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For me, more than any other sign of how smooth the IPO transaction has become is the culture clash that didn't happen between high tech and high finance. It used to be that these scruffy-bearded, sandal-wearing engineers would ride in their VW vans up to San Francisco, where they would take the e…

He takes a stroll. The long walk around the sales floor. His face hangs with gloom, he tries to give a pursed smile but it just shows hurt. He paces back and forth, his hands on his hips. His steps are ponderous, searching. He looks like he has been stretched like a Gumby. He is worried about Dan G…

[...] "Options are really a West Coast thing," said Dan Gaudreau, who spent eighteen years in management at General Electric. "On the East Coast, they don't consider options as having any real skin in the game. Only if employees really buy the stock does it count as skin." If options collapse in va…

Riding the limo down to Wall Street, Dan and Nico are blowing off steam. This involves cracking a series of inside jokes with embedded references to road-show misadventures. D&N are like junior high girls at the water fountain, giggling over details only they find funny. Any reference to a credit c…

[...] I wanted to know what fills their daydreams as they drive along the 280 every evening. Nobody daydreams about "liquidity." These guys don't even really daydream about money, since they already have nice houses in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Prestige. That's what this is abou…