Over the next three months, you can expect to read some astonishingly enthusiastic comments on an amazingly dull bunch of companies that make really uninteresting high-tech products. The reason is simple. All the venture capitalists, encouraged by rising share prices, are trying to 'implement the exit strategy' - or pull their money out, as you and I might say. More often than not, the first clue you get that a company is planning to go public with its shares is when 'profile' articles start appearing. They work like this: A PR company rings a journalist. 'I don't know whether you're interested, but the CEO of a rather interesting American/Chinese/Russian company will be in London next week. It looks like the sort of outfit you'd be interested in.' Then the CEO, who normally refuses to answer the phone to anybody under the rank of chief technical officer, 'makes some time available' and buys the journalist lunch. During this lunch, all sorts of fascinating details about the technology behind the company, and the rival companies, are revealed. An article swiftly appears praising the company and enthusing about its future.
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