It is understandable to have a knee jerk reaction to any insider selling but let’s put things perspective. 

POET management and insiders have not sold shares since TM has been the CFO.  And let’s recognize that none of these people are wealthy with the exception I think of Don Listwin who sat on his hands through this. There are no pending negative events that some might normally associate the selling with.

There is never a good time for insiders to sell but the reality is that this run up was basically caused by what I would describe as a carryover effect from the irrational run up by LWLG. Options are recognized as compensation. From my recollection for example Vivek was awarded a significant number of options for orchestrating an outstanding deal with SAIC. Does anyone really begrudge him from being awarded those options?  The management team have worked hard to get POET to where it is today. Clearly their efforts are being rewarded for the first time in real time by the compensation that is designed to do just that.

And the bottom line here when you think about it is that what was sold was a miniscule amount compared to each person’s holdings. These people deserve to be rewarded and I would much sooner they use last week’s market condition that was triggered by the LWLG affect rather than taking a profit following significant news release events of design wins  that are expected.

There have been people on the management team who have been burned in the past by never taking option profit’s. In 2009 during the financial crises and before that the dot com bubble there were a lot of casualties and lessons learned.

And finally I want to provide a reminder to everyone of what Adrian Brijbassi posted following the production of the POET video.

That's a wrap!

Posted on Jun 04, 2021 12:16PM

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POET’s video that will be shown at OFC is complete. It has been a tireless effort by the management team and I believe it will make a very positive impression. Three highlights to tease you:

• “With POET’s design advantages and reduced assembly requirements, customers are already lining up.”
• A view of POET’s CWDM4 transmit optical engine operating while wire bonded to a customer’s device.
• Dr. Suresh Venkatesan: “The invention of the Optical Interposer was an a-ha moment. We were trying to solve fundamental issues in packaging that were keeping cost and scale out of reach for photonics devices. So this invention was born out of necessity." 

It’s been an eyeopener for me to work on this project — not only because I got to observe the technology at work but because I also got to see the dedication and discipline of the POET team. On more than one occasion it was mentioned that rewarding long-term investors is an ambition of the company.

That has not changed and I want to personally apologize to management on some of the nasty remarks that have been posted here by a few. This forum is read by management and I would suggest that it probably hurts and leaves a bad taste.

They have taken us to a place that very, very few start-up companies have ever been. This compensation has been earned.