39 ms·

Raspberry Pi Ltd is considering an IPO

417 points by sohkamyung 2y ago

jstanley 2y ago
What's the warning at the start all about? Aren't they violating their own terms by serving it publicly on the internet? > THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO OR FROM THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, SOUTH AFRICA, JAPAN OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE SUCH DISTRIBUTION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Read the next 2 paras. It's SOP for for listings in the UK under the FSMA.
- d1sxeyes 2y ago
  I don’t know if LSE are obligated to follow laws in those countries, but they may add this disclaimer to help others who may be obligated to follow those laws? Also I’m not in any of the jurisdictions mentioned, potentially there’s some kind of geoblocking on the document?
  - hayley-patton 2y ago
    I can view it just fine in Australia. Now I'm going to download a car too before I get caught.
  - chrisjj 2y ago
    It is not a disclaimer. It is a prohibition and yes this distribution to US is a breach. But that's normal for LSE. Barmy.
- Shrezzing 2y ago
  IPO announcements need to come from approved/authoritative organisations. This one is distributed by the UK's authoritative organisation - RNS news. In the other territories, IPO announcements also have to be made by authoritative organisations. RNS is approved in the UK, but not the other territories.
- vermden 2y ago
  This is a classic disclaimer put on top of all types of financial documents, you can see it all the time on IPO's, mergers, any type of corporate actions like repurchase offers, shareholders / bondholders meetings etc. My understanding is that the source knows they have no way of controlling the dissemination of the document, and thus use such disclaimer to attempt to push the responsibility to any party receiving the doc - "ah! see our disclaimer? you should not have read this doc, its on you now!"
  - chrisjj 2y ago
    > My understanding is that the source knows they have no way of controlling the dissemination of the document But they do. Geoblocking.
  - phendrenad2 2y ago
    Could someone who links to the document be charged with copyright infringement?
nottorp 2y ago
Good time to talk about the rPi alternatives?
- bayindirh 2y ago
  I don't think so. I actively use some of the Pi alternatives, and none of them are well-polished and stable as Raspberry Pis. Also, an IPO doesn't mean that a company will go downhill from there. For example, when Bending Spoons got Evernote, everybody prepared for the worst, but it didn't happen, at least yet. They are genuinely trying to make it better from my understanding, at least for now. I think the biggest thread to ARM SBC ecosystem is Intel's N series systems, which can run both Linux and Windows 11 equally well. An N95 runs a familiar chipset & ISA with familiar system dynamics and standard ports with good IO performance. They can act as good home servers and entry level home computers. Who can deny the charm of a small box with a mSATA + NVMe port, WiFi6, a proper BIOS, two screen outs backed by an acceptable GPU?
  - onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
    > I actively use some of the Pi alternatives, and none of them are well-polished and stable as Raspberry Pis. Exactly. Pis are obviously not perfect. You can definitely find much better "deals" - but overall it is a very good product for what you're paying for.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      There are some killer features every Pi has: 1. Non-brickable: Either your SD Card is gone, or your board is broken. There's no middle. 2. Trusted OS: You can trust the OS from get go. 3. Customizable install with flasher: Spend 30 seconds setting up your Pi before installing it to the SD card. Doing the same setup post install takes hours in some cases. 4. Seamless migration: Poweroff Pi, get the card out, insert to newer Pi, power on, go on. I'm not adding small yet irreplaceable features like undervoltage warning in the system logs. I'm running a OrangePi 5B with their original Debian image. While it's not doing any shenanigans from what I see, it needs half a day to convert it from a toy with auto-login to a proper home server, and the OS is finicky. Some mounts fail during boot causing it to enter maintenance mode. Adding "nofail" to boot options makes mounts succeed on every boot. Interesting device.
adamjc 2y ago
Let the enshittification begin
- BizarreByte 2y ago
  This was my immediate thought, it's the beginning of the end. Maybe I'm becoming bitter and cynical, but all I can see are things being ruined after IPOs and the like.
nullify88 2y ago
Arm listing in the US was apparently quite a blow to the London Stock Exchange. What kind of decisions drive a company to choose one exchange over another?
- ekianjo 2y ago
  the access to investment probably?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  Generally it's easier from a compliance perspective to list in the same jurisdiction as your shareholders live. Otherwise there can be more admin work with withholding taxes etc. Also a baseline of liquidity, rule of law, and the absence of capital controls are prerequisite.
- kmlx 2y ago
  more liquidity
- fidotron 2y ago
  Way back when Arm were dual listed one of the explanations was that US based customers (meaning US based semi companies) preferred that the company was listed in the US and subjected to a similar regime, in addition to needed capital. To be honest, that actually makes a decent amount of sense, but I suspect the real reason was to enable US investors to buy into it so they do not then support attacking the foreign interloper in their industry.
  - kmlx 2y ago
    it is also incredibly costly and difficult to be listed in multiple stock exchanges.
- SilverBirch 2y ago
  The biggest reason is access to capital. There's lots of institutional investors who are going to primarily invest in US equities, so if you're on the US stock market that's good. Even if those institutional investors do look at worldwide equities they're going to be limited in how much they allocate to it. It's also easier for investors - a single regulatory environment, no currency risk etc. This used to be mitigated by the fact that other countries would have their own pools of capital, like domestic pension funds but with the reforms to pensions UK pension funds are no longer a particularly good source of capital on the UK stock exchange.
boringg 2y ago
That's dissapointing. I was hoping they'd be happy getting enough revenue to stay private. What do they need to raise capital for?
- s1k3s 2y ago
  They can't keep up with demand so that's one problem that could be solved with money.
  - ActionHank 2y ago
    Man, I can't wait for there to be 7 variants of RPi 6 all with some nondescript name and none of which actually offer exactly what I need, because they had to flood and segment the market. They should stay private and build on the quality brand they have rather than trying to grow because reasons.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      If they can't keep up with demand people will go elsewhere. Focusing on brand and perception instead of fulfilling demand is not a fundamentally good strategy.
      - sircastor 2y ago
        This is what market theory says, but there are a lot of competing products at attractive price points and it hasn’t happened yet. The lack of community, software, and examples makes the competitors less attractive. The same thing happened with Arduino. There were a lot of competitors that offered more capable silicon, but the community and software libraries were the real appeal.
        ssl-3 2y ago
        It is happening. It started years ago. In 3D printing in (say) 2019, for instance: It was ridiculously common to use a Raspberry Pi with a printer -- for all kinds of reasons. They were cheap (enough), and they worked well (enough), and they were available (enough). Few, if any, questioned whether the Raspberry Pi was the right thing to use, for it was ubiquitous and well-understood. But when Pis became more expensive and/or less available in 2021 or so, people didn't just stop doing stuff with their printers. They instead found alternative platforms to do things with: They bought used corpo mini-PCs, repurposed cheap-shit Android TV boxes, used old Android phones, and (of course) trudged through the weeds getting things working various other SBCs.
politelemon 2y ago
Does it feel like this was inevitable anyway? I had heard that the company was already focusing on OEMs and delivering their products to those companies first. Whereas in the early days the RPi company was positioning themselves as having an educational focus (and the hobbyists). I don't know how true this is, but is what I had read explaining the inability to get RPI4s and RPI5s over the past year. It is quite sad though as they will now have an incentive to profit over 'provide', and it will be nice while it lasts.
- mlyle 2y ago
  > but is what I had read explaining the inability to get RPI4s and RPI5s over the past year. RPi5 never really had a shortage; there was the couple of months of "preorder" during launch. During the post-COVID extended Raspberry pi shortage, a big percentage of production went to keeping OEMs happy to avoid screwing customers that had designed in RPi products.
  - chrisjj 2y ago
    > big percentage of production went to keeping OEMs happy to avoid screwing customers that had designed in RPi products. To avoid screwing /a selected subset/ of customers that had designed in RPi products.
deelowe 2y ago
I called this back in 2012. Despite all their talk of being a non-profit and changing the world, it always felt this was more of a "feel good" thing than their actual mission.
- tdb7893 2y ago
  Their "do no evil" phase lasted pretty long at least compared to places like OpenAI at least. At the end of the day are there any significant companies that managed to maintain a mission that wasn't "make tons of money for already rich people"?
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  The Raspberry Pi Foundation is still a non profit, isn't it?
  - deelowe 2y ago
    This filing makes no mention of it and appears to state quite the opposite. > Raspberry Pi has a strong track record of revenue growth and profitability. For the year ended 31 December 2023, revenues were $265.8 million, with gross profit of $66.0 million, and operating profit of $37.5 million, as well as adjusted EBITDA of $43.5 million. The filing goes on to provide various forward looking statements regarding growth and profitability. I find no mention of the original mission.
    - MarkCole 2y ago
      The filing mentions the Foundation multiple times? > Raspberry Pi is a subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity founded in 2008, with the goal of promoting interest in computer science among young people. Raspberry Pi has distributed approximately $50m in dividends to the Foundation since 2013, which has been used to advance its educational mission globally.
      - deelowe 2y ago
        I have first hand experience with not being able to get RPis for educational purposes while the employers I worked for were ordering them by the 1000s. These discussions are missing the larger point which is that it feels the .com side of Rpi is eating away at the original mission of the company.
Aromasin 2y ago
I'm pleased to see another British company actually stick to the London Stock Exchange. Many are starting to list themselves on the US stock market, Arm being at the top of my mind in terms of tech. I think I remember them losing 30 £100M+ companies to the US exchange last year including some big really big names. I know this phenomenon isn't isolated to the UK either. With all the issues in Hong Kong over the last few years, companies have fled there too. Don't get me wrong, I understand the rationale. High interest rates, dwindling pension funds, executives wanting wages closer to US execs, fewer high-performing tech companies, Brexit isolation and a lack of committed domestic investors have all contributed to the LSE’s downward spiral. It just seems everything in the business world is becoming more centralised around the US. I don't think that's good for anyone, including US folks. Monopolies do as monopolies do; extract all the wealth they can from the system. The only people who benefit in a scenario where 95%+ of stock trades go through the NYSE is the NYSE.
- doublesocket 2y ago
  It hasn't gone well for several UK companies listing through SPACs on US exchanges recently. Think that's given plenty of reason for a rethink.
  - raverbashing 2y ago
    I'm not sure, but there are other ways of listing besides SPACs, like ADRs
  - piltdownman 2y ago
    I can't think of a SPAC, regardless of nationality, that actually succeeded other than Cellebrite. SPACs in their current usage are basically vehicles to circumvent securities fraud and generate wild amounts of money based on hyperbolic slide-decks via PIPE and NAV offerings pre-DA - the amount of EV and Quadcopter plays that were obvious vaporware getting traction in 2020-2022 was insanity.
    - pavlov 2y ago
      I've been tracking SPACs as a curiosity. The only ones on my list that are above the $10 starting price are DraftKings, Hims & Hers Health, and Grindr. In other words: gambling, erection medication, and gay hookups.
notanormalnerd 2y ago
I think a better way would be to keep the foundation and spin off a company that manufactures all of that. Sell 49% of that company in an IPO and keep the majority stake in the foundation. This way they can raise money for expansion while keeping the mission in line. This also signals very clear to investors what this enterprise is about.
- Latty 2y ago
  Isn't this already how it works? Raspberry Pi Ltd is a different company to the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
  - syarb 2y ago
    AFAIK, yep. Jeff Geerling (hi jeff!) has a great video about this. https://youtu.be/hrhE6MnGi1A?si=IeHs2GKYqPjqPXSb&t=305 https://youtu.be/hrhE6MnGi1A?si=IeHs2GKYqPjqPXSb&t=305
    - geerlingguy 2y ago
      Hello there ;) I would like to know how much the Pi Foundation would still own—could be an interesting dynamic there. And good for them to be able to use some of that profit for good (they do a lot of neat things for education / STEM).
      - entropicdrifter 2y ago
        Hopefully the foundation still controls the majority of votes regardless of the % ownership stake. They do too much good in the world to go full-blown public corpo
- gchadwick 2y ago
  This is already the setup, the foundation owns the trading company and it is the trading company going to IPO. From a quick scan it's not clear to me what share of ownership of RPi ltd the foundation would retain post IPO other than the foundation will be selling at least some of its stake: > The Offer would be comprised of new Shares to be issued by the Company and existing shares to be sold by certain existing shareholders, including the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Raspberry Pi's existing majority shareholder.
tombert 2y ago
My visceral reaction to this was “well shit, RPi was supposed to be a non profit to lower the costs of computers, and now they’re going to be another boring computer company”, and that makes me sad. I know that Rapsberry Pi has been a dual for-profit and non-profit for quite awhile, so in theory nothing really changes, but it feels a bit weird. However, it appears that unambiguously for-profit companies have managed to make affordable SBCs (e.g. Hardkernel, Nvidia), without having the same constraints of trying to save the world associated with it. Maybe Raspberry Pi IPOing will increase availability and funding? Tough to say. I haven’t actually used a name-brand Raspberry Pi for awhile, and have opted for a competitor for the last several years.
vsnf 2y ago
I’ve tried so many times but I just can’t come up with any compelling use for a raspberry pi. It seems well suited for making a NAS or plex server, but other than that, idk. Everything else I want to experiment with is better served by an arduino.
- k8sToGo 2y ago
  Not well suited for NAS at all. Too limited in IO and PCI lanes.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    Also not really suited for Plex, since the transcode performance would be awful.
  - ta988 2y ago
    Depends so much what's on the NAS.
  - StillBored 2y ago
    Right, the IO perf has been bad. But IMHO, no one should be running a NAS without ECC at this point. It's on the "my RAID doesn't scrub the disks" level; it's just begging for silent disk corruption that propagates its way through backups and is impossible to fix with software solutions.
- LtWorf 2y ago
  I have home automation done with rpi. They have a touch screen, speakers, and control the lights via gpio. I use the same thing to set timers, play the internet radio in the morning to wake me up, and put the lights off.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  Similar issue, I have an old desktop as a server already to do all the heavy processing stuff. Only finally found use for RPi to be the brains of my 3d printers.
- borbtactics 2y ago
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staringback 2y ago
I can't remember the last time I actually used a Raspberry Pi. These days there are millions of cheaper, more powerful, "Raspberry Pi compatible" boards that are actually stocked. I don't see any reason to even need one of these in 2024.
- pmontra 2y ago
  I also never looked at RPi 4s and 5s but for a different reason. Cheaper is good but I don't need "more powerful". I'm using a 3B+ (or whatever) with a TV hat to convert free to air channels to IP streams that I can watch on my phone and tablet. The winning point is obviously the TV hat but also the low power consumption. It's 3.82 W right now. I'm also using an Odroid as my home server, because there where no RPis available and because I can plug two SATA 3 disks in that machine. It's using 3.71 W. Given the load I put on it I could be OK with a less powerful server that would consume even less Watts.
theonealtair 2y ago
Raspberry Pi did a lot to revolutionize the micro board/pc market, they truly had an amazing influence on the industry that I’m grateful for. Now a days they feel overpriced and underpowered, and their influence spurred a new market that has produced much better alternatives. This IPO just confirms this perspective for me. Thank you raspberry pi for what you did. But I doubt I’ll ever want to buy one again.
- azinman2 2y ago
  What are the better alternatives? I don’t think any have anywhere near the level of software and community support nor stability.
  - jsheard 2y ago
    The situation with ARM hasn't changed much unless your budget stretches to Amperes stuff, but the big change is that x86 SBCs and mini-PCs have gotten very cheap, and of course those Just Work with any Linux distro or even Windows. The Intel N100 is incredibly capable for the price.
    - tombert 2y ago
      Yeah, it's actually insane how much X86_64 stuff has dropped in price. Yesterday I received two Ryzen 9 mini gaming computers [1], one to replace my old rack mount server and one to be a home theater PC. Each cost about $400, and they are capable of emulating the PS3 and Xbox 360 smoothly (I don't really have any new games so I wasn't able to push the limit too much, but still emulating those consoles requires some horsepower!). Maybe I'm just out of the loop (very likely), but $400 for a super low-power gaming computer feels insanely cheap to me. The server one in particular will pay for itself in about a year due to power savings alone compared to my rack mount server. [1] Beelink SER6's for those interested.
    - KaiserPro 2y ago
      > The Intel N100 is incredibly capable for the price. Hard agree, I have one and I love it. Its currently doing the VM work of what a £10k server did in 2012. But if I want GPIO, and or battery powered things with linux, then the pi is the way forward still. Anything else, and a pico/esp32 will do well.
webdoodle 2y ago
Hopefully this will give the average consumer the ability to give some direction as to the development of new versions. I'd very much like to see a new PI that doesn't have wifi, bluetooth or any other wireless technology.
- azinman2 2y ago
  Why? They had that with the zero… I’m guessing those sold a lot less.
  - gmiller123456 2y ago
    They have specifically limited consumer's ability to purchase the Zero's, so there's definately more demand for them than they're selling.
- Yeroc 2y ago
  I don't see any connection between going public and giving the average consumer more input into the direction of the company. Making a company public means the company is beholden to operating in a way that maximizes return to the shareholders. Sure an average consumer can buy shares in the company but the average consumer isn't going to be sitting on the board.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  > Hopefully this will give the average consumer the ability to give some direction as to the development of new versions. Will give the average investor the ability to give some direction as to the development of new versions.
azinman2 2y ago
Makes me sad that they’ll now have to increase profits forever, instead of functioning on their mission and doing what’s right. This may mean moving manufacturing to China, using lower cost components, etc etc.
- graphe 2y ago
  What is "right"? They haven't been a good value for over 2 years.
  - advisedwang 2y ago
    The goal hasn't ever been about producing a device cheaply. It's about supporting education, encouraging tinkering and changing attitudes [1] [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/
    - FredPret 2y ago
      Every altruistic thing is easier if you're trying to do it with a $10 product rather tham a $100 product, all else being equal
      - davidgnz 2y ago
        Good thing they still offer a $10 product then - the Raspberry Pi Zero.
        lttlrck 2y ago
        and the RP2040! There is not much to differentiate it with ESP32 at the moment, but it's their first shot at a microcontroller.
    - raegis 2y ago
      "...hasn't ever been..." is not true. Someone above posted an earlier statement from the archive.
  - 2y ago
rvz 2y ago
That prediction was just too easy [0], and it has now been finally admitted. Time to them to dump their shares on the community. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122
buildbuildbuild 2y ago
I badly wish that chip manufacturers were required to produce single board computers with their outdated inventory. Or at least offer the chips for sale with documentation to reduce e-waste. Apple’s A* and M* chips for example should all be on SBCs. If you’re going to consume earth’s resources to produce these things, tell humanity how to repurpose them.
- imhoguy 2y ago
  I would go even further - open specs and mass recycle billions of chips and boards of any obsolete mobile device (Samsung, Qualcomm, Apple....).
- moffkalast 2y ago
  "Over my rotting corpse." - Tim Cook, probably
rpmisms 2y ago
Let's normalize private industry again.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  My pension contributions need to go somewhere, and without a flow of new companies going public it's just gonna bid up and up the price of the old guard.
- ClassyJacket 2y ago
  For real. I want more companies like Valve. Not publicly traded, not trying to squeeze every last dollar for the sake of it, just doing what they think is cool when they want to do it.
deleted 2y ago
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nsteel 2y ago
There was a good interview with Eben Upton back in Feb on this topic (and others): https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/floss-weekly-episode-772-raspberry-pi-from-the-man-himself/ https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/floss-weekly-episode-772-ras...
MarkusWandel 2y ago
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen the words "Shareholder Value". Hopefully that particular disease can be kept away for a while.
- incahoots 2y ago
  The disease of Enshittification ?
  - MarkusWandel 2y ago
    Whatever you call it, when you're beholden to the shareholders rather than your customers.
  - Karellen 2y ago
    Friedman's Malady https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
    - MarkusWandel 2y ago
      Of course, perfect economics would assume maximizing long term shareholder value, which means not exploiting your customers. But "Shareholder Value" these days invariably means "short term share price" i.e. burn goodwill to make the shares spike in the next 5 years so they can be dumped profitably, and never mind what comes after.
    - contravariant 2y ago
      If companies that lower profits to benefit society as a whole are infringing on the freedom of their shareholders then any company that breaks the law to raise profits is basically just a criminal for hire. Ignorance is just irresponsible at that point. And why should we let something that harms society remain legal? At the very least society ought to collect on the damages, and a company that's pushed all responsibility for deciding what is and isn't right to do onto the rest of society has no right to complain when society decides it ought to stop. Of course there are people who want to abolish law in favour of bartering as well, but I think they think you're allowed to hit them in the face for thinking that.
ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
That would be cool. I would like to follow their journey. Their numbers, their earning calls etc. I would like to see more smaller tech companies on the stock market. The giants like Microsoft and Google are way to hard to understand because they have so many products and so much stuff in the pipeline. Are there any interesting examples of smaller tech companies which are publicly traded?
- nicce 2y ago
  Not so sure. Interesting opposite: Valve Superior money milking machine without the pressure from shareholders, because they can focus into the benefits of the end users with few products and long term sustainability. No need to rush for increased profits every quarter so that someone can sell or admire their stocks.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
    Valve has a market cap of about $8B though. Quite big already. Also, I don't understand games at all :)
throwaway5959 2y ago
Wild how far they are from their original stated goals. Maybe they were just full of it the whole time.
mig39 2y ago
Enshittification incoming.
revscat 2y ago
Please no. They make good, beloved products that are fairly high quality.
Nux 2y ago
How the enshittification begins..
muyuu 2y ago
that would explain the focus on services like the VNC replacement they've released those won't be free for long
andrewstuart 2y ago
Intel N100 has sent raspberry pi to the drawer.
ein0p 2y ago
It’s like $100 per board now once you add a power supply and a case. More if you also add storage. Cheapest Intel system on Amazon is $139. The whole point of the entire thing was its affordability. That was kind of lost along the way.
- TechDebtDevin 2y ago
  I don't think inflation is Rasberry Pi Ltds fault.
  - chrisjj 2y ago
    I don't think inflation is RPi's excuse either. It affects Intel too you know.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  On the other hand, a Pi zero is <$10. I remember them being $1 at Microcenter for a time. Is the cheapest Intel system as power sipping as the Pi's?
  - ein0p 2y ago
    Pi is not particularly “power sipping” either. Not every usb brick is capable of powering today’s Pi’s, which indicates peak power draw of over 5W.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Compared to Intel it still is - a 5V/3A brick is sufficient for all Pis, with Intel if you have USB power it's usually higher-voltage USB-C.
      - pmlnr 2y ago
        No, they aren't. You need 5.1 or 5.2v, otherwise you get stability issues. Learnt that the hard way.
rychco 2y ago
Farewell Raspberry Pi. What are some alternative boards with comparable specs?
- rhadware 2y ago
  [dead]
- neop1x 2y ago
  Risc-V boards soon maybe. See Lichee Pi 4a (https://sipeed.com/licheepi4a https://sipeed.com/licheepi4a).
Kye 2y ago
Hiring a proud surveillance cop to sell surveillance cop stuff to governments must have been a boon if they're considering an IPO. Zero consequences for being assholes to critics then lying about the criticism to the press.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/zh51l4/raspberry_pi_hired_an_excop_and_people_are_pissed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/zh51l4/raspberr...
szundi 2y ago
R
rhadware 2y ago
[dead]
jamesy0ung 2y ago
Can you buy the shares in Australia?
- decryption 2y ago
  Not sure how you get in on the IPO, but once they list on the LSE it'll be quite trivial to buy shares on the usual platforms like Stake, SelfWealth, CommSec, etc. Not much different than buying on the ASX.
  - jamesy0ung 2y ago
    Thanks mate!
lrvick 2y ago
Do not do it! The mission was always to produce quality low cost computers for hobbyists and kids with open source software. The moment you IPO you will have shareholders demanding you put profit before people and the users will always lose in that deal.
- taylorfinley 2y ago
  On top of that, IMO the vast majority of their value as a brand comes from the community that develops for and with the platform. See every review for the alternative SBC market (Orange Pi, Bana Pi, etc.) "Sure it's better/cheaper but they don't have the huge community..." So, if they IPO, will they first be distributing equity to the community? Or are they just cash-grabbing a retirement play?
- exadeci 2y ago
  Pine64 has been doing much better in that matter for years, I've had a Pine64 since 2016 and a raspberry pi 4 running the same OS (dietpi) and software kept running hotter even though it got released 3 years later and for double the price
bmitc 2y ago
It doesn't even matter to me. I stopped using them personally and have been pushing back against them professionally. They have bad performance, bad thermals, many limitations in the peripherals, are not reliable, and are impossible to get.
- snvzz 2y ago
  And have a long history of hardware design mistakes. On top of that, Eben Upton has publicly made statements showing pointless loyalty to ARM and ignorance on current/past developments in RISC-V. For Raspberry Pi to stay relevant, many things would have to change.
smcleod 2y ago
Same old story, the customer will shift from the people buying it to the shareholders. This would be a shame.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
And will be bought by private equity and rode into the ground not long after.
system2 2y ago
IPO means company already gone shit. I will stick to ESP32.
ntnsndr 2y ago
This is why we need Exit to Community: https:/.e2c.how
DeathArrow 2y ago
It seems to me RPi kind of lost the attributes that made it interesting in the first place.
phendrenad2 2y ago
Why don't they license their name to other entities, essentially allow approved clones? Muddying your non-profit goal by operating a for-profit, publicly-traded company seems suboptimal.
t43562 2y ago
The Pi isn't one thing - it's a group of computers at different prices - you can develop on the expensive one and run your production code on a much cheaper one.
blastersyndrome 2y ago
It seems I lost my faith in Raspberry Pis a lot sooner than most people. I gave up on them around the RPi3 days because it stopped working with the random chargers I had just laying around my house. I traced the issue back to my power supply having too much voltage ripple, with it still being within the spec for USB. Essentially, I needed to run it with their charger which was built to work better than industry standard. This, coupled with the mini HDMI ports basically requiring an adapter, means that you more than total the cost of the Pi just in peripherals to get it up and running. It all seems like a waste of money anymore.
- fragmede 2y ago
  No, your random USB power supplies were just particularly shitty. It doesn't need to be their power supply, it just needs to not be a piece of crap. agreed that mini HDMI is bullshit. running a company and pricing things is a dark art. there's so much psychology to it, getting you in the door at $40, then up charging for add ons is a time honored tradition sales tactic. win or lose, judge it on the out-the-door price as long as you compare it to the out-the-door price of other options (Intel NUC, Droid, orange Pi, any NAS)
rldjbpin 2y ago
a weird source to receive this news, nevertheless it seems that this is another evolution of the commercial arm of the company. there can still be potential benefits of this move for the foundation's goals. economies of scale and increased commercial embedded use cases can push for adoption of ARM in basic computing. i just hope that they finally set up their own distribution as it is still a pain to buy their devices for a fair price.

417 points by sohkamyung 2y ago

What's the warning at the start all about? Aren't they violating their own terms by serving it publicly on the internet? > THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO OR FROM THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, SOUTH AFRICA, JAPAN OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE SUCH DISTRIBUTION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.

alephnerd 2y ago
Read the next 2 paras. It's SOP for for listings in the UK under the FSMA.
d1sxeyes 2y ago
I don’t know if LSE are obligated to follow laws in those countries, but they may add this disclaimer to help others who may be obligated to follow those laws? Also I’m not in any of the jurisdictions mentioned, potentially there’s some kind of geoblocking on the document?
- hayley-patton 2y ago
  I can view it just fine in Australia. Now I'm going to download a car too before I get caught.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  It is not a disclaimer. It is a prohibition and yes this distribution to US is a breach. But that's normal for LSE. Barmy.
Shrezzing 2y ago
IPO announcements need to come from approved/authoritative organisations. This one is distributed by the UK's authoritative organisation - RNS news. In the other territories, IPO announcements also have to be made by authoritative organisations. RNS is approved in the UK, but not the other territories.
vermden 2y ago
This is a classic disclaimer put on top of all types of financial documents, you can see it all the time on IPO's, mergers, any type of corporate actions like repurchase offers, shareholders / bondholders meetings etc. My understanding is that the source knows they have no way of controlling the dissemination of the document, and thus use such disclaimer to attempt to push the responsibility to any party receiving the doc - "ah! see our disclaimer? you should not have read this doc, its on you now!"
- chrisjj 2y ago
  > My understanding is that the source knows they have no way of controlling the dissemination of the document But they do. Geoblocking.
- phendrenad2 2y ago
  Could someone who links to the document be charged with copyright infringement?

nottorp 2y ago

Good time to talk about the rPi alternatives?

bayindirh 2y ago
I don't think so. I actively use some of the Pi alternatives, and none of them are well-polished and stable as Raspberry Pis. Also, an IPO doesn't mean that a company will go downhill from there. For example, when Bending Spoons got Evernote, everybody prepared for the worst, but it didn't happen, at least yet. They are genuinely trying to make it better from my understanding, at least for now. I think the biggest thread to ARM SBC ecosystem is Intel's N series systems, which can run both Linux and Windows 11 equally well. An N95 runs a familiar chipset & ISA with familiar system dynamics and standard ports with good IO performance. They can act as good home servers and entry level home computers. Who can deny the charm of a small box with a mSATA + NVMe port, WiFi6, a proper BIOS, two screen outs backed by an acceptable GPU?
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
  > I actively use some of the Pi alternatives, and none of them are well-polished and stable as Raspberry Pis. Exactly. Pis are obviously not perfect. You can definitely find much better "deals" - but overall it is a very good product for what you're paying for.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    There are some killer features every Pi has: 1. Non-brickable: Either your SD Card is gone, or your board is broken. There's no middle. 2. Trusted OS: You can trust the OS from get go. 3. Customizable install with flasher: Spend 30 seconds setting up your Pi before installing it to the SD card. Doing the same setup post install takes hours in some cases. 4. Seamless migration: Poweroff Pi, get the card out, insert to newer Pi, power on, go on. I'm not adding small yet irreplaceable features like undervoltage warning in the system logs. I'm running a OrangePi 5B with their original Debian image. While it's not doing any shenanigans from what I see, it needs half a day to convert it from a toy with auto-login to a proper home server, and the OS is finicky. Some mounts fail during boot causing it to enter maintenance mode. Adding "nofail" to boot options makes mounts succeed on every boot. Interesting device.

adamjc 2y ago

Let the enshittification begin

BizarreByte 2y ago
This was my immediate thought, it's the beginning of the end. Maybe I'm becoming bitter and cynical, but all I can see are things being ruined after IPOs and the like.

nullify88 2y ago

Arm listing in the US was apparently quite a blow to the London Stock Exchange. What kind of decisions drive a company to choose one exchange over another?

ekianjo 2y ago
the access to investment probably?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
spacebanana7 2y ago
Generally it's easier from a compliance perspective to list in the same jurisdiction as your shareholders live. Otherwise there can be more admin work with withholding taxes etc. Also a baseline of liquidity, rule of law, and the absence of capital controls are prerequisite.
kmlx 2y ago
more liquidity
fidotron 2y ago
Way back when Arm were dual listed one of the explanations was that US based customers (meaning US based semi companies) preferred that the company was listed in the US and subjected to a similar regime, in addition to needed capital. To be honest, that actually makes a decent amount of sense, but I suspect the real reason was to enable US investors to buy into it so they do not then support attacking the foreign interloper in their industry.
- kmlx 2y ago
  it is also incredibly costly and difficult to be listed in multiple stock exchanges.
SilverBirch 2y ago
The biggest reason is access to capital. There's lots of institutional investors who are going to primarily invest in US equities, so if you're on the US stock market that's good. Even if those institutional investors do look at worldwide equities they're going to be limited in how much they allocate to it. It's also easier for investors - a single regulatory environment, no currency risk etc. This used to be mitigated by the fact that other countries would have their own pools of capital, like domestic pension funds but with the reforms to pensions UK pension funds are no longer a particularly good source of capital on the UK stock exchange.

boringg 2y ago

That's dissapointing. I was hoping they'd be happy getting enough revenue to stay private. What do they need to raise capital for?

s1k3s 2y ago
They can't keep up with demand so that's one problem that could be solved with money.
- ActionHank 2y ago
  Man, I can't wait for there to be 7 variants of RPi 6 all with some nondescript name and none of which actually offer exactly what I need, because they had to flood and segment the market. They should stay private and build on the quality brand they have rather than trying to grow because reasons.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    If they can't keep up with demand people will go elsewhere. Focusing on brand and perception instead of fulfilling demand is not a fundamentally good strategy.
    - sircastor 2y ago
      This is what market theory says, but there are a lot of competing products at attractive price points and it hasn’t happened yet. The lack of community, software, and examples makes the competitors less attractive. The same thing happened with Arduino. There were a lot of competitors that offered more capable silicon, but the community and software libraries were the real appeal.
      - ssl-3 2y ago
        It is happening. It started years ago. In 3D printing in (say) 2019, for instance: It was ridiculously common to use a Raspberry Pi with a printer -- for all kinds of reasons. They were cheap (enough), and they worked well (enough), and they were available (enough). Few, if any, questioned whether the Raspberry Pi was the right thing to use, for it was ubiquitous and well-understood. But when Pis became more expensive and/or less available in 2021 or so, people didn't just stop doing stuff with their printers. They instead found alternative platforms to do things with: They bought used corpo mini-PCs, repurposed cheap-shit Android TV boxes, used old Android phones, and (of course) trudged through the weeds getting things working various other SBCs.

politelemon 2y ago

Does it feel like this was inevitable anyway? I had heard that the company was already focusing on OEMs and delivering their products to those companies first. Whereas in the early days the RPi company was positioning themselves as having an educational focus (and the hobbyists). I don't know how true this is, but is what I had read explaining the inability to get RPI4s and RPI5s over the past year. It is quite sad though as they will now have an incentive to profit over 'provide', and it will be nice while it lasts.

mlyle 2y ago
> but is what I had read explaining the inability to get RPI4s and RPI5s over the past year. RPi5 never really had a shortage; there was the couple of months of "preorder" during launch. During the post-COVID extended Raspberry pi shortage, a big percentage of production went to keeping OEMs happy to avoid screwing customers that had designed in RPi products.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  > big percentage of production went to keeping OEMs happy to avoid screwing customers that had designed in RPi products. To avoid screwing /a selected subset/ of customers that had designed in RPi products.

deelowe 2y ago

I called this back in 2012. Despite all their talk of being a non-profit and changing the world, it always felt this was more of a "feel good" thing than their actual mission.

tdb7893 2y ago
Their "do no evil" phase lasted pretty long at least compared to places like OpenAI at least. At the end of the day are there any significant companies that managed to maintain a mission that wasn't "make tons of money for already rich people"?
robertlagrant 2y ago
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is still a non profit, isn't it?
- deelowe 2y ago
  This filing makes no mention of it and appears to state quite the opposite. > Raspberry Pi has a strong track record of revenue growth and profitability. For the year ended 31 December 2023, revenues were $265.8 million, with gross profit of $66.0 million, and operating profit of $37.5 million, as well as adjusted EBITDA of $43.5 million. The filing goes on to provide various forward looking statements regarding growth and profitability. I find no mention of the original mission.
  - MarkCole 2y ago
    The filing mentions the Foundation multiple times? > Raspberry Pi is a subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity founded in 2008, with the goal of promoting interest in computer science among young people. Raspberry Pi has distributed approximately $50m in dividends to the Foundation since 2013, which has been used to advance its educational mission globally.
    - deelowe 2y ago
      I have first hand experience with not being able to get RPis for educational purposes while the employers I worked for were ordering them by the 1000s. These discussions are missing the larger point which is that it feels the .com side of Rpi is eating away at the original mission of the company.

Aromasin 2y ago

I'm pleased to see another British company actually stick to the London Stock Exchange. Many are starting to list themselves on the US stock market, Arm being at the top of my mind in terms of tech. I think I remember them losing 30 £100M+ companies to the US exchange last year including some big really big names. I know this phenomenon isn't isolated to the UK either. With all the issues in Hong Kong over the last few years, companies have fled there too. Don't get me wrong, I understand the rationale. High interest rates, dwindling pension funds, executives wanting wages closer to US execs, fewer high-performing tech companies, Brexit isolation and a lack of committed domestic investors have all contributed to the LSE’s downward spiral. It just seems everything in the business world is becoming more centralised around the US. I don't think that's good for anyone, including US folks. Monopolies do as monopolies do; extract all the wealth they can from the system. The only people who benefit in a scenario where 95%+ of stock trades go through the NYSE is the NYSE.

doublesocket 2y ago
It hasn't gone well for several UK companies listing through SPACs on US exchanges recently. Think that's given plenty of reason for a rethink.
- raverbashing 2y ago
  I'm not sure, but there are other ways of listing besides SPACs, like ADRs
- piltdownman 2y ago
  I can't think of a SPAC, regardless of nationality, that actually succeeded other than Cellebrite. SPACs in their current usage are basically vehicles to circumvent securities fraud and generate wild amounts of money based on hyperbolic slide-decks via PIPE and NAV offerings pre-DA - the amount of EV and Quadcopter plays that were obvious vaporware getting traction in 2020-2022 was insanity.
  - pavlov 2y ago
    I've been tracking SPACs as a curiosity. The only ones on my list that are above the $10 starting price are DraftKings, Hims & Hers Health, and Grindr. In other words: gambling, erection medication, and gay hookups.

notanormalnerd 2y ago

I think a better way would be to keep the foundation and spin off a company that manufactures all of that. Sell 49% of that company in an IPO and keep the majority stake in the foundation. This way they can raise money for expansion while keeping the mission in line. This also signals very clear to investors what this enterprise is about.

Latty 2y ago
Isn't this already how it works? Raspberry Pi Ltd is a different company to the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
- syarb 2y ago
  AFAIK, yep. Jeff Geerling (hi jeff!) has a great video about this. https://youtu.be/hrhE6MnGi1A?si=IeHs2GKYqPjqPXSb&t=305 https://youtu.be/hrhE6MnGi1A?si=IeHs2GKYqPjqPXSb&t=305
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    Hello there ;) I would like to know how much the Pi Foundation would still own—could be an interesting dynamic there. And good for them to be able to use some of that profit for good (they do a lot of neat things for education / STEM).
    - entropicdrifter 2y ago
      Hopefully the foundation still controls the majority of votes regardless of the % ownership stake. They do too much good in the world to go full-blown public corpo
gchadwick 2y ago
This is already the setup, the foundation owns the trading company and it is the trading company going to IPO. From a quick scan it's not clear to me what share of ownership of RPi ltd the foundation would retain post IPO other than the foundation will be selling at least some of its stake: > The Offer would be comprised of new Shares to be issued by the Company and existing shares to be sold by certain existing shareholders, including the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Raspberry Pi's existing majority shareholder.

tombert 2y ago

My visceral reaction to this was “well shit, RPi was supposed to be a non profit to lower the costs of computers, and now they’re going to be another boring computer company”, and that makes me sad. I know that Rapsberry Pi has been a dual for-profit and non-profit for quite awhile, so in theory nothing really changes, but it feels a bit weird. However, it appears that unambiguously for-profit companies have managed to make affordable SBCs (e.g. Hardkernel, Nvidia), without having the same constraints of trying to save the world associated with it. Maybe Raspberry Pi IPOing will increase availability and funding? Tough to say. I haven’t actually used a name-brand Raspberry Pi for awhile, and have opted for a competitor for the last several years.

vsnf 2y ago

I’ve tried so many times but I just can’t come up with any compelling use for a raspberry pi. It seems well suited for making a NAS or plex server, but other than that, idk. Everything else I want to experiment with is better served by an arduino.

k8sToGo 2y ago
Not well suited for NAS at all. Too limited in IO and PCI lanes.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  Also not really suited for Plex, since the transcode performance would be awful.
- ta988 2y ago
  Depends so much what's on the NAS.
- StillBored 2y ago
  Right, the IO perf has been bad. But IMHO, no one should be running a NAS without ECC at this point. It's on the "my RAID doesn't scrub the disks" level; it's just begging for silent disk corruption that propagates its way through backups and is impossible to fix with software solutions.
LtWorf 2y ago
I have home automation done with rpi. They have a touch screen, speakers, and control the lights via gpio. I use the same thing to set timers, play the internet radio in the morning to wake me up, and put the lights off.
dotnet00 2y ago
Similar issue, I have an old desktop as a server already to do all the heavy processing stuff. Only finally found use for RPi to be the brains of my 3d printers.
borbtactics 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

staringback 2y ago

I can't remember the last time I actually used a Raspberry Pi. These days there are millions of cheaper, more powerful, "Raspberry Pi compatible" boards that are actually stocked. I don't see any reason to even need one of these in 2024.

pmontra 2y ago
I also never looked at RPi 4s and 5s but for a different reason. Cheaper is good but I don't need "more powerful". I'm using a 3B+ (or whatever) with a TV hat to convert free to air channels to IP streams that I can watch on my phone and tablet. The winning point is obviously the TV hat but also the low power consumption. It's 3.82 W right now. I'm also using an Odroid as my home server, because there where no RPis available and because I can plug two SATA 3 disks in that machine. It's using 3.71 W. Given the load I put on it I could be OK with a less powerful server that would consume even less Watts.

theonealtair 2y ago

Raspberry Pi did a lot to revolutionize the micro board/pc market, they truly had an amazing influence on the industry that I’m grateful for. Now a days they feel overpriced and underpowered, and their influence spurred a new market that has produced much better alternatives. This IPO just confirms this perspective for me. Thank you raspberry pi for what you did. But I doubt I’ll ever want to buy one again.

azinman2 2y ago
What are the better alternatives? I don’t think any have anywhere near the level of software and community support nor stability.
- jsheard 2y ago
  The situation with ARM hasn't changed much unless your budget stretches to Amperes stuff, but the big change is that x86 SBCs and mini-PCs have gotten very cheap, and of course those Just Work with any Linux distro or even Windows. The Intel N100 is incredibly capable for the price.
  - tombert 2y ago
    Yeah, it's actually insane how much X86_64 stuff has dropped in price. Yesterday I received two Ryzen 9 mini gaming computers [1], one to replace my old rack mount server and one to be a home theater PC. Each cost about $400, and they are capable of emulating the PS3 and Xbox 360 smoothly (I don't really have any new games so I wasn't able to push the limit too much, but still emulating those consoles requires some horsepower!). Maybe I'm just out of the loop (very likely), but $400 for a super low-power gaming computer feels insanely cheap to me. The server one in particular will pay for itself in about a year due to power savings alone compared to my rack mount server. [1] Beelink SER6's for those interested.
  - KaiserPro 2y ago
    > The Intel N100 is incredibly capable for the price. Hard agree, I have one and I love it. Its currently doing the VM work of what a £10k server did in 2012. But if I want GPIO, and or battery powered things with linux, then the pi is the way forward still. Anything else, and a pico/esp32 will do well.

webdoodle 2y ago

Hopefully this will give the average consumer the ability to give some direction as to the development of new versions. I'd very much like to see a new PI that doesn't have wifi, bluetooth or any other wireless technology.

azinman2 2y ago
Why? They had that with the zero… I’m guessing those sold a lot less.
- gmiller123456 2y ago
  They have specifically limited consumer's ability to purchase the Zero's, so there's definately more demand for them than they're selling.
Yeroc 2y ago
I don't see any connection between going public and giving the average consumer more input into the direction of the company. Making a company public means the company is beholden to operating in a way that maximizes return to the shareholders. Sure an average consumer can buy shares in the company but the average consumer isn't going to be sitting on the board.
chrisjj 2y ago
> Hopefully this will give the average consumer the ability to give some direction as to the development of new versions. Will give the average investor the ability to give some direction as to the development of new versions.

azinman2 2y ago

Makes me sad that they’ll now have to increase profits forever, instead of functioning on their mission and doing what’s right. This may mean moving manufacturing to China, using lower cost components, etc etc.

graphe 2y ago
What is "right"? They haven't been a good value for over 2 years.
- advisedwang 2y ago
  The goal hasn't ever been about producing a device cheaply. It's about supporting education, encouraging tinkering and changing attitudes [1] [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Every altruistic thing is easier if you're trying to do it with a $10 product rather tham a $100 product, all else being equal
    - davidgnz 2y ago
      Good thing they still offer a $10 product then - the Raspberry Pi Zero.
      - lttlrck 2y ago
        and the RP2040! There is not much to differentiate it with ESP32 at the moment, but it's their first shot at a microcontroller.
  - raegis 2y ago
    "...hasn't ever been..." is not true. Someone above posted an earlier statement from the archive.
- 2y ago

rvz 2y ago

That prediction was just too easy [0], and it has now been finally admitted. Time to them to dump their shares on the community. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28773122

buildbuildbuild 2y ago

I badly wish that chip manufacturers were required to produce single board computers with their outdated inventory. Or at least offer the chips for sale with documentation to reduce e-waste. Apple’s A* and M* chips for example should all be on SBCs. If you’re going to consume earth’s resources to produce these things, tell humanity how to repurpose them.

imhoguy 2y ago
I would go even further - open specs and mass recycle billions of chips and boards of any obsolete mobile device (Samsung, Qualcomm, Apple....).
moffkalast 2y ago
"Over my rotting corpse." - Tim Cook, probably

rpmisms 2y ago

Let's normalize private industry again.

dukeyukey 2y ago
My pension contributions need to go somewhere, and without a flow of new companies going public it's just gonna bid up and up the price of the old guard.
ClassyJacket 2y ago
For real. I want more companies like Valve. Not publicly traded, not trying to squeeze every last dollar for the sake of it, just doing what they think is cool when they want to do it.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nsteel 2y ago

There was a good interview with Eben Upton back in Feb on this topic (and others): https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/floss-weekly-episode-772-raspberry-pi-from-the-man-himself/ https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/floss-weekly-episode-772-ras...

MarkusWandel 2y ago

If I had a dollar for every time I've seen the words "Shareholder Value". Hopefully that particular disease can be kept away for a while.

incahoots 2y ago
The disease of Enshittification ?
- MarkusWandel 2y ago
  Whatever you call it, when you're beholden to the shareholders rather than your customers.
- Karellen 2y ago
  Friedman's Malady https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
  - MarkusWandel 2y ago
    Of course, perfect economics would assume maximizing long term shareholder value, which means not exploiting your customers. But "Shareholder Value" these days invariably means "short term share price" i.e. burn goodwill to make the shares spike in the next 5 years so they can be dumped profitably, and never mind what comes after.
  - contravariant 2y ago
    If companies that lower profits to benefit society as a whole are infringing on the freedom of their shareholders then any company that breaks the law to raise profits is basically just a criminal for hire. Ignorance is just irresponsible at that point. And why should we let something that harms society remain legal? At the very least society ought to collect on the damages, and a company that's pushed all responsibility for deciding what is and isn't right to do onto the rest of society has no right to complain when society decides it ought to stop. Of course there are people who want to abolish law in favour of bartering as well, but I think they think you're allowed to hit them in the face for thinking that.

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago

That would be cool. I would like to follow their journey. Their numbers, their earning calls etc. I would like to see more smaller tech companies on the stock market. The giants like Microsoft and Google are way to hard to understand because they have so many products and so much stuff in the pipeline. Are there any interesting examples of smaller tech companies which are publicly traded?

nicce 2y ago
Not so sure. Interesting opposite: Valve Superior money milking machine without the pressure from shareholders, because they can focus into the benefits of the end users with few products and long term sustainability. No need to rush for increased profits every quarter so that someone can sell or admire their stocks.
- ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
  Valve has a market cap of about $8B though. Quite big already. Also, I don't understand games at all :)

throwaway5959 2y ago

Wild how far they are from their original stated goals. Maybe they were just full of it the whole time.

mig39 2y ago

Enshittification incoming.

revscat 2y ago

Please no. They make good, beloved products that are fairly high quality.

Nux 2y ago

How the enshittification begins..

muyuu 2y ago

that would explain the focus on services like the VNC replacement they've released those won't be free for long

andrewstuart 2y ago

Intel N100 has sent raspberry pi to the drawer.

ein0p 2y ago

It’s like $100 per board now once you add a power supply and a case. More if you also add storage. Cheapest Intel system on Amazon is $139. The whole point of the entire thing was its affordability. That was kind of lost along the way.

TechDebtDevin 2y ago
I don't think inflation is Rasberry Pi Ltds fault.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  I don't think inflation is RPi's excuse either. It affects Intel too you know.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
On the other hand, a Pi zero is <$10. I remember them being $1 at Microcenter for a time. Is the cheapest Intel system as power sipping as the Pi's?
- ein0p 2y ago
  Pi is not particularly “power sipping” either. Not every usb brick is capable of powering today’s Pi’s, which indicates peak power draw of over 5W.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Compared to Intel it still is - a 5V/3A brick is sufficient for all Pis, with Intel if you have USB power it's usually higher-voltage USB-C.
    - pmlnr 2y ago
      No, they aren't. You need 5.1 or 5.2v, otherwise you get stability issues. Learnt that the hard way.

rychco 2y ago

Farewell Raspberry Pi. What are some alternative boards with comparable specs?

rhadware 2y ago
[dead]
neop1x 2y ago
Risc-V boards soon maybe. See Lichee Pi 4a (https://sipeed.com/licheepi4a https://sipeed.com/licheepi4a).

Kye 2y ago

Hiring a proud surveillance cop to sell surveillance cop stuff to governments must have been a boon if they're considering an IPO. Zero consequences for being assholes to critics then lying about the criticism to the press.

chrisjj 2y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/zh51l4/raspberry_pi_hired_an_excop_and_people_are_pissed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/zh51l4/raspberr...

szundi 2y ago

rhadware 2y ago

[dead]

jamesy0ung 2y ago

Can you buy the shares in Australia?

decryption 2y ago
Not sure how you get in on the IPO, but once they list on the LSE it'll be quite trivial to buy shares on the usual platforms like Stake, SelfWealth, CommSec, etc. Not much different than buying on the ASX.
- jamesy0ung 2y ago
  Thanks mate!

lrvick 2y ago

Do not do it! The mission was always to produce quality low cost computers for hobbyists and kids with open source software. The moment you IPO you will have shareholders demanding you put profit before people and the users will always lose in that deal.

taylorfinley 2y ago
On top of that, IMO the vast majority of their value as a brand comes from the community that develops for and with the platform. See every review for the alternative SBC market (Orange Pi, Bana Pi, etc.) "Sure it's better/cheaper but they don't have the huge community..." So, if they IPO, will they first be distributing equity to the community? Or are they just cash-grabbing a retirement play?
exadeci 2y ago
Pine64 has been doing much better in that matter for years, I've had a Pine64 since 2016 and a raspberry pi 4 running the same OS (dietpi) and software kept running hotter even though it got released 3 years later and for double the price

bmitc 2y ago

It doesn't even matter to me. I stopped using them personally and have been pushing back against them professionally. They have bad performance, bad thermals, many limitations in the peripherals, are not reliable, and are impossible to get.

snvzz 2y ago
And have a long history of hardware design mistakes. On top of that, Eben Upton has publicly made statements showing pointless loyalty to ARM and ignorance on current/past developments in RISC-V. For Raspberry Pi to stay relevant, many things would have to change.

smcleod 2y ago

Same old story, the customer will shift from the people buying it to the shareholders. This would be a shame.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

And will be bought by private equity and rode into the ground not long after.

system2 2y ago

IPO means company already gone shit. I will stick to ESP32.

ntnsndr 2y ago

This is why we need Exit to Community: https:/.e2c.how

DeathArrow 2y ago

It seems to me RPi kind of lost the attributes that made it interesting in the first place.

phendrenad2 2y ago

Why don't they license their name to other entities, essentially allow approved clones? Muddying your non-profit goal by operating a for-profit, publicly-traded company seems suboptimal.

t43562 2y ago

The Pi isn't one thing - it's a group of computers at different prices - you can develop on the expensive one and run your production code on a much cheaper one.

blastersyndrome 2y ago

It seems I lost my faith in Raspberry Pis a lot sooner than most people. I gave up on them around the RPi3 days because it stopped working with the random chargers I had just laying around my house. I traced the issue back to my power supply having too much voltage ripple, with it still being within the spec for USB. Essentially, I needed to run it with their charger which was built to work better than industry standard. This, coupled with the mini HDMI ports basically requiring an adapter, means that you more than total the cost of the Pi just in peripherals to get it up and running. It all seems like a waste of money anymore.

fragmede 2y ago
No, your random USB power supplies were just particularly shitty. It doesn't need to be their power supply, it just needs to not be a piece of crap. agreed that mini HDMI is bullshit. running a company and pricing things is a dark art. there's so much psychology to it, getting you in the door at $40, then up charging for add ons is a time honored tradition sales tactic. win or lose, judge it on the out-the-door price as long as you compare it to the out-the-door price of other options (Intel NUC, Droid, orange Pi, any NAS)

rldjbpin 2y ago

a weird source to receive this news, nevertheless it seems that this is another evolution of the commercial arm of the company. there can still be potential benefits of this move for the foundation's goals. economies of scale and increased commercial embedded use cases can push for adoption of ARM in basic computing. i just hope that they finally set up their own distribution as it is still a pain to buy their devices for a fair price.