[Galaxy S 4 General] puremind:
Which emotion?

Indeed I know several people with similar background to yours at Golman Sachs, UBS and Merill Lynch. However, which point that I disagreed with do you want me to run by them exactly?

You keep repeating that emotions and finance do not agree with each other, as if you yourself were fighting with your own emotions. I can assure you that humans are perfectly capable of emoting without having their judgement impaired as a result.

Isn't finance a risk and return calculation. Some take more risk, others less. I don't think that your conservative, risk-adverse view is the golden measure of all financial decisions. There is a spectrum of valid decisions, some more risky and lucrative, ohers more conservative and safe (or stale depending on your point of view). What did I do in my post except highlight the need to not only reflect on cost but also value the other part of the equaltion, i.e. the synergies and gains? I don't think I disagreed with your risk assessment.

If companies were run by CFO's, we wouldn't see a great deal of innovation. There is a reason why EMEA companies are generally less represented in risky industry sectors (besides the weakness of private-equity financing outside of the UK) and less prone to take risks. In most EMEA organizations, the CFO is the sole executive board member. Germany is the happy exception :D

There is a reason I work in product development (besides apparently being in synch with my emotions). My role is to envision, and push my organization to invest in long-term success rather than look at each decision with as sole measure and line of sight the current fiscal year. Risk may be the biggest threats to businesses existing and new, but ideas and innovation are the greatest propellent. All I ask is that we do not discard ideas solely from a short-term cost and risk perspective. Agreeing on cost is usally the easy part. Agreeing on future cash flows? Not so much. Defining the frail path to profitable new businesses requires imagination. Great innovators find paths that others are scared to explore and quick to discard.

May I ask? Why did you move out of the private equity business to focus on supply chain management? I find it interesting because this is another area that focuses on reducing cost and risk, which would seem you have an affinity for.

I wasn't so much interested in HTC's current market valuation, because it does yet factor in any impending takeover or merger by a named player. You work in supply chain management. How could HTC's R&D be leveraged to enter new segments? What would be Supply Chain cost saving achieved through economies of scale. Would HTC benefit from their ealier supplier status? Would the increased advertising muscle help HTC be more relevant? At the end of the day, products that the market wants at the price that they want them at the lowest cost that they can afford is what is going to drive profits.

It seem to me that when all is said and done, we keep disagreing not so much on cost but on the value of the 2013 HTC product line up. You are of the opinion that HTC's track record means they will perpetuate their former errors and keep pushing products that the market does not want, whereas I am more moderate.

I don't discard HTC because I have not yet seen the last of them in 2013. Marketing and advertising budget is important but great products win market share eventually. As someone who is very attentive to product merits, what I read in market share is an exact reflection of how adapted products are to their respective markets.

When Samsung had their Omnia devices, these were clearly inferior products. When Apple failed to enter the display size race, it was clear to me they would loose some ground. And after perpetuating years of products that the market increasingly did not want anymore, Nokia stabilized their situation. If HTC were a finished player, we wouldn't be here having this discussion. Instead we would be discussing about the Experia ZL or the Optimus Pro G (both very good devices).

If by the end of the year we do not see any positive signs (weren't you the one pointing out that analysts saw a recovery in 2014?), then I will be very vocal in predicting a dire future for HTC.