I got a personal message from someone who doesn't believe the company is in stealth mode and is just doing bad PR. The writer claims stealth mode would not make any sense, because it would inhibit a higher share price.

While stealth mode indeed inhibits a higher share price, this is only true while the stealth mode is in effect. Once the stealth mode is lifted, it should lead to an even higher share price – assuming of course that the stealth mode has a positive effect on the business resp. the public perception.

Wikipedia names some reasons why a company could be in stealth mode. Some of them might apply to POET Technologies as well, others not at all:

• A small, relatively unfunded company may wish to avoid giving companies with more resources time to develop competing technologies.
• The very announcement that a larger or better-known company is working on a competing product may damp interest in the smaller upstart.
• If the innovative company has no realistic means of protecting its new intellectual property, it may seek to obtain a "first-mover advantage" by waiting until the company or its products are ready to sell before they are announced. This gives as long a lead as possible before others may copy its products, distribution channels, brand, or other business advantages.
• Conversely, companies with a protectable new technology may nevertheless wish to wait until they have filed or obtained a patent.

Some indications that POET Technologies is indeed in stealth mode:

• The company does not do any PR at all. (Those press releases ar IR, not PR.)
• Concealing wordings in press releases (see my post as of yesterday)
• Ajit's affiliation with POET Technologies not mentioned in his SRC Techcon profile
• Virtually nothing at all in mainstream media regarding Ajit Manocha and POET Technologies

While reading about stealth mode, I found an interesting story in this article about a company which, like POET Technologies, has a product "that is too good to be true, so it is probably not true". Coravin can extract wine from corked bottles while leaving the cork intact. And they went into stealth mode, because they were afraid of an avalanche of bad press with speculative disbelief.

The same with POET: Who would believe that a small company with a small budget and a small team would achieve something that global players with billions of research money didn't? Remember the infamous Joel Hruska who articulated his disbelieve in this forum some time ago! And he won't be the only journalist who wouldn't believe in the POET story!

What did Coravin do? They took the time to show off the product, in person, to journalists, restaurant critics, and influencers before launching. Coravin's president and CEO, Nick Lazaris: "There was just all this skepticism out there. The way you convince skeptics is you let them test it themselves."

The company picked someone they dubbed a "key influencer" in the world of wine, Robert Parker, and lifted his embargo first, so he could post a video of the Coravin in action. A lot of other (largely positive) press followed.

POET Technologies is doing just the same. They are going to companies and showing what they have in person. This is a very successful strategy, because

• there are customers waiting for the PDK to become completed,
• there are and customers for whom POET is developing stuff,
• POET has won a "key influencer" who admittedly didn't post a video yet, but is on the company's payroll and is now or is going to be "key influencing" behind the scenes.

In my opinion stealth mode is in effect and makes a lot of sense for a couple of reasons. Regarding the share price, it's just short-term pain for long-term gain.