10 years gone: The VA Linux Systems IPO

“But back to IPO day. I strolled into work sometime after 9:30
that morning and was immediately greeted by Pay, my manager, with
some astounding news. We all guessed that the day would be
significant, but none of us were prepared for the tsunami of
blissful, surreal numbness rushing to greet us.

“He showed me a sheet of paper faxed that morning from the
investment bank’s office (truly ground zero on that day), that was
copied ad nauseum and shoved into disbelieving faces. I’ll never
forget what was on it: just a simple table with 2 columns. The
column on the left was a list of investors, and the column on the
right was the price they bid for our stock. The numbers were
astronomical: $320, $250, $200, $300, $290.

“Curiously, some investor didn’t get the memo and bid a paltry
$50. We laughed at that because it was really funny–at the time. A
year later, and I would recall that lone investor for an entirely
different reason: on December 8, 2000, LNUX closed the day at
$8.49.”

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