the density, it's game over!

Now we need to build open software on this hardware without expecting more performance for free.

This is the end but also only the beginning because now you don't have to chase the ghost of eternal progress, you know the playing field and it is available to almost everyone!

So stop waisting your time on giving it to someone else and build something for eternity?

For me this means going back to basics: HTTP, DNS, SMTP, OpenGL (ES) 3 and sticking with those in the face of "progress"!

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

#118

Post by regularfry »

robomartin wrote: post #114
ceejayoz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do they pay for salaries, operating expenses, building rent, vehicle purchases, electricity, marketing, etc? They take a percentage of their income and use it to cover these expenses. Right? Sure. Revenue minus expenses = profit/loss. "Net income", "bottom line", etc. Make more than you expend, and you've got a profit. Spend more than you make, and you've got a loss. Equalize them, and you've got no profit and…

Absolutely on point. My argument is simply that, as you put it, making more than you spend is a necessary element for any organization to exist and grow. In the case of a conventional business everyone calls this profit. Somehow, magically, in the case of "nonprofits" we don't. The term "nonprofit" is a misnomer that might be the reason for this distinction, at least in the US. The term implies the idea of zero profi…

Your definition of "profit" doesn't seem to match anyone else's. If an organisation spends what revenue it has on its own operations, that is not profit. You might not agree with the way that money is spent, but that does not change the technical definition of a well-understood and widely agreed accounting term.

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

#119

Post by regularfry »

adrian_mrd wrote: post #94
regularfry wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other way round. Raspberry Pi Trading is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Thanks, so why would Raspberry Pi Trading become a publicly tradeable company then? Or would the Foundation then have to divest of its ownership of Raspberry Pi Trading once it is listed?

The Foundation doesn't have to sell all of it: they can issue publicly tradable shares but only sell some proportion of them. It depends how much money they want to raise.

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

#120

Post by jonp888 »

beervirus wrote: post #80
jonp888 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Trading part designs and manufactures(or purchases manufacturing capacity) of the boards. You couldn't do all that as part of the charity, especially given they also make products specifically designed for industrial use.

That doesn’t sound like trading.

It has two meanings:

1. the act or process of buying, selling, or exchanging commodities, at either wholesale or retail, within a country or between countries: 2. the act of buying, selling, or exchanging stocks, bonds, or currency:

Post reply on HN