Should WSO Use Cash for Silicon Valley Oasis?
This week, Apple, UPS, and Amazon put their cash reserves to use, and if that is news to you then you probably live in a hole. Maybe it is a sign that the economy is improving, but who cares? All that matters is that investment bank advisory departments are absorbing some solid fees.
Although none of us really know what kind of cash reserves Wall Street Oasis has on the books, perhaps it is time to conjure up some scenarios where we could deploy these hypothetical reserves.
Perhaps the cash could be used for an acquisition? Or maybe a big investment in R&D?
What I’ve been noticing is a steady increase in topics like computer science vs finance, Google or Goldman SA, and, one of my favorites- Facebook pays entry level 150K!
So why not acquire a solid, search engine optimized website that would focus on Silicon Valley careers and tech companies while still using the WSO model.
Now hear me out, the two sites would go hand in hand with each other, and users could use the same login/stats simultaneously. My basic thought is that there would be vast knowledge spillovers that could be used for both finance and technology. I mean, just look at how many threads there are on Apple or Facebook alone.
All the Silicon Valley prestige-obsessed kids flooding into the site would probably know a thing or two about coding and programing too. So maybe this would expedite the WSO iPhone app, or make the site cleaner and more users friendly.
So what do you say- Good idea? Or, is this just another JD Oasis waiting to happen?
I think all the topics should be kept here, it makes life easier than looking through 2 different websites when most of them could be talked about here without having to create a whole new website
youre signature is badass
Haha don't thank me, thank the author, the shit is motivating as fuck. Thanks Ed :)
is there any existing such site available already? and just curious, what does op think will give life to jdoasis
Great idea. I know I'd definitely use it, and going forward, probably more than WSO.
M Friedman ; Patricks gonna have your balls for "So what do you say- Good idea? Or, is this just another JD Oasis waiting to happen?"
o_O
no god damnit no!
tech will never be finance, they're different at the heart and a site like that would turn into a stackoverflow competitor.
Hey man yeah it wont work....... i feel like the niche this site grabs is great for it, I know hundreds of of sites that do this for silicon valley and WSO wont really be able to compete.... Not trying to be discouraging but if you are saying that he should compete with those sites that already exists then he would need to do something a little different than those other silicon valley sites.
Now if you are suggesting that he should create a different engine for curious WSO people then that makes sense I guess but I dont think that Patrick should spread his business thin. If anything keep on growing your Wall Street background. Think of other ways you can expand it. Starting a new silicon valley site wont really add anything except expenses unless people on WSO start buying guides themselves. I am running a tech/internet start-up now and I can tell you that (Patrick can too) this model isnt really worth the costs unless you are targeting new people to come, which will be difficult since there are many sites like this out there. I am also thinking Patrick has thought about this and may have come to the same conclusion that I have.
But it was a valid suggestion
Just go to Quora.com
Already tons of SV people on there
There's an essential problem with quora. It's not a discussion baord and forum is a proven format that gives much easier access to information and updates.
WSO should acquire one of those websites with cat pictures on it. Then we can compete with the neckbeards over at Reddit.
Is there a good job board out there listing only positions in this market (start-ups, VC-backed companies, VCs themselves)?
you should take a look at AngelList (google angellist) they are making a killing now I actually did some work at a startup there, but I left to start my own. Its a great emerging website!
Keep the ideas coming
Keep the ideas coming
IMHO silicon valley oasis isn't a good idea, there's already stack overflow, tech crunch etc. WSO is excellent for finance discussions, I think it should stick to that.
exactly..
3 threads justify a new site? I don't know man. I think everything would be best kept on WSO, so people don't have to rummage through 2 sites to find info that can be helpful to users of both SVO and WSO. WSO should use its cash to improve WSO! ;)
Agree with above. WSO is great because its unique and filled a very clear void in what was available. Silicon Valley stuff is so vastly different than 'high finance' that it would be near impossible to replicate the success of WSO.
I thought about this before, but came to the conclusion that the market for Tech-focused media and forums is far more specialized and saturated than the market for entry-level Finance. Furthermore, as the space itself is inherently anti-cookie-cutter, further challenges arise in aggregating all that disorganized content into a single site like WSO does for finance, as new sites that specialize in more specific categories will be able to out-compete the less specific. Really, the only jobs out in the valley that can be discussed to nearly the same generality as IB or S&T are the corporate roles in the established tech companies, at which point they're arguably subsets of WSO's focus anyway.
Quora is the closest community (I've seen) to come close to generally capturing this space so far and they've got an SV user-base that would take a potential VentureOasis or SVO several years to compete with. I would say they've got a stronger (more experienced, better credentialed, previously successful, etc.) population in Tech than we do in Finance - so it would be difficult to penetrate for sure.
WSO should use cash reserves to buy the real estate vs leasing office space, aka for Patrick purchasing his loft in boston :P
I think WSO should use its cash to pay dividends to its users. I'm been out of bananas and monkey shit for a while....
THIS
We need some banana liquidity!
Agreed! If Patrick can't find projects that return a higher rate than WSO's cost of capital, he should reward shareholders with SBs!
Yup I mentioned that patrick should expand ill explain an example, now if patrick wanted to create a social network for people who work or want to work on wall street it would make more sense to me, you will need to find a web developer who is talented as fuck, I am a web architect and as an entrepreneur I could see a social network for high finance work really well, since you all know wall street is pretty much about who you know more than what you know and you could bring that social experience of networking online, first make it exclusive to WSO people to increase traffic on WSO and to make people feel like "OHH I WANNA BE ON THIS SITE" that dont use WSO.
I also believe the next thing for internet tech is a site that lets you meet new people in a friendly environment. Facebook lets you meet people that you already know, but it doesn't let you meet new people. If you want to integrate that into the social network instead of the traditional ill friend you thing, look into Airtime it is made by Sean Parker.
I could throw some more at you but in a time like now when it is hard to find a Wall Street gig I feel like something like this would be great to integrate in a wall street ecosystem. a social network for people aspiring to breaking in.
BTW Patrick if you decide to this I want 15% of the revenue :D
Good Luck
yea except it would be more like linkedin, but it would be exclusive I think WST (they came to my school and asked me if I wanted to be part of the banker club they have which is invite only) has one, but they were shit talking WSO, mr. kovacs was talking shit about WSP and WSO and how WST is better (atleast the guides) so I was like fuck you haha.
Theirs is exclusive, you should make yours more open to anyone intersted in working on wall street so you can meet like minded students and it would be a great networking tool, I could see linkedin wanting to acquire something like this.
Think about it, something like this would help headhunters and recruiters on wall street sooo much since it will be very focused and all the people wanting to work on the street will be on this site or on the network. I could see as much as 500,000 people attempting to use a network like that in the world and I mean yahoo was willing to pay a billion when facebook had around 5 mil users, except there will be more use to a wall street focused social netwroking site since so many people can use it.
I would do something like this myself but I am already working on another startup and I feel like it would make more sense for a site like WSO to run this.
Not going to lie, Social networks dont have great cashflow, but I feel like if you can create a platform for networking (kinda like linkedin) between wall street wannabes and some people who work on wall street, banks may even be willing to buy it since they can get the most motivated students instead of paying headhunters or HR staff millions of dollars.
Dont know you guys but I think this has a great model, its just that you need some amazing coders that can code in PHP, Python and Java.
and remember patrick, give me 10% :D haha
great idea. i will definitely use both.
Dividends to users!
I know, I have been out of SB and MS for a week or so now. It is really depressing.
Buyout bid for M&I ?
IOU 1 SB !!
let's buy techchrunch...
I realize you're probably kidding, but to put things in perspective, TechCrunch's 2011 Revenue was roughly $13M. I love this site and think what Patrick's done is awesome, but I'd be willing to bet TechCrunch's Rev figure is roughly 100x larger than WSO's...
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