Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what happens when it rains resistors?
Cloudy with a chance of devboards?
You know what they say, every cloud has a silver plating.
Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
51–60 of 111 posts
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not really suggesting people do that, just pointing out what happens. It's slightly difficult to post links to threads that they delete...
I for one and willing to live with the egg on my face if you actually prove this. I am extremely, extremely skeptical that you are truthfully and wholly representing whatever situation you are referring to.
As I say, its fairly hard to demonstrate 'live' as they delete the posts, but if it helps here's a few reports of it, and related activities:
- https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/foru... (lots of similar reports of weird bans)
- https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/raspberry-pi-forums-banne... (a few people reporting similar cases / reasons for being banned here)
- https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=38424 (mod even confirms questioning mods will get you banned)
- https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=78285
And somewhat unrelated to the forum, there's this https://eiara.nz/posts/2022/Dec/09/a-case-study-on-raspberry... which highlights the issues with the main person who's caused their forums and community to have such a hostile attitude towards its users. The followup interview will let you draw your own conclusions about the head of their social team... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisstokelwalker/raspb...
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#53Ah, this may explain their abandonment of the 'hacker' community and weird hostility towards them over the last few years. They've gone from a fun project and education focused company who was mostly operating under their non-profit arm to better education, to a B2B enterprise supplier with a heavy handed and sometimes outright hatred to their original user base. For a proof of concept, pop onto their forums, create…
That is the story of just about every technology.... or even community Sad but it remains true, Thing is created > Small but devoted group discovers and popularized thing > Thing raises to mass popularity > The masses what to change the thing to be what they think it "should be" diverging from what the small but devoted group desired or signed on for > Thing becomes unrecognizable to the original group > New thing is…
If the Pi gets replaced, Chinese trash that is abandoned in a half-working state after zero updates will replace the Pi.* Or thin clients. Dark days ahead.
*like, just random example, the Radxa Rock 3 https://youtu.be/KghZIgkKZcs
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not really suggesting people do that, just pointing out what happens. It's slightly difficult to post links to threads that they delete...
I for one and willing to live with the egg on my face if you actually prove this. I am extremely, extremely skeptical that you are truthfully and wholly representing whatever situation you are referring to.
[flagged]
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#55So who gets the $500m or so they're suggesting the IP will raise? Is that going to be injected into the foundation in which case they could do a lot with it (presumably with some guardrails to prevent them clashing with the PLC)
That depends on the kind of float, you can float in three different ways: emit new stock, sell existing stock, a combination of those two. Any new stock emitted will have the bulk of the funds (minus fees and all that) deposited in the company, selling existing stock will have the bulk of the funds deposited with the existing share holders. It isn't rare for there to be a lock-up period before existing stock holders…
Good point that it's unlikely to be as simple as a $500m return but regardless of the amounts or structure of IPO my question was more around who are the existing share holders of the commercial company? Is it the foundation or someone/something else? Is this float to get cash or financial stability for the foundation or a cashout by other parties?
At the end of the day I'm not going to be too critical in any case as I've contributed nothing beyond buying a few boards and making a few posts in support!
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#56Wasn't it supposed to be a charity/non profit foundation? Isn't an IPO kinda the opposite of that? Or is is the fashionable thing these days to claim to be non-profit when you're young and looking for grassroots support, only to transform when there is money to be made?
Depends on the structure - Public OpCo controlled by non-profit worked out well for Novo Nordisk. Get the resources needed from the public markets, but still maintain the mission-driven control and focus on diabetes.
As if Saxenda/Victoza or Ozempic didn't cost nearly one minimum wage per month. At least they're focusing on diabetes I guess.
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#57To me it feels like the Raspberry Pi Foundation hasn't met its objective of making computers accessible and affordable to everyone (especially children in disadvantaged areas). Each iteration is so expensive and previous iterations don't lose value or are made cheaper. It's more prudent to spend a bit more for a mini-pc. In South Africa, the average child from a disadvantaged background has no chance of buying a Pi.
Arduino on the other hand, open sources the hardware, meaning very cheap but less powerful SBCs from companies in China (and elsewhere).
They should be doing the same as they have the ecosystem and resources to mass produce very cheap boards, but the Pi is prohibitively expensive, and it looks like they cater to companies first and prioritise making a profit.
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The non-profit arm is a tiny insignificant part of their business now. They stopped being education and charity focused during covid and are only really interested in their B2B customers these days.
Do you have any evidence of a focus change during covid? Other than the obvious temporary changes all education outlets made during the pandemic? The charity still exists and still does all the same stuff: https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFounda...
They shifted focus to B2B, with all inventory over the pandemic going to those customers. Despite the chip shortage ending a long time ago they continued to push the line that they were still suffering from it. Later they confirmed in a few interviews that they were doing 100k units a month to thier B2B customers (the reason cited was due to B2B customers livelihoods relying on it which is fair enough). There was a discussion it it at the time here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33864152
Only once the Sony production line expanded did they get back on top of B2C supplies.
Throughout the shortage their blog regularly made statements like "If you are a B2B customer get in touch, we can still supply you with Pis".
In terms of their organisational structure, the charity does indeed still exist, but as I say it's a pretty small part of their business (and yes the charity exists for business) these days. Anyone active in Pi community circles will know that the consumer and education focus is very much going away, all be it slowly but that will no doubt pick up once they become listed and profits becomes the only focus.
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
The non-profit arm is a tiny insignificant part of their business now. They stopped being education and charity focused during covid and are only really interested in their B2B customers these days.
A tiny insignificant part which owns the commerical part.
Not sure what your point is there. Owning the commercial arm is pretty irrelevent. Most businesses are owned by a holding company that does nothing more than file a return once a year.
Re: Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've got it the wrong way around. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a shareholder in Raspberry Pi Ltd, not vice versa. It benefits from the profits generated by the commercial arm. The commercial arm was established on 10 September 2012 [1]. [1] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
> You've got it the wrong way around. I don't see how it is the wrong way around: what you are saying is that they are a for-profit, and depending on how much profit they make with their business, the foundation gets more money to "play with", right?
Well, where else is the foundation supposed to get the money from?