The First Billion

Surprised, Luca smiled. It wasn't like Mazursky to count him in. Ray Luca wasn't one of the guys. He didn't share tips on what stocks were about to pop. He didn't discuss his trades or offer advice on how others could make as much money as he did. Part of the reason was that he was naturally a timid person who never did well in groups. People often mistook his shyness for aloofness. Another part was that, well, they were right: He did operate on a different level than these ham-and-eggers did. He was a theorist, an inventor, an evangelist. He was the father of the Synertel fiber-optic switch, a cutting-edge technology that almost- almost- revolutionized the web. If he shared a work space with them it was only a temporary measure, a fluke in the cosmic plane.

Standing, he tucked an errant shirttail into his trousers and ventured a wave. As long as he was out of the zone, why not try to socialize a bit? Truth was it got lonely being a theorist and an inventor. "Hey, Maz," he said. "Beer sounds good. Where you guys heading?"

"What? A word from his highness?" cackled Mazursky. "We serfs are touched."

"Come on, Maz," said Luca. "You guys going to El Torito or what?" Luca felt all eyes on him. Don't look away, he told himself as he jammed both hands into his pockets. Keep your chin up. But already he was fighting for the gray, neutral comfort of the carpet, his chin bobbing up and down, the blinking going haywire. "Umm, what time?"

"I'll be happy to tell you," said Mazursky, "just as soon as you put your stuck-up wop nose up my hairy ass and tell me what I had for dinner last night."

The teenagers burst out laughing and the victory dance began. Round went the hips. Jiggle went the belly. Ooh-yeah.

Luca dropped like a stone into his chair, his cheeks afire with humiliation. Instinctually, his eyes began trawling the bank of computer screens, checking stock prices, volume charts, news alerts- anything to lessen the pain of rejection, his shame at wanting to fit in, his anger at himself for not knowing better.

Mazursky, you jerk, he cursed silently. Just you wait. Another month and everything will be different. You'll be begging to buy me a drink, to spend even a minute in the presence of the owner and editor of The Private Eye-PO, the nation's hottest investment newsletter.

And with that he went back to work.

For the past three years, Ray Luca's life had been divided into two halves. Nine to five, he was another "hard-timer" trying to put together a decent grubstake trading the market. It wasn't easy. With alimony claiming six grand a month off his paycheck and child support another three on top of that, he had to make a killing just to keep his head above water. In a good month, he cleared thirty grand. Nine went to his ex-wife, seven to the IRS, and five to settle his penalty to the federal government's Department of Corrections. Living expenses ate up another two grand. Small wonder he was never able to put together a decent capital base.

But every evening he devoted himself to a systematic and thorough dissection of the market for initial public offerings. He educated himself about particular businesses going public. He researched their viability and analyzed their business plans. He compared each upcoming offering against past issues in similar market segments. If the market for IPOs had cooled down, it was to his benefit. Ray Luca was a dyed-in-the-wool contrarian, and he didn't frequent pastures where the grass had been chewed to the roots. Working alone, he was unable to analyze more than two offerings a week. The current market conditions suited him fine. As long as three or four solid new issues hit the street each month, he was on track. His goal was to build a reputation as the nation's foremost prognosticator of IPOs, and on this sunny summer day he could say with equal degrees of modesty and certainty that he had succeeded. Forty thousand hits a day on his website qualified what some might label "hubris" as a mere statement of fact.

Luca sighed, thinking it was a long way from Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto to Cornerstone Trading in Delray Beach. Unlike other casualties of the boom that went bust- the dot-wronged and the dot-bombed- he had no one to blame but himself. He'd been positioned at the right time at the right place with the right technology. Synertel was bulging from two hundred million in VC funding. A white-hot investment bank was set to take the company public. Market capitalization was projected to be eleven billion, leaving Luca's 5 percent stake worth a little more than five hundred million dollars… and that was before the issue hit the market.