More Silicon Valley corporate failures predicted
Stanford University held a kickoff event for its Center for E-Commerce, an academic program under the auspices of Stanford's Law, Science and Technology program, which is also home to the Center for Internet and Society led by Professor Larry Lessig.
According to this San Jose Mercury News story the attendees were not very optimistic about the immediate future in the Valley:
If conference goers were looking for a silver lining from valley leaders, they got little to chew on.
``There is another shoe to drop,'' said Craig W. Johnson, chairman and co-founder of the Venture Law Group, who predicted more valley corporate failures as new capital remains very tight.
...Asked to suggest an area of law new graduates might pursue, Mark Radcliffe, a partner with Gray, Cary Ware & Freidenrich, recommended the bankruptcy field.
The only bright spot was the recent success story of PayPal whose $1.5 billion sale to eBay closed recently:
In a humorous lunchtime recounting of how he built PayPal, founder Peter Thiel, a Stanford law school graduate, described how the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars giving $10 bonuses to new customers.
As incredulous as it now sounds, Thiel said PayPal decided, ``We should just give the money away as the cheapest way to launch the service.''