David L was the Chairman of POET when a few of the people here on Agoracom met him. We had a wonderful time after the Toronto AGM. Beers and dinner at Jack Astor's by Union Station. Just a short walk from the meeting.

Anyway my recollection was that David, who really is a very genuine person, was pretty pumped about POET’s immediate future. At the time there were some platform requirements that were still under development. I think the biggest one was the vertical mirror. The vertical mirror in the POET platform is required primarily for out of plane coupling. These mirrors reflect incoming light from the fiber through the upper waveguide to flip chipped photodetectors. These mirrors couple light into the PD’s with just .25dB loss. That is a very low number. 

The platform numbers were pretty amazing right from the get go and were holding up over time. Which I think lead to a belief that recognition would be very fast and require floodgates to open. Many of you know what I am talking about.

So fast forward to today through the pain of enduring realities. The only proof that can be widely accepted is production of the finished product and that is what is happening. The production out of the JV is proving that these engines can be fabricated, tested and burned in at wafer scale at low cost both in the billing of materials and the production line CAPEX.  

Yes, David’s timing appears to have been off but a lot has happened since then. 

PS… that was a lot of fun for a lot of the shareholders who are all still here.

Hope we can do it again.