پسران در حباب: کارآفرینان اینترنتی و ارزش بازار سهام

This paper expands the set of non-financial indictors of internet stock value to include that attributable to the retention of the founding entrepreneur. The failure of traditional financial value metrics to adequately explain the Internet stock boom has already provoked much research on non-financial indicators of firms value. The current paper adds to this trend of seeking “intangible” sources of Internet stocks value, by focussing on the role of the founding entrepreneur.

The wild frontiers of the “new economy” are being charted by colourful characters. No business section of a bookstore was complete without a handful of biographies, or autobiographies of E-entrepreneurs painted as saviours or cowboys. Feted by the media during the stock market bubble of late 1999–early 2000 dot-coma's momentarily run to ground, waiting to re-emerge in the sunlight of a new dawn. These individuals served as just one of the players in the tragi-comedy that is now known as the late 90s internet bubble [1].

The stock market value of retaining the founding entrepreneur on the board of directors of Internet firms was investigated for the period 1998–2003. Surprisingly, and somewhat counter-intuitively, in the author's view, no evidence of a positive effect and scant evidence of a negative effect of retaining the founding entrepreneur was found. This is puzzling given the clear role of founder in congealing so many elements of the intangible value of the firm. The finding is all the more intriguing given that few entrepreneurs will not sell up if they remain confident regarding the future prospects of the enterprise, to which they gave birth.