Silicon Valley scratches its head as Wall Street implodes
NEW YORK — And then there were none. Did you read that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are turning into boring old moneylenders, leaving Wall Street without any investment banks? Few in the Valley will weep; the investment banks abandoned tech long ago. The handful of investment bankers left in San Francisco and Palo Alto handle private placements and wealth management. IPOs? Are you kidding? Even the M&A deals going on are too small to attract New York's attention. The main worry on the left-behind coast is that Wall Street will drag the economy down, and take tech spending with it. Not that anyone is admitting it.A San Francisco Chronicle reporter attempting to survey the landscape had no luck getting called back:
A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment, Oracle and Sun Microsystems didn't return phone calls seeking comment, and a spokeswoman for SAP said executives were unavailable for comment.
Expect to hear a lot of Valley CFOs talking about the lack of "visibility" in the next round of quarterly earnings calls. That is to say, they're utterly in the dark as to what will happen with the economy. Just like the rest of us — but they get paid to profess their ignorance. (Photo by wlscience)