For your clarification, FC stated that there is enough funding to keep people employed and working on design for a considerable amount of time. That didn't include major expense items like tape out costs, which he considered timing and market dependent. 1 Obviously it doesn't make sense to spend $10 million on a tape out for a new chip if BTC sells at 1 USD 2 (Reductio ad absurdum).
You are correct. Funding should have been secured in November/December the latest. Failure of creating a financial roadmap seems to be a prevalent theme with AM. 3 Unfortunately roadmaps is something which small companies hardly do in their attempt to optimize business agility.
If you're frustrated how management carried out their decisions you're in good company. Unfortunately it's too late to change anything about it now. 4
Jutarul, yes i am very frustrated. However thank you for helping answer some of these questions.
Some points to add though:
1) Making a public statement saying that AM has enough capital to move forward regardless of BTC price, on basically the eve of a make or break product, while not having funding in place to produce said product, was EXTREMELY misleading. People bought on that statement and made decisions on that statement. No one was thinking, that BE300 is going to get held up because of MONEY of all things.
2) It does make sense to produce BE300 regardless of BTC price as a matter of fact, if we want to talk about timing, everyone is hurting right now, and the block reward halving draws near. The name of the game is to capture as many BTC as possible. This environment could actually be the best time possible to secure a future for AM as while the price it isn't so attractive for new players to enter or competition to forge ahead aggressively with new hardware. The closer we get to the cutting edge technology the harder it becomes. Now is the ONLY time.
3) I disagree that there was no roadmap, i have no more information than what is posted here and it is plain as day that samples were ordered, they came back good, we knew there needed to be mass production by march / april (basically now). It is obvious the order needed to go in as soon as the samples were confirmed good. Looks like a roadmap to me.
which leads me to #4
4) It is NOT to late to change anything now, btc price is still depressed and though some of the competitive advantage is gone it still seems like BE300 is a good chip and stands to be able to capture some serious BTC, however from where i sit it doesn't seem like anything is being done about that. Doddling around like this just makes it look setup to fail.
Another thought: Though you say the duties of the board members weren't defined. Each member had their own duty to themselves (as to protect their own wealth!!!!!) and to shareholders to ensure / steer the company to the right path, ie: to DIRECT. From the sounds of it, you guys let FC handle everything. Not having any idea where finances sit at or letting the FREAKING CEO handle menial tasks such as share transfers for example and accept that as a good use of his time is ABSURD. What the hell is everyone thinking? I know from experience that being the head of even small companies is stressful as all hell, i could not imagine what it must be like to be FC, and everyone, board members and management included failed him. The fact no one knows what is going on is because you guys did not do your jobs to DEMAND to know what is going on.
I also would like to know the answers to some of the other questions asked in the thread that have gone un answered. Namely:
What BE200 remains unsold and in stock ?
Is there a rough break down of the 10M required? Is it possible to break it up in to milestones as to limit the initial risk for people that may want to get involved?
What is the turn around time on a BE300 order, to packaged chips in hand?
teek
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