Wednesday, July 30, 2008

What has Michael Robertson accomplished this past year?

I resigned from Linspire exactly one year ago on July 31st, and still no shareholders meeting or word from Michael Robertson to the minority shareholders as to what happened with their investment in Linspire.

This past year Robertson had time to predict the iPhone would flop, falsely accuse good people of crimes, shrink several companies, come up with dumb and exploitive new product names, and as recently as today, have his lawyers harass me, but he still seems to have no time for those employees and investors who wrote out checks to buy stock in his company.

Yes, Michael, we know, we know, YOU'RE #1. We got it.

Kevin

10 comments:

Bartski said...

I received the email announcing that PimP thing (yes, I'm still on the linspire mailing list, despite my complete apathy for the company's current offerings) and thought it was a little tasteless...

I see a photo-chopped pimp hat wearing Michael Robertson in the near future.

Kevin Carmony said...

Bartski,

How could I resist? =)

Kevin

Bartski said...

Perfect.

Nathan said...

Ugh, this thing just keeps getting worse, and I really don't see an end in sight any time soon. I just renewed my mp3tunes account, and I'm seriously considering doing one final down-sync and ditching the whole thing.

MR used to appear to have a Midas Touch with any idea he came in contact with, now it appears that it's more of the opposite.

It's really too bad. I used to wholeheartedly embrace just about every MR venture I could.

KC, it's good to see you're moving along well.

Nathan/AlexDeGruven

Kevin Carmony said...

Nathan,

If you look at Michael's track record, it's actually not at all impressive. He's almost never shown a return to investors. Even at MP3.com (which everyone assumes he was so successful with), their IPO stock sold at $28 a share and in less than two years, the company sold for around $5 a share. Michael made out alright because he had founding shares, but all those thousands and thousands of investors who purchased shares for more than $5 didn't do well at all. (Hmmm...sound familiar?)

How do you take a company's stock from $28 a share and turn it into $5 a share in less than two years? Have a CEO like Michael Robertson. I believe it was his reckless behavior with copyright law that tanked MP3.com's stock.

As far as I know, he's also never made a dime for any investor since leaving MP3.com. Linspire, MP3tunes, SIPphone, AjaxWindows, Comparesoft, etc. etc. etc.

A review of his track record, and you'll likely come away thinking Robertson has more the "kiss of death," than the "Midas touch."

Kevin

Kevin Carmony said...

Nathan,

One other thing...you should switch to MediaMaster.com. It's W-A-Y better than MP3tunes--no software install needed for syncing, cool widgets, way better user interface, it's 100% free, oh, and they haven't been sued.

Kevin

Nathan said...

I saw your tweet about MediaMaster yesterday. Definitely interested in checking it out, just haven't had a chance yet.

Bartski said...

I gave MediaMaster.com a try based on your recommendation (ripping and uploading about 6 or 7 CDs).

Very cool.

Anonymous said...

Wow.

Is that Michael Robertson? He looks like a noob.

david said...

Kevin,

About your question about stock going from $28 to $5 in 2 years:

I know a better in 2002, EDS (Electrontic Data Systems) stock was $72 in January/Feburary and by October it as $6.50. MR would probably be envious of the managaement at EDS