Google founders to offload 14 million shares

Page and Brin selling

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[abc.net.au...]

[mykel79]

Can't say I blame them. Paper wealth is nice, but money in the bank is money in the bank.

[FrankWeb]

Seems logical thing to do, everybody knows the stock won't be on this level forever.
Just leaves the question, would they think the company has a future that will only consist of a rise in business, or is this rest of the market catching up on the gap between them and google?
I think the founders know the gap will most likely get smaller instead of bigger, so I would sell them too I were one of the founders...I wish I was :>

[growingdigital]

When is the G bubble going to burst? GOOG is the most over valued stock on the market.

[walkman]

they're even smarter than I thought. Nice to know you're still a billionaire no matter what happens. Actually, after all the shares become eligible to sell, other G employees will start selling too so they're lucky if they end up with $400 mil each. My heart goes out to them :)

[amznVibe]

That sure didn't take long. I guess they recoignize a peak price when they see it.
Only they know for sure there are no serious innovations coming out in the next few years, and within 12 months they are going to have Microsoft breathing down their neck... wise move but greedy move...

[my2cents]

With Micro$oft on my tail, I would too! Tells you something, no?

[walkman]

"Tells you something, no? "
Not really, just tells me that they learned from the dot-com bust. Mark Cuban is now loaded cause he cashed in most of his paper. Many wish they had done the same...

[MovingOnUp]

I can't remember the last time I've seen so much negativity. Makes me want to load up on GOOG.

[SlyOldDog]

I doubt anyone making negative comments here owns google stock. It was already too expensive at the IPO price.

[Marcia]

>>wise move but greedy move...

Not greedy at all, just normal post-IPO behavior. It's been a very common strategy for many who buy into stock pre-IPO, even before the whole dot-com scene, to know in advance that they'll be selling off a certain amount post-IPO.

[skibum]

So they are effectively dumping 16.6 million shares. Original IPO was 19,605,052 shares. Unless there is a lot of pent up demand for G shares, nearly doubling the number of outstanding shares ought to kock down the share price a lot.

If the share price & market cap were to drop by 40%, would that have index funds selling the stock right away or do they take a while to rebalance?

Most people in their shoes would probably be selling too.

[adfree]

And you don't want to do that three years into operation as a public company, steers up too much dust and uncertainty for everyone involved.

And: they surely deserve it after pulling up one very impressive thingamagoogle.

[blaze]

Warren Buffet would be utterly disgusted with his so called protoges.

He's never sold a share in berkshire-hathaway.

Clearly, all those references to Buffet in the initial filings was all a sham ..

[Chris_D]

Wasn't there something special about the owners shares? I vaguely remember reading that although Google went public, the voting classes of the IPO offered shares ensured that the original founders & investors retained voting control? So will these shares be a different class to the IPO shares - or do they revert to a different class?

Anyone know?

[bears5122]

What it tells me is that they aren't very confident in their company. Maybe issues they've had recently and reports that their system is broken isn't far from the truth.

[xxxxxpp]

but if they know that their system is broking and they know that their company will crash and burn, wouldn't selling out quickly before that be inside trading?

[dauction]

This is barely news ; it is simply a part of the normal process of bringing a company to the Market and part of the reason why a company IS brought to the market to finally get the big payday they have worked for these past 10 years.

The stock price will be very volatile (even without any major news)at least over the next year as it settles in.

You will see stock players that are shorting the stock yelling "fire" trying to influence the stock price down and then after they profit at that end the next you here they'll being pushing the hype and working the long position.

If you are not daytrading but purely long then simply figure out what you feel is the best PE that google should be trading at and dont buy until then .

Insider selling at this point is ONLY a signal of them finally taking the big payday and rarely signals anything important at a company.

[walkman]

"but if they know that their system is broking and they know that their company will crash and burn, wouldn't selling out quickly before that be inside trading? "

I dont; think they know or think that the system is broken? One man's broken system is another man's $40 billion company. Insider trading is very different and they'll probably soon announce the exact date of sale (let's say June 14th, 2005) to sell the stock no matter what price. This way there's no insider trading questions.

[esllou]

I don't understand why WebmasterWorld continues to waste a whole forum on something that in five years will be looked back on as a huge knife in the back of webmasters.

Am I missing something? If I wanted to know share prices, I would go to Yahoo Business.

[freeflight2]

did the VCs sell all their shares yet?

[blaze]

No, the normal course is not necessarily for founders to sell out like this.

For those cases, trust me, it's a bad bad sign. I always had a lot of respect for the guys at top, but this really dissapointed me.

Yes, it is normal course for *employees* to sell their stock options, and for VC to sell their shares, but for founders?

Absolutely not! Not unless they had already quit the company.

And if they have no confidence in the company, then they should say so loudly and clearly before they sell their shares, otherwise YES, it is insider trading.

[Shak]

lets get back to spam and seo boys and gals (imo)

apart from a very small % here, most do NOT understand how IPOs, VCs or Share prices work (and I am part of the majority who dont understand)

ur adsense cheques arrived yet :)

Shak

[Marcia]

>>ur adsense cheques arrived yet

Not yet Shak, but when's the update gonna start? ;)

[adfree]

Oh no, not another update, adsense check hasn't arrived yet, numbers not showing type thread please ;)

[dodger]

When the owners start to sell up it's time to be careful.
Thr price will probably fall on this news.

[Chris_D]

Hey adfree - just noticed that its the AUSTRALIAN ABC you referenced!

Mate - good call!

:)

Chris_D
Sydney

Hey Dodger - long time no speak! :)

[adfree]

Chris, gotta have your eyes everywhere, knowing that you guys down under often beat the world in speed :)

[rogerd]

I guarantee that if you walk into any qualified financial advisor's office and state that 99% of your assets are in a single stock, you'll be told to sell shares and diversify. That advice isn't dependent on the quality of the stock or its possible prospects; it's just bad practice to not diversify your assets, whether you are a billionaire or not. I didn't check insider records, but I'm sure over the years Bill G has sold off many chunks of MSFT to fund other investments and philanthropy.

I wouldn't read anything at all into this sale.

[rogerd]

>>Did the VCs sell their shares yet?

From CBS Marketwatch:

In a separate filing, John Doerr, a board member of Google and a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday, to report the sale of 5.78 million class A common shares at $172.54. Doerr filed on behalf of Kleiner Perkins. The shares are worth $997 million.

Kleiner Perkins bought in at $.49 per share. I guess that will cover a few losers :)