Beckstrom posed arguments during forum last week.
On February 11, American University Washington College of Law held a program about the sale of .Org to private equity company Ethos Capital.
Former ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom was in attendance, and he posed some good questions about the transaction. The video below starts playing at the point Beckstrom begins commenting:
After hearing of the deal, Beckstrom says, “I felt incredibly sad… I was just shocked. Not just because this non-profit asset was being monetized, but because of how it was handled.”
Beckstrom posed several questions, including the valuation of the deal and if ISOC/PIR are really operating in the public benefit, as required of non-profits.
That was probably the first good, coherent argument I have heard Beckstrom make.
His points about this being completely undervalued is spot on, while do not agree that a per domain is worth more than VRSN, he nails it on this being a backdoor deal or really should have said a sweetheart deal for related parties and ISOC did not fulfill its fiduciary duty to maximize value.
Really encourage everyone to watch this if you want good coherent points about the issues with this transaction , versus the standard domainer rambling about doubling the prices , please watch
I’d like to encourage people, if you have the time, listen (don’t watch) the entire video as you are doing something else. There are a few nuggets in there.
I really miss Bod Reckstrom.
It many ways, his lack of “corporate polish” made him a real person leading ICANN. Someone who would debate and reason, not just hide behind corporate-speak and lawyers.
“Blow it up”
– Jack Welch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xWFltgLY9c
“Twenty year later, Jack Welch, in turn, advised his successor, Jeffery Immelt, to ‘Blow it up’.”
Some find value in truth.
The common ground between the end users, domainers, ISOC and Ethos is that we all want stability. Stability in regulations, pricing and uptime. So all parties could have a common interest. But what is lacking is trust. And there are no real foundation on which that trust can be founded, as Ethos capital has no pre-existing history. Even Google has a more trustworthy history when it comes to offering a stable platform for internet users. Which is why safeguards need to be put in place.
The purchase price makes no sense to me though. PIR is a good investment as you safely put aside a billion dollars and receive 5% interest from it. It’s a lot safer than the stock market. But if you would increase the prices of domains by 10% a year, the price will have doubled in 8 years. Less than half of the current revenue goes to operating expenses, so if the operating expenses remain the same, it will mean the profit PIR makes for its parent will triple. Leading to a potential interest rate of 15% a year on their initial investment after the initial 8 years. This could lead to the value of PIR also tripling. In 8 years you might be able to sell PIR for 3 billion dollars, after already having recouped the majority of the money from the initial investment thanks to the revenue.
With that in mind. What would you sell PIR for?
>Stability in regulations, pricing and uptime.
Might that also include stability in the form of staff doing something they were not asked by anyone to do, and their failure to seek approval before they did it?
How can it be argued that price caps are unstable, and their removal creates stability?
Mr. Beckstrom also has a got a lot right. Look at what Rod Beckstrom said about ICANN board and conflicts of interest:
“Criticism of the ICANN Board & NomCom
At the opening ceremony for ICANN 43 in San Jose, Costa Rica, Beckstrom criticized the ICANN Board and NomCom for their insularity. He said, “ICANN must be able to act for the public good while placing commercial and financial interests in the appropriate context. How can it do this if all top leadership is from the very domain name industry it is supposed to coordinate independently?” He claimed that the NomCom’s structure poses a significant threat to ICANN, and stated that the Committee, which appoints half of the Board’s voting Directors, should be “free of conflicts,” and should appoint candidates that are “financially independent of the domain name industry.” He said that ideally, a fully independent and non-conflicted NomCom should be in place before the nominations for the next round of Board appointments begins.”
This blog is now what comes up in Feedly for the Stacey on IoT feed. Please fix this ASAP.