8 ms·

Raspberry Pi Picks Banks for IPO, Choosing London over New York

103 points by schappim 3y ago

andrewwwalkerr 3y ago
Wow , exciting! I must admit , I worry going public might actually be a bad thing for the Pi org. Exposure to the winds of quarterly earnings reports and hardware timelines can often conflict... I have no real evidence to support that feeling, but I have it just the same. Excited to see where this leads!
londons_explore 3y ago
Wasn't it supposed to be a charity/non profit foundation? Isn't an IPO kinda the opposite of that? Or is is the fashionable thing these days to claim to be non-profit when you're young and looking for grassroots support, only to transform when there is money to be made?
- techdragon 3y ago
  Yeah... I have major concerns about how significantly this would impact their ostensible goals. What guarantee is there that the newly publicly listed company won't be pressured by stockholders to improve the profit margins by driving up prices and reducing product quality on both the hardware and software fronts.
  - elashri 3y ago
    > What guarantee is there that the newly publicly listed company won't be pressured by stockholders to improve the profit margins by driving up prices and reducing product quality on both the hardware and software fronts. Isn't that what a public typical company do these days anyway? Or is there a sarcasm tone I am missing somehow?
    - techdragon 3y ago
      That’s my point. They are ostensibly setup to primarily be a charity even if there’s a commercial organisation buried in the business structure (like Mozilla and a few other corps) … while the charity is in control the mission is simple, the charity is the owner and the owners of a company make the decisions. Shifting to publicly listed means the owners are now the shareholders, it’s rare that public shareholders have zero board of directors representation, which is why I fear this is basically going to kill everything the Raspberry Pi Foundation have worked to build … the only question in my mind is how fast this kills it, I just can’t see how this won’t result in shareholders pressuring the company into compromising in the name of raw profit or whatever else is necessary for them to raise the stock price so the investors can get some profit.
      - graemep 3y ago
        It depends a lot on how they do it. How large a shareholding the non-profit retains, whether it retains controls by other means such as a golden share etc.
  - Astraco 3y ago
    Don't worry about prices going up and reducing quality, that have been happening since RPi 4
    - HankB99 3y ago
      I've been having issues with their S/W for a while now. * Couldn't select a current version of the OS to install on a Pi Zero. * Can't install the current version on an SSD that will run on a Pi 4B. An SSD install works. The same install on an SD card does work. * An install that runs on a Pi 5 won't run on a Pi 4B. I asked about the first on their forum and my post was deleted before anyone could answer. No reason was given and I could find no where to ask. The post was in no way critical or inflammatory. They just don't want to discuss problems with their stuff. There were a lot of changes in how the imager works and what happens on first boot and I suspect they are still catching up with related bugs.
  - mrmanner 3y ago
    That could end up not too bad actually - the for-profit company becomes hugely profitable, the foundation uses the dividends to further their goals of affordable computer education etc. etc.
- swampthinker 3y ago
  Depends on the structure - Public OpCo controlled by non-profit worked out well for Novo Nordisk. Get the resources needed from the public markets, but still maintain the mission-driven control and focus on diabetes.
  - osmano807 3y ago
    As if Saxenda/Victoza or Ozempic didn't cost nearly one minimum wage per month. At least they're focusing on diabetes I guess.
- KaiserPro 3y ago
  from memory there are three parts of what we think as Pi 1) the foundation, that does all the outreach, education and magazines 2) The commercial part (the actually makes the pis) 3) R&D but it might be only two. Either way I assume only the commercial part will float, leaving the foundation as the majority shareholder. It has the advantage of giving the foundation a couple of hundred million, which should allow it to continue to do great things. (if you think about computer/electronics education, its basically pi and scratch. Arduino has kinda dropped the ball.)
  - foofie 3y ago
    > 1) the foundation, that does all the outreach, education and magazines Doesn't that count as marketing?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Don't forget the Micro:bit and I'm not convinced "Arduino has kinda dropped the ball", they are doing just fine in the marketplace and the gear has come down in price to where $4 gets you a working microcontroller (and $5 for the Raspi 2040 pico). What you can get under $10 these days is mindblowing and if all Arduino ever did was make their IDE which ties 100's of different boards together under a common development experience then that would be enough for me.
    - michaelt 3y ago
      > I'm not convinced "Arduino has kinda dropped the ball" While Arduino is strong in many regards and was a big improvement on the status quo when it came out in ~2005, they weren't very fast to respond to the rise of the esp8266 and super-low-cost boards made in China. For a long time their cheapest product was the Uno R3 (with a 16 MHz 8-bit ATmega328) for about $25 while you could buy a Wemos D1 mini (with a 160 MHz 32-bit esp8266) for $2 - or an Uno clone on aliexpress for $3. Arduino have updated their product line since then (the Uno R4 Minima offers a 48MHz 32-bit RA4M1 for $19) and it's understandable they wanted to retain compatibility with their 5v shield ecosystem. But they were definitely slow to respond to a changing market.
- plutokras 3y ago
  And now the company will serve the interest of the shareholders above all else. The number gotta go up each quarter.
- larschdk 3y ago
  They have already taken outside investments in previous rounds. This is the Raspberry Pi Ltd (formerly Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd). The Raspberry Pi Foundation is still a charity.
- esskay 3y ago
  The non-profit arm is a tiny insignificant part of their business now. They stopped being education and charity focused during covid and are only really interested in their B2B customers these days.
  - schappim 3y ago
    You've got it the wrong way around. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a shareholder in Raspberry Pi Ltd, not vice versa. It benefits from the profits generated by the commercial arm. The commercial arm was established on 10 September 2012 [1]. [1] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08207441 https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
    - palata 3y ago
      > You've got it the wrong way around. I don't see how it is the wrong way around: what you are saying is that they are a for-profit, and depending on how much profit they make with their business, the foundation gets more money to "play with", right?
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        The commercial entity, just like every other commercial company that has stock has stockholders. That happens to be - in part - the foundation. If there are profits then the stockholders, including the foundation, get a pro-rata payout named a dividend. But it can take a long time to make that scheme work at a level where the foundation can do what it would like to do so this IPO kind of gets a head start on those dividends, by selling some of the stock rather than to make a profit and wait they get some of that cash today, with the downside of being required to live in a glass house from now on and having somewhat reduced future dividends (assuming there are any).
        hasty_pudding 3y ago
        Lotta words for "yes"
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago
  After Raspberry Pi, OpenAI and Processing Foundation I'll never trust a "non-profit" again
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    What happened to the Processing Foundation?
    - ebcode 3y ago
      See https://discourse.processing.org/t/ben-fry-resigning-from-the-processing-foundation/42888/17 https://discourse.processing.org/t/ben-fry-resigning-from-th...
  - gregors 3y ago
    "non-profit" is a tax status, that's all
    - kelnos 3y ago
      Right, I wish people would remember that. Sure, non-profit is usually a good tax status for charities and other public-benefit type organizations. But that doesn't mean all non-profits are charities. Regardless, the Raspberry Pi for-profit arm has existed for over a decade now; the only news is that it wants to IPO.
      - klelatti 3y ago
        The RPi foundation is a charity.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > Wasn't it supposed to be a charity/non profit foundation? You answered your question: it was. :-(
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jacquesm 3y ago
On the one hand I'm happy they're doing well. On the other I'm very much worried that floating the stock will make it plaything of people who couldn't care less about what the Raspberry Pi and the people behind it stand for, they're just going to use the stock to make money, or, alternatively, to make trouble. Being a listed company is a source of all kinds of distractions.
- stavros 3y ago
  What, you aren't looking forward to your Raspberry Pi Cloud Pro Offering subscription? How else are you going to manage your Pis, Jacques?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    No, and no idea, respectively ;)
  - nsteel 3y ago
    Putting them in the cloud removes the wasted drawer space. I'm all for a cloud offering.
    - stavros 3y ago
      But what happens when it rains resistors?
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Cloudy with a chance of devboards?
        stavros 3y ago
        You know what they say, every cloud has a silver plating.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  The people behind it evidently “stand for” making the company public, so…
maxehmookau 3y ago
I had no idea this was even on the cards. Do they really need to IPO? Why do they need to chance infinite stock market growth?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  It's a way for them to get a lump sum in cash in the coffers of the foundation, but there are some obvious drawbacks to this.
larschdk 3y ago
To clarify, this is Raspberry Pi Ltd (formerly Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd), a subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation (the charity). I'm curious how this will affect the foundation's mission, but I guess they are already affected by the outside investments from previous fundraising rounds.
- jt2190 3y ago
  For an example of the long-term effects on mission, you can study Kellogg’s (the cereal company) which has been a for-profit public company (Kellogg Company), with a trust as the majority shareholder (W.K Kellogg Foundation Trust), and sending profits to to a non-profit charitable organization (W.K. Kellogg Foundation) since 1934.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Why not look at OpenAI? A non profit owning a for profit thing which is also in bed with Microsoft and the waters are basically very dirty...
  - stavros 3y ago
    And for the results of this, I didn't even realize Kellogg's had a charitable arm until now.
    - thinkingemote 3y ago
      A few (many?) breakfast cereals were started by religious charities in America. Quaker being most obvious via the name. Kellogg's origin was seventh day Adventist I think. I think there was a religious component to health foods at the time. But not sure why. One popular and possibly inaccurate reason was that bland vegetarian foods decreased the bodys animal nature.
      - stavros 3y ago
        That makes sense, but, as far as I know, the charity arm might as well be nonexistent compared to the arm that aims to get kids addicted to sugar.
jonatron 3y ago
https://archive.is/vto2d https://archive.is/vto2d
andrewstuart 3y ago
Warning though - finding the IPO shares/stock to buy will be nearly impossible.
esskay 3y ago
Ah, this may explain their abandonment of the 'hacker' community and weird hostility towards them over the last few years. They've gone from a fun project and education focused company who was mostly operating under their non-profit arm to better education, to a B2B enterprise supplier with a heavy handed and sometimes outright hatred to their original user base. For a proof of concept, pop onto their forums, create an account and make a post asking how to do something fairly basic, see how quickly you get yelled at and banned for life.
- badcppdev 3y ago
  Why don't you just add some links rather than suggesting people spam a user forum
  - esskay 3y ago
    I'm not really suggesting people do that, just pointing out what happens. It's slightly difficult to post links to threads that they delete...
    - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
      I for one and willing to live with the egg on my face if you actually prove this. I am extremely, extremely skeptical that you are truthfully and wholly representing whatever situation you are referring to.
      - esskay 3y ago
        As I say, its fairly hard to demonstrate 'live' as they delete the posts, but if it helps here's a few reports of it, and related activities: - https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/19543/banned-no-good-deed-goes-unpunished https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/foru... (lots of similar reports of weird bans) - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/raspberry-pi-forums-banned-me-again-ltlol-facepalmed-hardgt/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/raspberry-pi-forums-banne... (a few people reporting similar cases / reasons for being banned here) - https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=38424 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=38424 (mod even confirms questioning mods will get you banned) - https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=78285 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=78285 And somewhat unrelated to the forum, there's this https://eiara.nz/posts/2022/Dec/09/a-case-study-on-raspberry-pis-incident-on-the-fediverse/ https://eiara.nz/posts/2022/Dec/09/a-case-study-on-raspberry... which highlights the issues with the main person who's caused their forums and community to have such a hostile attitude towards its users. The followup interview will let you draw your own conclusions about the head of their social team... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisstokelwalker/raspberry-pi-hired-ex-cop-mastodon-controversy https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisstokelwalker/raspb...
popol12 3y ago
How could this go wrong ?
nottorp 3y ago
Uh oh. Need to study the alternatives more closely.
srmarm 3y ago
So who gets the $500m or so they're suggesting the IP will raise? Is that going to be injected into the foundation in which case they could do a lot with it (presumably with some guardrails to prevent them clashing with the PLC)
- jacquesm 3y ago
  That depends on the kind of float, you can float in three different ways: emit new stock, sell existing stock, a combination of those two. Any new stock emitted will have the bulk of the funds (minus fees and all that) deposited in the company, selling existing stock will have the bulk of the funds deposited with the existing share holders. It isn't rare for there to be a lock-up period before existing stock holders are able to sell their shares on the market to avoid people dumping stock they know is worth less than the float price. This is because there is a fair chance that those closely involved with the company have a better long term view on what the company will do than the market so it takes a while to get any post float surprises to be priced in. That's one reason why IPOs tend to be tricky to price: overprice and the stock will drop after the float and those that bought the IPO will feel burned, underprice and you're leaving money on the table.
  - srmarm 3y ago
    Good point that it's unlikely to be as simple as a $500m return but regardless of the amounts or structure of IPO my question was more around who are the existing share holders of the commercial company? Is it the foundation or someone/something else? Is this float to get cash or financial stability for the foundation or a cashout by other parties? At the end of the day I'm not going to be too critical in any case as I've contributed nothing beyond buying a few boards and making a few posts in support!
rvz 3y ago
Unsurprisingly predicted 2 years ago: [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Good call!
botanical 3y ago
To me it feels like the Raspberry Pi Foundation hasn't met its objective of making computers accessible and affordable to everyone (especially children in disadvantaged areas). Each iteration is so expensive and previous iterations don't lose value or are made cheaper. It's more prudent to spend a bit more for a mini-pc. In South Africa, the average child from a disadvantaged background has no chance of buying a Pi. Arduino on the other hand, open sources the hardware, meaning very cheap but less powerful SBCs from companies in China (and elsewhere). They should be doing the same as they have the ecosystem and resources to mass produce very cheap boards, but the Pi is prohibitively expensive, and it looks like they cater to companies first and prioritise making a profit.
- esskay 3y ago
  The true cost of a Pi these days can end up being more than a low-end mini pc once you add in all the extras you need to make it work. Power supply, sd card, etc. For education you'll need to throw in keyboard, mouse, speakers, possibly a microphone, monitor, cables, etc. You can easly get to $150 without a monitor when going with a pi vs a lower cost second hand mini pc which is more powerful and upgradable, and can run linux or windows. They've priced themselves out of the education market.
  - oliwarner 3y ago
    The true price of what? The latest Raspberry Pi 5 with 8gb RAM? What about a Raspberry Pi 1b, a W2 or a Pico? These are all devices that are great for learning computing. Kids can learn on a cheap £20 kit plugged into a TV. So what if it's used? So what if it's a few years old? The drive, the purpose of these educational projects is to get kids onto them. Doesn't have to be the latest, by any means.
  - monkeydust 3y ago
    Right, which is were I suspect margins are highest and the area they will need to be successful in to keep shareholders happy each quarter. Huge fan but I just hope this tech IPO that the LSE has been looking for doesn't turn out to be a total dud. Guess there will be some AI angle in the investor road shows!
Havoc 3y ago
They have a decent brand name and mindshare but I don’t think the hardware is compelling enough. Loads of copy cats and the 5 generation feels like it’s at the edge of what the market can bear pricing wise. Idk I just don’t see the IPO rationale
- kelnos 3y ago
  I've only tried one or two copycats, but found them to be kinda crappy. And I see a lot of other reports of others' experiences that seem to back that up. Not saying they're all universally garbage, but you get what you pay for: the RPi folks manage cost very carefully, whereas most of the copycats are just trying to undercut on price, and will never follow through with the kind of software support the RPi folks continue to provide after over a decade. Consider that the original Raspberry Pi 1 model -- released 12 years ago -- is still fully supported by Raspberry Pi OS. I'd be surprised if most of the copycats support their boards for more than a few years at most. RPi's for-profit arm mostly deals with B2B sales, and courts the kinds of customers that require long-term support as table stakes. I don't think most of them would touch the copycats with a 10-foot pole.
  - Havoc 3y ago
    I guess it comes down to what you value. Their software ecosystem is certainly the best, but hardware side they're now decidedly behind. >whereas most of the copycats are just trying to undercut on price Some of them, at the premium end its the other way round. Copy cats are fielding much better hardware...at a price premium. e.g. pi5 vs orange pi 5+ 8gb max vs 32gb max 1gbe vs 2.5gbe sd card vs native nvme BCM2712 vs RK3588 pcie gen 2 vs pcie gen 3 16nm lith vs 8nm That's not to hate on the rasp...but they're just not in as strong a position anymore as they were in early pi3/4 days where they were the only game in town and competitively priced to boot.
    - Narishma 3y ago
      If hardware specs are the things you care about, Raspberry Pi has never been the best there. That hasn't stopped them becoming the most successful SBCs by far.
alphabettsy 3y ago
Well that’s very unfortunate.
brcmthrowaway 3y ago
I'm surprised Hock Tan hasn't sued Eben Upton for ip infringement
- kelnos 3y ago
  Can you elaborate on this? What IP (presumably of Broadcom's) is Upton infringing upon?

103 points by schappim 3y ago

Wow , exciting! I must admit , I worry going public might actually be a bad thing for the Pi org. Exposure to the winds of quarterly earnings reports and hardware timelines can often conflict... I have no real evidence to support that feeling, but I have it just the same. Excited to see where this leads!

londons_explore 3y ago

Wasn't it supposed to be a charity/non profit foundation? Isn't an IPO kinda the opposite of that? Or is is the fashionable thing these days to claim to be non-profit when you're young and looking for grassroots support, only to transform when there is money to be made?

techdragon 3y ago
Yeah... I have major concerns about how significantly this would impact their ostensible goals. What guarantee is there that the newly publicly listed company won't be pressured by stockholders to improve the profit margins by driving up prices and reducing product quality on both the hardware and software fronts.
- elashri 3y ago
  > What guarantee is there that the newly publicly listed company won't be pressured by stockholders to improve the profit margins by driving up prices and reducing product quality on both the hardware and software fronts. Isn't that what a public typical company do these days anyway? Or is there a sarcasm tone I am missing somehow?
  - techdragon 3y ago
    That’s my point. They are ostensibly setup to primarily be a charity even if there’s a commercial organisation buried in the business structure (like Mozilla and a few other corps) … while the charity is in control the mission is simple, the charity is the owner and the owners of a company make the decisions. Shifting to publicly listed means the owners are now the shareholders, it’s rare that public shareholders have zero board of directors representation, which is why I fear this is basically going to kill everything the Raspberry Pi Foundation have worked to build … the only question in my mind is how fast this kills it, I just can’t see how this won’t result in shareholders pressuring the company into compromising in the name of raw profit or whatever else is necessary for them to raise the stock price so the investors can get some profit.
    - graemep 3y ago
      It depends a lot on how they do it. How large a shareholding the non-profit retains, whether it retains controls by other means such as a golden share etc.
- Astraco 3y ago
  Don't worry about prices going up and reducing quality, that have been happening since RPi 4
  - HankB99 3y ago
    I've been having issues with their S/W for a while now. * Couldn't select a current version of the OS to install on a Pi Zero. * Can't install the current version on an SSD that will run on a Pi 4B. An SSD install works. The same install on an SD card does work. * An install that runs on a Pi 5 won't run on a Pi 4B. I asked about the first on their forum and my post was deleted before anyone could answer. No reason was given and I could find no where to ask. The post was in no way critical or inflammatory. They just don't want to discuss problems with their stuff. There were a lot of changes in how the imager works and what happens on first boot and I suspect they are still catching up with related bugs.
- mrmanner 3y ago
  That could end up not too bad actually - the for-profit company becomes hugely profitable, the foundation uses the dividends to further their goals of affordable computer education etc. etc.
swampthinker 3y ago
Depends on the structure - Public OpCo controlled by non-profit worked out well for Novo Nordisk. Get the resources needed from the public markets, but still maintain the mission-driven control and focus on diabetes.
- osmano807 3y ago
  As if Saxenda/Victoza or Ozempic didn't cost nearly one minimum wage per month. At least they're focusing on diabetes I guess.
KaiserPro 3y ago
from memory there are three parts of what we think as Pi 1) the foundation, that does all the outreach, education and magazines 2) The commercial part (the actually makes the pis) 3) R&D but it might be only two. Either way I assume only the commercial part will float, leaving the foundation as the majority shareholder. It has the advantage of giving the foundation a couple of hundred million, which should allow it to continue to do great things. (if you think about computer/electronics education, its basically pi and scratch. Arduino has kinda dropped the ball.)
- foofie 3y ago
  > 1) the foundation, that does all the outreach, education and magazines Doesn't that count as marketing?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Don't forget the Micro:bit and I'm not convinced "Arduino has kinda dropped the ball", they are doing just fine in the marketplace and the gear has come down in price to where $4 gets you a working microcontroller (and $5 for the Raspi 2040 pico). What you can get under $10 these days is mindblowing and if all Arduino ever did was make their IDE which ties 100's of different boards together under a common development experience then that would be enough for me.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    > I'm not convinced "Arduino has kinda dropped the ball" While Arduino is strong in many regards and was a big improvement on the status quo when it came out in ~2005, they weren't very fast to respond to the rise of the esp8266 and super-low-cost boards made in China. For a long time their cheapest product was the Uno R3 (with a 16 MHz 8-bit ATmega328) for about $25 while you could buy a Wemos D1 mini (with a 160 MHz 32-bit esp8266) for $2 - or an Uno clone on aliexpress for $3. Arduino have updated their product line since then (the Uno R4 Minima offers a 48MHz 32-bit RA4M1 for $19) and it's understandable they wanted to retain compatibility with their 5v shield ecosystem. But they were definitely slow to respond to a changing market.
plutokras 3y ago
And now the company will serve the interest of the shareholders above all else. The number gotta go up each quarter.
larschdk 3y ago
They have already taken outside investments in previous rounds. This is the Raspberry Pi Ltd (formerly Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd). The Raspberry Pi Foundation is still a charity.
esskay 3y ago
The non-profit arm is a tiny insignificant part of their business now. They stopped being education and charity focused during covid and are only really interested in their B2B customers these days.
- schappim 3y ago
  You've got it the wrong way around. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a shareholder in Raspberry Pi Ltd, not vice versa. It benefits from the profits generated by the commercial arm. The commercial arm was established on 10 September 2012 [1]. [1] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08207441 https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
  - palata 3y ago
    > You've got it the wrong way around. I don't see how it is the wrong way around: what you are saying is that they are a for-profit, and depending on how much profit they make with their business, the foundation gets more money to "play with", right?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      The commercial entity, just like every other commercial company that has stock has stockholders. That happens to be - in part - the foundation. If there are profits then the stockholders, including the foundation, get a pro-rata payout named a dividend. But it can take a long time to make that scheme work at a level where the foundation can do what it would like to do so this IPO kind of gets a head start on those dividends, by selling some of the stock rather than to make a profit and wait they get some of that cash today, with the downside of being required to live in a glass house from now on and having somewhat reduced future dividends (assuming there are any).
      - hasty_pudding 3y ago
        Lotta words for "yes"
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
After Raspberry Pi, OpenAI and Processing Foundation I'll never trust a "non-profit" again
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  What happened to the Processing Foundation?
  - ebcode 3y ago
    See https://discourse.processing.org/t/ben-fry-resigning-from-the-processing-foundation/42888/17 https://discourse.processing.org/t/ben-fry-resigning-from-th...
- gregors 3y ago
  "non-profit" is a tax status, that's all
  - kelnos 3y ago
    Right, I wish people would remember that. Sure, non-profit is usually a good tax status for charities and other public-benefit type organizations. But that doesn't mean all non-profits are charities. Regardless, the Raspberry Pi for-profit arm has existed for over a decade now; the only news is that it wants to IPO.
    - klelatti 3y ago
      The RPi foundation is a charity.
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> Wasn't it supposed to be a charity/non profit foundation? You answered your question: it was. :-(
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jacquesm 3y ago

On the one hand I'm happy they're doing well. On the other I'm very much worried that floating the stock will make it plaything of people who couldn't care less about what the Raspberry Pi and the people behind it stand for, they're just going to use the stock to make money, or, alternatively, to make trouble. Being a listed company is a source of all kinds of distractions.

stavros 3y ago
What, you aren't looking forward to your Raspberry Pi Cloud Pro Offering subscription? How else are you going to manage your Pis, Jacques?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  No, and no idea, respectively ;)
- nsteel 3y ago
  Putting them in the cloud removes the wasted drawer space. I'm all for a cloud offering.
  - stavros 3y ago
    But what happens when it rains resistors?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Cloudy with a chance of devboards?
      - stavros 3y ago
        You know what they say, every cloud has a silver plating.
cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
The people behind it evidently “stand for” making the company public, so…

maxehmookau 3y ago

I had no idea this was even on the cards. Do they really need to IPO? Why do they need to chance infinite stock market growth?

jacquesm 3y ago
It's a way for them to get a lump sum in cash in the coffers of the foundation, but there are some obvious drawbacks to this.

larschdk 3y ago

To clarify, this is Raspberry Pi Ltd (formerly Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd), a subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation (the charity). I'm curious how this will affect the foundation's mission, but I guess they are already affected by the outside investments from previous fundraising rounds.

jt2190 3y ago
For an example of the long-term effects on mission, you can study Kellogg’s (the cereal company) which has been a for-profit public company (Kellogg Company), with a trust as the majority shareholder (W.K Kellogg Foundation Trust), and sending profits to to a non-profit charitable organization (W.K. Kellogg Foundation) since 1934.
- nottorp 3y ago
  Why not look at OpenAI? A non profit owning a for profit thing which is also in bed with Microsoft and the waters are basically very dirty...
- stavros 3y ago
  And for the results of this, I didn't even realize Kellogg's had a charitable arm until now.
  - thinkingemote 3y ago
    A few (many?) breakfast cereals were started by religious charities in America. Quaker being most obvious via the name. Kellogg's origin was seventh day Adventist I think. I think there was a religious component to health foods at the time. But not sure why. One popular and possibly inaccurate reason was that bland vegetarian foods decreased the bodys animal nature.
    - stavros 3y ago
      That makes sense, but, as far as I know, the charity arm might as well be nonexistent compared to the arm that aims to get kids addicted to sugar.

jonatron 3y ago

https://archive.is/vto2d https://archive.is/vto2d

andrewstuart 3y ago

Warning though - finding the IPO shares/stock to buy will be nearly impossible.

esskay 3y ago

Ah, this may explain their abandonment of the 'hacker' community and weird hostility towards them over the last few years. They've gone from a fun project and education focused company who was mostly operating under their non-profit arm to better education, to a B2B enterprise supplier with a heavy handed and sometimes outright hatred to their original user base. For a proof of concept, pop onto their forums, create an account and make a post asking how to do something fairly basic, see how quickly you get yelled at and banned for life.

badcppdev 3y ago
Why don't you just add some links rather than suggesting people spam a user forum
- esskay 3y ago
  I'm not really suggesting people do that, just pointing out what happens. It's slightly difficult to post links to threads that they delete...
  - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
    I for one and willing to live with the egg on my face if you actually prove this. I am extremely, extremely skeptical that you are truthfully and wholly representing whatever situation you are referring to.
    - esskay 3y ago
      As I say, its fairly hard to demonstrate 'live' as they delete the posts, but if it helps here's a few reports of it, and related activities: - https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/19543/banned-no-good-deed-goes-unpunished https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/foru... (lots of similar reports of weird bans) - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/raspberry-pi-forums-banned-me-again-ltlol-facepalmed-hardgt/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/raspberry-pi-forums-banne... (a few people reporting similar cases / reasons for being banned here) - https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=38424 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=38424 (mod even confirms questioning mods will get you banned) - https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=78285 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=78285 And somewhat unrelated to the forum, there's this https://eiara.nz/posts/2022/Dec/09/a-case-study-on-raspberry-pis-incident-on-the-fediverse/ https://eiara.nz/posts/2022/Dec/09/a-case-study-on-raspberry... which highlights the issues with the main person who's caused their forums and community to have such a hostile attitude towards its users. The followup interview will let you draw your own conclusions about the head of their social team... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisstokelwalker/raspberry-pi-hired-ex-cop-mastodon-controversy https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisstokelwalker/raspb...

popol12 3y ago

How could this go wrong ?

nottorp 3y ago

Uh oh. Need to study the alternatives more closely.

srmarm 3y ago

So who gets the $500m or so they're suggesting the IP will raise? Is that going to be injected into the foundation in which case they could do a lot with it (presumably with some guardrails to prevent them clashing with the PLC)

jacquesm 3y ago
That depends on the kind of float, you can float in three different ways: emit new stock, sell existing stock, a combination of those two. Any new stock emitted will have the bulk of the funds (minus fees and all that) deposited in the company, selling existing stock will have the bulk of the funds deposited with the existing share holders. It isn't rare for there to be a lock-up period before existing stock holders are able to sell their shares on the market to avoid people dumping stock they know is worth less than the float price. This is because there is a fair chance that those closely involved with the company have a better long term view on what the company will do than the market so it takes a while to get any post float surprises to be priced in. That's one reason why IPOs tend to be tricky to price: overprice and the stock will drop after the float and those that bought the IPO will feel burned, underprice and you're leaving money on the table.
- srmarm 3y ago
  Good point that it's unlikely to be as simple as a $500m return but regardless of the amounts or structure of IPO my question was more around who are the existing share holders of the commercial company? Is it the foundation or someone/something else? Is this float to get cash or financial stability for the foundation or a cashout by other parties? At the end of the day I'm not going to be too critical in any case as I've contributed nothing beyond buying a few boards and making a few posts in support!

rvz 3y ago

Unsurprisingly predicted 2 years ago: [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122

jacquesm 3y ago
Good call!

botanical 3y ago

To me it feels like the Raspberry Pi Foundation hasn't met its objective of making computers accessible and affordable to everyone (especially children in disadvantaged areas). Each iteration is so expensive and previous iterations don't lose value or are made cheaper. It's more prudent to spend a bit more for a mini-pc. In South Africa, the average child from a disadvantaged background has no chance of buying a Pi. Arduino on the other hand, open sources the hardware, meaning very cheap but less powerful SBCs from companies in China (and elsewhere). They should be doing the same as they have the ecosystem and resources to mass produce very cheap boards, but the Pi is prohibitively expensive, and it looks like they cater to companies first and prioritise making a profit.

esskay 3y ago
The true cost of a Pi these days can end up being more than a low-end mini pc once you add in all the extras you need to make it work. Power supply, sd card, etc. For education you'll need to throw in keyboard, mouse, speakers, possibly a microphone, monitor, cables, etc. You can easly get to $150 without a monitor when going with a pi vs a lower cost second hand mini pc which is more powerful and upgradable, and can run linux or windows. They've priced themselves out of the education market.
- oliwarner 3y ago
  The true price of what? The latest Raspberry Pi 5 with 8gb RAM? What about a Raspberry Pi 1b, a W2 or a Pico? These are all devices that are great for learning computing. Kids can learn on a cheap £20 kit plugged into a TV. So what if it's used? So what if it's a few years old? The drive, the purpose of these educational projects is to get kids onto them. Doesn't have to be the latest, by any means.
- monkeydust 3y ago
  Right, which is were I suspect margins are highest and the area they will need to be successful in to keep shareholders happy each quarter. Huge fan but I just hope this tech IPO that the LSE has been looking for doesn't turn out to be a total dud. Guess there will be some AI angle in the investor road shows!

Havoc 3y ago

They have a decent brand name and mindshare but I don’t think the hardware is compelling enough. Loads of copy cats and the 5 generation feels like it’s at the edge of what the market can bear pricing wise. Idk I just don’t see the IPO rationale

kelnos 3y ago
I've only tried one or two copycats, but found them to be kinda crappy. And I see a lot of other reports of others' experiences that seem to back that up. Not saying they're all universally garbage, but you get what you pay for: the RPi folks manage cost very carefully, whereas most of the copycats are just trying to undercut on price, and will never follow through with the kind of software support the RPi folks continue to provide after over a decade. Consider that the original Raspberry Pi 1 model -- released 12 years ago -- is still fully supported by Raspberry Pi OS. I'd be surprised if most of the copycats support their boards for more than a few years at most. RPi's for-profit arm mostly deals with B2B sales, and courts the kinds of customers that require long-term support as table stakes. I don't think most of them would touch the copycats with a 10-foot pole.
- Havoc 3y ago
  I guess it comes down to what you value. Their software ecosystem is certainly the best, but hardware side they're now decidedly behind. >whereas most of the copycats are just trying to undercut on price Some of them, at the premium end its the other way round. Copy cats are fielding much better hardware...at a price premium. e.g. pi5 vs orange pi 5+ 8gb max vs 32gb max 1gbe vs 2.5gbe sd card vs native nvme BCM2712 vs RK3588 pcie gen 2 vs pcie gen 3 16nm lith vs 8nm That's not to hate on the rasp...but they're just not in as strong a position anymore as they were in early pi3/4 days where they were the only game in town and competitively priced to boot.
  - Narishma 3y ago
    If hardware specs are the things you care about, Raspberry Pi has never been the best there. That hasn't stopped them becoming the most successful SBCs by far.

alphabettsy 3y ago

Well that’s very unfortunate.

brcmthrowaway 3y ago

I'm surprised Hock Tan hasn't sued Eben Upton for ip infringement

kelnos 3y ago
Can you elaborate on this? What IP (presumably of Broadcom's) is Upton infringing upon?