Patrick C. Price

Archive for February, 2007

As in the past 3 years, I attended the Open Forum of the WEF this year again. My posts on the topics covered are in the “politics” category of my blog.

It was fun and as always, a very entertaining weekend. Novalis, a student friend of mine, and I had a Suite at the Hotel Europe right on the Promenade in Davos.

Usually you get to meet cool people at their piano bar. Two years ago, when we were there, Arthur Andersen had an invitation only cigars & jazz event we snook in to… This year it was open to the public, by the time we got there.

I was great fun mingling among people like former Swiss ambassador to Germany, Thomas Borer, who was accompanied by Victor Vexelberg, one of the Russian oligarchs, who is now increasingly based in Switzerland.

Also standing next to Google’s Eric Schmidt, while entering the Davos Casino, and seeing him sent away, as he wasn’t carrying his passport with him, was kinda fun. Imagine a casino sending away one of the worlds most influential persons, because he could not present proper ID…

A great chat with a guy from the US Homeland Security Department, while having Fondue at a local Chalet was another unforgetable chat and allowed a new view on the current events in the middle east.

If you ever have time in January to attend, you should definitely plan a nice week of skiing vacation in Davos and while doing so, visit the WEF, you’ll really enjoy it!

It’s official…

After 6.5 years in various positions with Scout24 Switzerland, I have decided to leave the company and persue my own way. On January 16 I handed in my resignation, which will become effective July 31, 2007. I still have approx. 6 weeks of vacation, so I can’t say exactly as to when I will no longer be there.

I had a wonderful time there and learned a lot. Unfortunately the company does not offer a stock option plan for their employees, due to the fact, that it is part of Deutsche Telekom. So I guess it will be dificult to hold the entreprenurial employees within the group.

Good learning for my own company setup, use the “Trivadis” participation model I heard of. Employees vest shares with each year they are in the company. They can additionaly buy shares at their own expense. The company is valued independently once a year. If you leave the company, you must return your shares by the time of the next valuation and at that price. This way, the company avoids former employees to bring in new proprietors (see craigslist & ebay) and yet allows them to participate in the company growth during the time, they contribute to it.

I will be founding my own company on April 21, 2007, turned out to take longer, but was founded in September: Idealizer AG a Swiss eMedia Lab.

More on what I plan to do, the developments around this, etc. to follow…