Mary Meeker Speaks, But Probably Shouldn't

Baldwin Louie — Fri, 27 Apr 2001 18:00:00 -0400

The Net analyst's fall from media grace seems worthy of one of those trashy "whatever-happened-to" bio movies on cable TV. Mary Meeker has been MIA in the media lately as reporters routinely dismiss her as the lead villain in the destruction of dot-com stocks. She makes a high-profile return in the April 30 issue of Business Week, but don't be fooled by the gushing headline ("Tech's Cheerleader Won't Say Die"). The piece won't restore her respectability.

If you believe BW reporter Steve Hamm, it's "unlikely that Meeker will resume her reign as queen of anything in the near future." After tallying that nine of the 21 stocks Meeker recommended now trade below their IPO prices, Hamm quoted a finance professor calling Meeker and the other Net analysts "an incredible embarrassment to the investment-banking industry."

Meeker is depicted as being clearly rattled by the demonization, but Hamm lets her have her say – and that's part of her problem. The slim reed of hope on which she pins her redemption? Sure, it seems nutty for her to still be backing Yahoo and Amazon.com, but she's been called wrong before. She continued to recommend AOL after most analysts abandoned it in 1996, and investors who followed her AOL advice back then could have spun a $160 investment into $4,300. But does anyone but Meeker still think that the brand value of Yahoo, Amazon and eBay is comparable to consumer titans like Pepsi and Kleenex? The big dot-coms should eventually be able to cash in on their audiences, she told Hamm. Meeker certainly did.

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Mary Meeker Speaks, But Probably Shouldn't