The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Any New Rich Microsofties

Is there a lot of Microfties who joined MS as Software Engineers 5 years ago and can claims that they're
Millionaires...

I'm not talking about early MS employee such
as Doug Klunder, Charles Simonyi, Richard Brodie and other legend ...

Just newbies (programmers only)who have been at MS around 5 years...

BioTek
Friday, February 27, 2004

Are you going to kidnap their children?

Wayne
Friday, February 27, 2004

Wayne :

Nope! Just checking if it's worth going for a job interview there

BioTek
Friday, February 27, 2004

Look at the stock price of MS over the last 5 years. Yahoo! Finance tells me the stock has gone from around $40 to around $26-27 today ( http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y ). Unless they hand out "short" options I don't see how any one would be getting rich with options on that...

Ray
Friday, February 27, 2004

Someone didn't take into account the stock split that occured this past year. Anyone one that owned shares on or prior to 01/29/03 got a 2:1 split.

Elephant
Friday, February 27, 2004

In reference to the actual question, they pay well, so although you might not get "rich" in the dot.com sense, if you save your dollars, you would be able to live a comfortable life style and retire at a reasonable age. This is true many places though.

I'd go for the interview. It can't hurt to see what they have to offer and Seattle is a beautiful place to visit (fun even if it is raining which often it isn't). Why discount an opportunity before it's even there? Worry about accepting the job after it's offered to you.

Elephant
Friday, February 27, 2004

I don't believe they hand out options anymore, just straight stock. Has to do with new taxes involving dividends and the like.

Nigel
Friday, February 27, 2004

Never expect to get rich off options. It is vanishingly uncommon and always has been. Microsoft is a mature company. You should expect mature company growth rates.

name withheld out of cowardice
Friday, February 27, 2004

"Someone didn't take into account the stock split that occured this past year. "

Sure it did. Around January, 2000, Microsoft was at around $120.00, but the Yahoo chart shows them as at $60 at that time because they've factored in the split retroactively (as all half decent stock charts do). Microsoft is at less than half their all-time high, obviously because stock prices often "price in the future", and the future is that Microsoft's revenue has been flat. Even more disconcerting, for the last quarter Microsoft's server and tools division actually turned in a loss. We are at that crossroad that a lot of tinfoil hats worry about -- Will Microsoft start turning the screws?

Dennis Forbes
Friday, February 27, 2004

Remove foot from mouth and actually look at the chart next time before commenting ...

Elephant
Friday, February 27, 2004

If you're not smart enough to figure out how the Microsoft stock has done in the past 5 years, then they won't hire you to be anything more advanced than a janitor.

Clutch Cargo
Friday, February 27, 2004

Is it a good time to purchase Microsoft stocks ?

since they're quite low

Alexander
Friday, February 27, 2004

By the way, and this is just a pet peeve of mine, it is worth pointing out that stock splits are totally irrelevant in terms of the value of the stock and/or the value of the company.

Stock splits are meaningless. They're a gimmick. If you are one of the many people who thinks that it's some kind of great deal to own a stock when it splits, you need to snap out of it. I can't believe how many people I know who say things like "I wish the stock would split" or "Oh, I should have bought that before it split! I missed out!"

Arrrrghhhhhh!!!!

Ok. I feel better now.

Mike Treit
Friday, February 27, 2004

While it's true that stock splits *ought* to be meaningless in an economic sense, in actual practice they have great psychological value and do tend to drive a company's market valuation up. Just look at all your friends who think a split means the company's price is about to go up! Think about it: if splits didn't have a postive effect, then why do so many companies bother doing them?

Friday, February 27, 2004

"it is worth pointing out that stock splits are totally irrelevant in terms of the value of the stock and/or the value of the company"

While a lot of people do take splits and share prices grossly out of context, share splits are a very real phenomena that often mean billions of dollars in capitalization -- generally a company wants to keep its shares between I think around $20 and $100 -- Over $100 and the granularity gets too coarse for the small investor (which, these days, does account for a far number of shares), and psychologically it has a feeling of "cresting". Under $20 and you start to look shady (indeed we have the term "pennystock" for close-to-bankruptcy style companies -- but who's to say that it isn't a Microsoft with a trillion shares outsanding?). Share-splits are a sign of success, while share merges (I can't recall the term) are a huge sign of weakness.

Dennis Forbes
Friday, February 27, 2004

A bit of trivia... Warren Buffet's company Berkshire Hathaway has never done a stock split. If you want to buy a single share, it'll set you back a cool $94,000.

http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/compinfo/CompanyTearsheet.jhtml?tkr=BRK.A

This seems to be the exception that proves Dennis's point... the company's known as being a very exclusive investor's club. The hoi polloi need not apply.

Robert Jacobson
Friday, February 27, 2004

That is why Berkshire created class B shares, which trade at 1/30th the value of class A shares.

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/compab.html

Oren Miller
Saturday, February 28, 2004