I was having a discussion with an MVIS Blog reader a while back and he made a comment that really stuck with me. I mentioned that all my money was in MVIS and he said, 'What you're doing is not investing. It's entrepreneurship."
I've thought about that a lot since that time. Sometime into my project to build my MVIS position, I started counting my ownership in terms of my percentage ownership rather than just how many shares did I have. Sometime ago I realized that there was no way I could follow any other stocks with the same level of interest as I follow MVIS -- so I made the decision to just put it all in MVIS and see what I could do.
I've had more than a few times when I thought I was going to have a heart attack. But somewhere along the line, I arrived at a different place. I developed a kind of confidence about what I was doing and why. I looked over several months of assembled stories on this blog and just kind of had the light bulb go on: It's really going to happen.
Today's move in the stock is very interesting since it is hard to believe it could have come just from being recognized in IEEE Spectrum magazine. After all, I reported this a week ago and we didn't do anything much(!).
I've thought a lot lately about how people need to be distracted from reality. I know that I have a hard time sitting quietly with my thoughts and not plugging into the laptop or firing up the TV. There's a compulsion to be somewhere other than where we really are -- contemplating the future, or revisiting the past. Just to be in the present moment is a challenge. The torrent of media and things to keep up with can be relentless.
I think that can maybe explain part of why the company's tremendous 3Q earnings conference call seemed to have been brushed aside by the investment community (until now?). It was evident from the discussion of the business outlook on the call that the company is in better shape than they have ever been -- with gathering momentum for Nomad as well as the very real possibility of multiple design wins for OEMs. And yet, people seemed to greet this with a shrug.
I was completely amazed by the first caller who basically said, 'why invest in the technology at all?'. It was as if this person was listening to a different conference call than I was. I wasn't sure what he wanted Microvision to sell if it wasn't an image display/capture platform that can be integrated into a variety of different products for OEMs. Sorry to tell this guy, but you can only arrive at the point where these OEMs decide to go for it if you have put in the blood, sweat, tears and, most importantly, money required to design a truly elegant solution that solves pressing needs for their businesses.
We know that the ubiquitous 2" cell phone LCD screen is a bottleneck that is limiting profitability for the biggest communications companies in the world. We know that competing microdisplays are inherently deficient in that they operate on the same flat-panel, fixed-pixel paradigm as LCDs. We know that what is required is the 'laptop display in the iPod form factor'. And we know now after the 3Q call that Microvision is in serious discussions with these companies about licensing our intellectual property portfolio to resolve this bottleneck.
The need to be elsewhere from the present moment is compelling and is maybe what leads people to think about future financings, or accumulated deficits, or their past expectations when confronted with the state of the company as it is today. But sometimes the 'real reality' is even more compelling.
When bottlenecks to profitability can only be resolved by licensing a proprietary and patented technology, he who holds the patents is in position to do something truly special. That's why I'm here and why I intend to hold my position through the rest of this decade and beyond. That's why I've decided to build an MVIS position that's turned out to be bigger than that of many of the biggest investment firms in the world. To Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and CS First Boston, I say, 'try and catch me...I own the future -- and I ain't selling!'
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