I really hope nobody writes this exact comment.

@kz6fittycent

4 ай бұрын

I really hope no one writes this exact reply.

@NeptuneSega

4 ай бұрын

I really hope nobody reads this exact comment.

@tomas3399

4 ай бұрын

I really hope nobody writes this exact comment.

@CaletoFran

4 ай бұрын

I really hope nobody replies to @@tomas3399.

@alexwoodhead6471

4 ай бұрын

I really hope the world is a better place tomorrow

I've worked for both privately-owned and publicly-owned companies. In my experience, the private company tends to focus on long-term growth and health of the company whereas the public company tends to focus on short-term profits to keep the stock price up and the shareholders happy. I can tell you the private company is a much better place to work.

@stage6fan475

4 ай бұрын

Upper management's bonuses are frequently tied to stock price, so they will pull anything to boost stock price.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

I hate to have to agree with you here. Quarterlies were what everything was focused on-including practically all employee incentives (bonuses, perks, etc.). It really changed how sales and marketing approached things too-it was a lot more about the now, or the crunch times when they had to hit their numbers, and a lot of the more reasonable plans are thrown out of the window then. A few companies are good enough to push back on those tendencies, but you have to have amazing management.

@sophiophile

4 ай бұрын

​@@JeffGeerling You also see the same practices pre-IPO when companies are dependent on VC, everything is based on numbers for raising the next round.

@simpletongeek

4 ай бұрын

You know the company is going under when the CEO decides to terminate the most skilled and experienced worker just to make the numbers work at the end of the year. Being terminated during Christmas holidays sucks. Worse if the CEO then claims millions of dollars in bonuses. No long-term vision, indeed!

@Splarkszter

4 ай бұрын

Yup, we have decades of example for that, but people will never learn by themselves. Anyway, Pi is DOOMED. Thanks and goodbye.

I agree. Once stockholders enter the picture, a company's focus immediately splits between its customers and its stockholders. And that is NEVER a good thing for customers.

@lisandroCT

4 ай бұрын

A company can't profit without serving its customers.

@freemanol

4 ай бұрын

@@lisandroCT the thing is, they can. stock prices can make the company much richer overnight. of course, it's not sustainable, but nobody is interested in that.

@devinholland2189

4 ай бұрын

@@lisandroCT Stockholders profit by exploiting the customers. The pressures on the company start change from serving up great product to serving up what will sell for the maximum profit. Its a subtle shift but a significant shift in ideology.

@jase_allen

4 ай бұрын

@@lisandroCT Actually, they can. When a company becomes a monopoly, the consumer doesn't have much choice in what they buy. That's especially true these days in which giant multinational corporations own dozens, if not hundreds, of different brands of the same product. It gives you the illusion of choice, but you're still giving money to the same company. Also, do a little reading on business practices of the Gilded Age.

@vincei4252

4 ай бұрын

Splits? What the customers want become secondary. Happens every time.

Dear lord this is a horrible idea. Price creep and lagging behind competitors is already a problem and having to answer to shareholders who’s sole motive is profit is only going to get much much worse.

@BaronOfDaker

3 ай бұрын

Capitalism past its prime, now devouring its own tail

@Lurch-Bot

3 ай бұрын

You literally can't buy an RP5 to save your life but if it becomes a publicly traded company, they will start meeting demand. Their inability to meet demand at present is a red flag for embezzlement, which is far easier to do in a privately owned corporation.

Who is naive enough to think that a public company will prioritize things like 10 years support, ultra-detailed documentation, foss software, affordable hardware. Most of RPi's practices right now will be shortly deemed "bad for business" and I predict we will have a not much improved Pi every year, that is just more expensive than the last. The stock market lives just for yearly growth at any cost.

@Lee-wh3ht

4 ай бұрын

So it’s safe to buy 4 pie 5 since they ain’t getting better

@Lurch-Bot

4 ай бұрын

Imperialism never went away. It just changed clothes. And who cares about software support and documentation when there is a whole open source community out there to provide it for you...I'm buying a piece of hardware, not an OS. I thought my RP5 was damn expensive for what it is.

@MikeGaruccio

3 ай бұрын

Everything on that list other than affordable HW is table-stakes for enterprise hardware companies, and that’s the space where shareholders would be pushing them. That may very well mean $300 pi’s, but they’ll be well documented, supported for a decade+, and will run mainline Linux because those are all things business customers demand.

@MeTube3

3 ай бұрын

@@Lurch-Botwell good for you. But there are millions out there plus businesses that don’t want to be picking through random, often outdated services. It’s not all about you.

@pdjames1729

3 ай бұрын

As a life-long ARM user, through ARM1 copro on BBC Bs ARM2 and 3 on workstation. RISCpc and, for the last 4 years, Linux /arm64 developer on Pis, I can say with some regret and a Great Deal of blame pointed at Ebon's choice as CEO in all matters. . RpiF have directly made BIllions for Rpi,corp with Ebon and his mrs schmoozing as a non-profit. Peddling a ,org domain. Trading off the Acorn Model B relationship to sell deep into education and Get that hackerbase following. While WE do all of their beta testing and community content, articles, project work for over a decade. More fool the fans... . Then, oh so clearly they sniff the real Money of Mass Industrial Provision and fk all of US right? Yup, double fk us and Thanks UK residents for all of that lovely Tax write-off and those giant Government contracts. B*stards the lot of em, still can't buy Four in any quantity. Ebon blew FOUR YEARS of our development with this bs 'supporting mum and popshops' my arse - NO they didn't support us. Begging wasn't enough, no channel but scalpers for pi4 for Years, unless you're a corp ordering 1000+ I'll take the lesson on the chin - We can't sell what does not exist and Rpi Will Not have our back on warranty, ever. Glad we did no re-sales. The end of ARM dev for us completely. . We moved all dev to Ryzen 5 minis, #tiny10 and much Better Linux(s)

Nope. Absolutely NOPE. The moment the IPO goes through I'm out. Becoming publicly traded means your goals and interests shifts from end users to shareholders. And shareholders will always always always demand larger and larger profits, which guarantees enshittification as a byproduct of chasing higher and higher profits. Shareholders do not care about the company values or what it stands for or what it means to people. They will burn it to the ground to get their return-on-investment. 100% guaranteed.

@mensch4434

4 ай бұрын

yes

@cherrypepsi2815

4 ай бұрын

Not all companies should go to the stock market, and Valve is a perfect example as to why staying private can make you bigger in the long-run. Valve is secretly a multi-billion dollar company- beyond the scale of being able to make an educated guess on how much money they rake in. If they were public, they wouldn't have been able to take risks with the original steam game consoles, and we would have never gotten the Steam deck, which has *inarguably birthed a portable gaming revolution.* A good CEO understands what the stock market is _actually_ for: oil and utility companies that don't need to innovate to continually grow.

@minigpracing3068

4 ай бұрын

I agree.

@ouravantgarde

4 ай бұрын

i agree, and your concerns are valid... however saying stock holders only care about money is false. people DO buy stock to support companies THEY LIKE, and we know companies see less purchases of their stocks when they do something stupid or immoral, even if the money is good. the only explanation for this would be people not in it for the money (or in it for the money but no longer willing to support)

@__Brandon__

4 ай бұрын

Also companies buy shares in other companies. Im sure we will see plenty if factories buying shares to help influence them to build what their factory needs

I worry that Raspberry Pi going public will lead to additional price creep in this market segment.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

If market forces work out, then the ideal would be prices would get better as competition heats up... the problem is I still don't see any of Pi's primary competition competing much on the support + services side, so price doesn't matter as much in the equation.

@techaddressed

4 ай бұрын

@@JeffGeerling Perhaps I'm jaded after seeing other parts of the hardware space seemingly working in coordination with each other to control prices and that once Raspberry Pi's leadership has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to maximize profits that the price hikes are just inevitable. I'd love to be wrong.

@Somethingaboutthat

4 ай бұрын

X86 is creeping down in price and competing against boards like these. Your own review of the N100 is a good example. There’s really good AMD mini’s for a bit more money with much better performance per watt.

@linuxguy1199

4 ай бұрын

Could make it lower if going public means they can get access to better manufacturing and allowed some more money to expand they might drop the prices (and potentially quality) to sell more. It can easily go both ways, you can make more profit by doing the Amazon thing and flooding the market with cheap low quality junk, or make more prices by doing the NVIDIA thing and raise your prices to abhorrent levels. It can go both ways, and I think people tend to just remember and focus on the bad and not the good.

@mina86

4 ай бұрын

@@techaddressed, there is no legal obligation for a publicly traded company to maximise profits.

Nokia was a world leader. Took their customers for granted, and...... Well Raspberry Pi is a world leader in sbc, takes customers for granted... well..

@pdjames1729

3 ай бұрын

As a life-long ARM user, through ARM1 copro on BBC Bs ARM2 and 3 on workstation. RISCpc and, for the last 4 years, Linux /arm64 developer on Pis, I can say with some regret and a Great Deal of blame pointed at Ebon's choice as CEO in all matters. . RpiF have directly made BIllions for Rpi,corp with Ebon and his mrs schmoozing as a non-profit. Peddling a ,org domain. Trading off the Acorn Model B relationship to sell deep into education and Get that hackerbase following. While WE do all of their beta testing and community content, articles, project work for over a decade. More fool the fans... . Then, oh so clearly they sniff the real Money of Mass Industrial Provision and fk all of US right? Yup, double fk us and Thanks UK residents for all of that lovely Tax write-off and those giant Government contracts. B*stards the lot of em, still can't buy Four in any quantity. Ebon blew FOUR YEARS of our development with this bs 'supporting mum and popshops' my arse - NO they didn't support us. Begging wasn't enough, no channel but scalpers for pi4 for Years, unless you're a corp ordering 1000+ I'll take the lesson on the chin - We can't sell what does not exist and Rpi Will Not have our back on warranty, ever. Glad we did no re-sales. The end of ARM dev for us completely. . We moved all dev to Ryzen 5 minis, #tiny10 and much Better Linux(s)

@EmergencyChannel

3 ай бұрын

Remember BlackBerry phones?

@TheDeveloperGuy

3 ай бұрын

I feel like this is the pefect analogy: nokia made some of the coolest phones and thought they can get away with making dumb decisions, because people will still buy it. Some people still bought the late E series, but I remember my dear friend happily throwing his E52 out and booting up his first htc with Android.

@randomblock1_

3 ай бұрын

The rise of Rockchip-based alternatives basically meant that the Pi 5 was outdated and bad value as soon as it came out. They're not as well supported, but when that IPO happens, neither will Pi.

@johndododoe1411

3 ай бұрын

​@@TheDeveloperGuy Nokia mobile phones were murdered by Microsoft insisting they hire a Microsoft employee as CEO, and he instantly replaced Symbian by the worst ever Microsoft phone OS (Winphony 7), with no attempt to fulfill any of Nokia's long term promises to the industry, such as making Qt a common platform for old and new Nokia devices .

My only concern with this, is the fact every public company ever has the same mantra: Profit line go up forever or else! Line only go up, never down, no matter the cost cutting needed! Line.Always.Up.

@billjohnson6863

3 ай бұрын

That’s also true of private companies. At the end of the day every company wants to increase or at least maintain profits.

@juliansoto2651

3 ай бұрын

You failed to explain how that's bad for customers

We're supposed to believe Jeff only has 25 RPI? I'm pretty sure he ran out of fingers and toes to count then made that number up! How many are on a pallet anyway?

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

Hahaha! Well, in addition to the boxes in that b-roll clip, I do have four more at home in my rack!

@iNowHateAtSigns

3 ай бұрын

My employer sells a slightly larger, unrelated product. There are 300 on 1 pallet, so I'd guess this right around 400. I know, I know, I'm taking it to literally. But fun trivia nonetheless!

I don't like how my local stores have Pi 5, but only if you buy their more expensive starter kits (power, sd card, etc) but no stock to sell if you just want a board.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, that practice should be a lot less prevalent-I wish there were some sort of quota where if you have any in stock, they must be sold individually before bundling SKUs are possible.

@ilovefunnyamv2nd

4 ай бұрын

yeah but you need the latest power adapter, each generation is more power-hungry. maybe you don't need the sd card and etc, but it's a 50/50 you needed an adapter. now if only that adapter was strong enough to not get warning about insufficient power

@conorstewart2214

4 ай бұрын

@@ilovefunnyamv2nd you do not need the power adapter at all. The official power supply is over specced to make sure you don’t really run into any issues both powering the pi, any thing you connect to the GPIO and anything you connect through usb. The pi 5 apparently needs at most 12 W, not the full 25 W of the official power supply. For most people the pi5 will work fine without the official power supply. I currently have one working fine powered from a battery through a 5 V 5 A buck converter connected to the GPIO pins. Also any 5 V 5 A capable phone charger should work just as well as the official power supply.

@jamesmillerjo

4 ай бұрын

​​@@conorstewart2214You must not say "in most cases it works.... its okay" when official requirements says it is not an ordinary one.

@tschorsch

4 ай бұрын

This is caused by a lack of supply. This allows the few sellers that have supply to rent seek by forcing people to buy unwanted accessories. That's a very capitalistic behavior that occurs when supply is tight.

My only objection to this news is that *no one is calling it a PiPO.*

@ronaldglider

4 ай бұрын

In Dutch, a Pipo is a clown...

@IngwiePhoenix

4 ай бұрын

Thanks, I won't unsee that now :D Great pun!

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

Take my upvote!

@TheMRPadders

4 ай бұрын

​@@ronaldgliderit's a good fit

@trueriver1950

3 ай бұрын

ipopi is even neater because it reads the same backwards.😅

When a company goes public it goes from being a company led by engineers to a company led by the C suite. This means product focused companies become driven by short term gains to keep the stock price up.

Yes, yes they are selling out. They don't need IPO money to make the products better, they make tons from selling the products. The purported goals of education don't need any more funding. It's a ludicrous misdirection.

@3nertia

4 ай бұрын

Welcome to capitalism!

@Dave102693

4 ай бұрын

@@3nertiaexactly

@Hornet135

4 ай бұрын

@@3nertia capitalism is great, but we don’t have that.

@xynonners

4 ай бұрын

​@@Hornet135we have corporatism

@tschorsch

4 ай бұрын

​@@xynonners There's no difference.

My concern for a company going public is now they have stockholders, and stockholders want money, and when they enter the picture, the consumer ALWAYS suffers.

@Lurch-Bot

3 ай бұрын

Stockholders wanting money will ensure production to meet demand. If you're waiting 6 mo for an already obsolete SBC, that's your fault. RPT corporate officers pretty much have to be embezzling money for the Raspberry Reality we face. If you want the RP5 to continue having a 6 month wait time, go right ahead and champion that private company of privateers... I went to boarding school in the UK. I know exactly what game they're playing and 'Made in Wales by Sony' is a harsh indictment that proves hanky panky (to use a term from my native US). Anyway, my vote for the RP5 is two raspberries up, lol.

@juliansoto2651

3 ай бұрын

Stockholders are not necessarily executives. You as well as many comments here have no idea how private equity works. I'm in favor of FOSS but I'm not gonna complain about this when I can't even find a pi available at sale and there are many other options out there.

I feel like they already did when they picked businesses during the pandemic over the maker and education communities who arguably enabled them to become what they are.

@Likeomgitznich

4 ай бұрын

Yea, that left me salty too. I’d personally like to hear more about the why though since things are always so black and white. It was the he sort of coldness that made it sting.

@izzieb

4 ай бұрын

This, 100%. To me, it signalled that they were beginning to turn their back on the community that made them and focusing on maximising their profit from industry. I commented similar on one of Jeff's videos a while back and got a very mixed reaction. People often cite community support as a the reason they stick with Raspberry Pi. If the same community put their weight behind an alternative, the same would be true...

@tschorsch

4 ай бұрын

They totally revealed their priorities when they did that. I haven't considered buying a pi since then. I suppose a lot of people have done the same which now will reinforce their focus on commercial buyers.

@TheDuzx

4 ай бұрын

As far as I know a lot of schools that got in contact got an allocation. In general my impression is that the idea was to prioritize those who had a time sensitive need for a unit and avoid people hoarding or scalping the boards as much as possible. So schools might have gotten 1 for every 2 students and had to make do with that or companies only got the units that were mission critical.

4 ай бұрын

but then they made the Pi 5 available to makers first over business to say sorry. The cynical side in me thinks they really did that because they are still ironing out the kinks before business gets them.

Non-provit doesn't mean they don't make a profit, just that it isn't their official goal. And letting the finance industry in will almost certainly change the company for the worse; they invest because the expect a [handsome] return, which means that "line must go up" becomes the priority. We've seen this over and over.

@hackerx7329

4 ай бұрын

Given that they are registered as a non profit and they have existing educational commitments that may actually limit things. I'm far from being an expert on the laws for non profits in the UK. As I understand it it isn't that they can't make money, it is how they make money and what they do with it.

@kneekoo

4 ай бұрын

Non-profit means exactly that - not making any profit. If the organization has more revenue than expenses (which is called profit in business), that money cannot go to any third party but it has to be used for the organization's purpose. So you get a new server for the organization, or whatever.

@flamingscar5263

4 ай бұрын

Legally, it means the owners can not profit off the company Any money in the company must stay in the company to be used for the company

@3nertia

4 ай бұрын

Everything is forced to make profit under capitalism, *especially* so-called "non-profits" heh

@jase_allen

4 ай бұрын

Not sure about in the UK, but being a registered non-profit in the US means that most of the company's income is spent before the end of the year. It doesn't have to go to charitable purposes, but it has to be spent. Back when I worked in order fulfillment, one of our clients was a non-profit school that teaches leadership to senior executives. I don't know what they were paying their staff or executives, but the campus was like a high end resort. The furniture was custom built by on-staff master furniture builders, and the food was prepared by master chefs.

Raspberry Pi used to be a huge seller at Microcenter, I know, I work there. Lately, not nearly as much interest as before. While we don't have the new ones in stock, my interactions with customers has been something along the lines of, "they are too expensive now, and it's better to buy a Intel N100 mini PC." I hear variations of this argument often. Lot of customers want them for emulation. Back when these were $35 - $50 .. Yeah, we sold a lot of the 4's. Also, something I just learned is there is no hardware acceleration for 4K ... so, you end up getting dropped frames. In 2024, that's a dealbreaker for a lot of people wanting to use this as a desktop. The cost is prohibitive for something that originally had an affordable entry point, performance issues, missing features, according to the customers that I help in that isle, it's not a buying consideration this time around. And, that's okay. A product's interest comes and goes.

@KameraShy

4 ай бұрын

Exactly! I just picked up a BMAX N100 with Windows 11 for about $85. Works great.

@mateuszdrab

4 ай бұрын

I used to love the Pi but lack of emmc and having to rely on SD cards just isn't convincing any more. Too many random failures due to storage.

@touma-san91

Ай бұрын

@@mateuszdrab You can run Pi 5 from NVMe if you didn't know.

It's been a pain in the butt here in New Zealand. I ordered my official Raspberry Pi Power supply (for the RPi 5) from the official supplier as soon as it was advertised months ago, and won't get it until next month. The added salt in the wound is that the Raspberry Pi designers didn't adhere to the USB C PD standard, so even my 65W USB C PD power supply won't let it run external 2.5" SATA drives. This sort of this make me understand why some people feel let down.

@SlinkyD

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for the USB PD info. Love the name. I always said it like that.

@GareWorks

4 ай бұрын

Really? PB Tech has had Raspberry Pi 5 stuff basically permanently in-stock at normal prices since they released over here. Makes the shortages elsewhere in the world rather hilarious. I just wish the starter kit was available here so I didn't have to buy everything separately, but at least the separate components are available.

@tschorsch

4 ай бұрын

​@@GareWorks So you find the difficulties other people experience as hilarious?

@intercity125

4 ай бұрын

Having voltages other than 5 V input would mean having a meaty DC-DC on the board - no space. Frustrating but understandable...

@hellterminator

4 ай бұрын

@@intercity125 They already do. Or did you think that the CPU, RAM, USB controller,... all run off of 5V directly?

No way in hell will this be a good development for RPi users/enthusiasts. And you can take that to the bank. The incentives that exist for a public company in this day and age are WAY out of line with hobbyists, students, the under-privileged, etc. For their commercial / OEM customers, sure. Maybe. The answer though, IMO, would be to spin off a separate division focused on commercial customers, and let *that* IPO. But no, I don't have a good feeling about this at all. This cannot possibly end well.

@Lurch-Bot

4 ай бұрын

Can't get one anyway unless you pay significantly more than list price.

@Lurch-Bot

3 ай бұрын

RPi enthusiasts at this point are the Batocera crowd because anyone with coding skills and Linux proficiency will get literally any other ARM SBC. My coding skills are rusty and I have never done anything with Linux other than playing around but I still would get anything but the RP5. And I have old PCs that will emulate old console games better with less effort. I typed this comment on an OP5+. Their software sucks but there is one random enthusiast who made a RK3588 compatible Ubuntu 22.04.03 distro. Makes all the difference in the world. It still isn't quite turnkey but that's part of the fun! When my OP5+ becomes fully functional, that will be because of my own efforts. Can't say that about any version of Windows I've ever used. This IS supposed to be DIY, after all. I'm 2 days in and already 90% of the way there. The biggest hurdle will be getting an intel Wi-fi/BT card to run on it. I think I found the right info, I just have to digest it.

@vshah1010

3 ай бұрын

I would not be surprised if the price of the Raspberry PI went up alot after the company buys them out. It may even be up to price gouging levels.

@OneOddFellow

3 ай бұрын

​@@vshah1010 First off, no single company is buying them out; and RPT already has private corporate investors. Did you even watch the video?

Honestly, public/institutional shareholders are the root of most social evil. This is a very depressing development.

@gus473

4 ай бұрын

Umm, maybe, and maybe not. Most people are preparing to retire (or send kids to schooling or buy a house) with the returns generated by public/institutional investments. Bad management and poor governance wrecks more companies than can most individuals or institutions that own some stock.

@googleuser4434

4 ай бұрын

How dare they try to make a profit

@eccodreams

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, it's totally not the late-stage capitalist hellscape we live in.

@Dante-420

4 ай бұрын

The problem isn't with the individual shareholders but the public ownership system in general, in which the numerous owners are diverse so their only shared interest is that stock price increases. I.e., the concept of the "fiduciary responsibility to raise stock price" is the root of evil

@SetOfAllSets

4 ай бұрын

Fr I fuck capitalism all my homies hate capitalism ☭ ☭ ☭

Why do they need the money for? You do an IPO to get loads of cash for big growth plans. Sure, founders cashing out is in the mix, but there are other ways to do that without an IPO. And given the demand, they shouldn’t have any profitability issues.

@Prophes0r

3 ай бұрын

Uhh...this is business. "Make number go up" is literally the only goal. That's what happens when you optimize a system for ONLY one thing. It's like a fire. It doesn't think "Hey, I should slow down a bit to let this area recover and make more fuel". It just burns everything until there is nothing left. I honestly don't understand the confusion when people keep using the system, yet they are surprised that they keep getting burned.

Corporate and Open Source is tons of fun. Because lets be honest: what isn't made more fun with the addition of lawyers.

What I really do hope they keep working on is microcontrollers. The 2040 is a great great microcontroller with the best documentation I've ever seen

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

This is true. Put out something newer with lower power draw and/or a few more niceties and it'll be another winner. The RP2040 did amazingly also because it was so available. Would be cool to follow it up and fix a few of the quirks that make it not suitable for certain applications (especially battery use!).

@hockeygoalie35

4 ай бұрын

@@JeffGeerling What about it wasn't suitable for battery use? The Adafruit board has a battery port, is there an inherent issue with the MCU?

@aculleon2901

4 ай бұрын

​@@JeffGeerling An FPU and internal flash would be a good start. I made several PCBs with this chip and it is a nice chip overall. But the docs. I had had an abslolute bast reading the rp2040 datasheet and the c/c++ sdk. The joke density is off the charts with those two.

@IainChalmers

4 ай бұрын

@@JeffGeerling As I see it, the 2040 has potentially less of a moat than the all the linux based boards. If Rock or Orange or Arduino decided to make an ARM Cortex micro that's compatible with the 2040, there's _way_ less driver/OS/software support lock-in to keep competitors out.

@conorstewart2214

4 ай бұрын

@@hockeygoalie35 just putting a battery port on a development board does not mean that the microcontroller is good for low power use which is typically a requirement for battery powered projects. All the battery port means is that it can be powered by and potentially charge a battery.

My question is why is the IPO is needed in the first place?

@PrezVeto

3 ай бұрын

The current owners want to cash out without having to find buyers. Only reason to do it.

Given that when a company is owned by shareholders they have a fiduciary duty to do everything they can go make stock value go up, this will absolutely make the company even worse than they have been lately. It's safe to say that what the pi stood for that got most of us into it is long gone.

@EmyrDerfel

4 ай бұрын

That depends of the jurisdiction and the terms of incorporation.

Not to mention being a publicly traded company in the US has *legal supreme court precedence* that forces you to abandon beneficence if you have any.

I suspect the developers of the RPi see the writing on the wall with the multitude of competitors popping up, that they decided to cash out, while they could still make a hefty profit.

@killingtimeitself

4 ай бұрын

there is no writing on the wall as long as you continue to produce good hardware, have good production back end, and the key point here have good software backlog. Right now is prime time for them to produce as many pi4/5 models as they can in order to get their fingers back into the market, in order to actually establish brand loyalty.

@3nertia

4 ай бұрын

Welcome to capitalism! This was likely the goal *all along* ;)

@pamus6242

4 ай бұрын

Nope. The Rpi ecosystem is completely unbeatable. The competitors will fizzle out if Rpi did not exist. Many people bought the RPi as a token even if it does not serve any purpose but a testament to true technology.

@hubertnnn

4 ай бұрын

More like seeing us, customers complaining that starting with RPi 4 it isn't what we want and knowing that the clock is ticking and soon they will loose most of the market. Hobbyists are going away due to too high prices (due to too many costly unwanted features) and companies are going away due to unstable delivery. They still have some contracts from few years ago but clock is ticking.

@marvinmallette6795

4 ай бұрын

I purchased a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 because it came with a programming manual similar to that I had with my Dad's old Radioshack TRS-80. With Radioshack having left town, and the TRS-80 out of production, I saw value in having a replacement device. This caused me to pay attention to the high demand around the Pi 4 for companies, which seemed to create supply issues for the 8GB model. I began to develop concerns about companies using the Pi for prototyping. Conceptually, prototyping is an ideal use case for the Pi. Unfortunately, a successful prototype is likely to enter into production rather than be recreated using a higher volume product. This creates pressure for a commercial product, which moves away from the value of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. An IPO creates additional concerns. With the high cost of a college education due to student loans, can we really trust in Capitalizing on education with regards to the Raspberry Pi?

When companies grow big, they usually tend to lose their focus. That is what I am afraid about this move. 😐

@3nertia

4 ай бұрын

Welcome to capitalism!

@conorstewart2214

4 ай бұрын

@@3nertia are you just going to keep posting this reply? Do you somehow think that socialism would eliminate all issues like this?

@3nertia

4 ай бұрын

@@conorstewart2214 I know it would. I also know that the predators in charge will never allow it because we've tried many times before - unlike people like you who seem to be laboring under the delusion that dictators actually mean what they say when they claim to be socialist/communist lmfao 'Capitalism' is merely just the latest word for the same predatory system we've had for millennia. We've tried many times to change it - that's why this list is so bloody long: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions

Another symptom of the changes inside the RPi foundation is that the hardware is less and less tinker-friendly. Programming at low level becomes very difficult with the Pi5, with PCIe needed to access high-performance devices. We all recall the tutorials on how to write bare metal code on the various Pi versions. They no longer exist for the Pi5, and for a reason - the HW is too complex. You need semi-professional bootloaders, no way to understand the boot sequence by yourself (unless you are already semi-pro). There is no easy progression from just blinking an LED to writing interrupt code. And the old tinker-friendly cards, from the Pi1 to the Pi3 are progressively phased out. After using only Raspberry Pi cards for a long time, I now consider other options, because I need tinker-friendly HW for research and teaching.

I'm concerned for the long term. But we'll see.

Starting to question whether I should even buy a Pi now.

Living in Australia, I finally was able to purchase a Raspberry Pi 5 yesterday! It was either not available earlier or available with some retailers in the form of a rather overpriced bundle. While I love the board, the software, and the vision of the foundation; I wish it was more readily available.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

Nice! Hope you have fun with it!

@jimtekkit

4 ай бұрын

Same! Also in Australia, I'm picking up a couple of Pi's (including a 5B) today. Haven't bought a Pi since the 3B+ in 2018.

@timjroughton9931

4 ай бұрын

did you get the official power supply, if so could you tell me where? I brought my Pi5 in October and am still waiting for the PSU in New Zealand.

@indrajitg

4 ай бұрын

@@timjroughton9931 No, the official power supply for ANZ is not available yet. I recon it still hasn't got the regulatory approvals for this region. Most retailers are bundling RPi 5 with the RPi 4 power supply, which can only supply up to 15W.

@scottwilkins

4 ай бұрын

Sad thing is there are plenty of identical boards out there that are as powerful if not more powerful than the 5. Yet the 5 is more wanted? Not sure why these days.

I really wish everyone with an interest in a community of any (legal) sort would watch this! There is an immense amount of value to be gained by people sharing their experiences, helping each other, stretching boundaries, explaining their choices and describing what goes wrong and what goes right. You, Jeff, are a great example of what is good about KZread! This is a far better balanced and accurate view of the Pi commercial & technical environment than many other channels describe. "Disappointed but not surprised" about a possible IPO sums it up for me

5:27 It is expensive! Its not a good value proposition anymore. My use cases are essentialy runing Home Assistant, docker containers and Jellyfin. I specially hate that the switch from OMX to V4L2 hardware transcodind in the Pi 4 was (and still is) complete hot garbage. Now the Pi 5 doesn't even have hardware encoding. I bought one but I regret it. Nowadays there are better options, especialy if you want to do video transcoding. A single Zima Blade can replace all my 3 Pi s with ease for almost the same money. My next one probably will not be a Raspberry.

@cherrypepsi2815

4 ай бұрын

You can get an Nvidia Jetson Nano for the same price as the average price for a Pi 5 nowadays and that has a WAY better CPU and is pretty much built for heavy workloads (specifically, AI). RPI is pretty much screwed. They birthed their own competition.

I just don't see any benefit for consumers if they do go public. The only thing an IPO does is provide cash for the business and shareholders at the expense of control of the company. It probably won't kill the pi for consumers, but it will absolutely start them down an enshittification path as they inevitably get pressured by investors.

Good nuanced take. I think people may confuse your optimism for shilling.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

Some people think if you disagree with their opinion on something, it means you're a liar or a fraud or something. I've never understood that take. Even 'analysts' who *are* paid by companies for certain services... they can be brutally honest (as long as it's within their contract) and have good takes. But I think some people just like finding any reason (rational or not) to dismiss someone who might not agree fully with their position.

@omar10wahab

4 ай бұрын

​@@JeffGeerlingthere is a right and wrong at the end of the day. We'll just have to wait for the future to see if you will have to eat your words. Anita Max wynn

@marvinmallette6795

4 ай бұрын

@@omar10wahab Back in the good old days, hobbyist computers were commercial products of publicly traded companies. IBM went public in 1915. Apple went public in 1980. RadioShack looks to have been a brand of Tandy, with Tandy apparently being a hobby store similar to "Hobby Lobby" and was a publicly traded in 1976 per Wikipedia. RadioShack might be the most relevant to the discussion. Being a publicly traded company is no guarantee of longevity. By 1981, Tandy was known for its computers. By 2000, the Tandy Computer was a relic of the past. Mahlon G. Kelly of BYTE magazine, September 1983 (Vol. 8, no. 9. p. 162.), comments that Tandy's TRS-80 "shows tremendous planning and foresight". The Wikipedia article on Tandy Corporation really reflects on its stature as a spiritual predecessor to Raspberry Pi. We will just have to wait and see.

@conorstewart2214

4 ай бұрын

⁠​⁠@@omar10wahab it doesn’t matter what happens in the future, his statements are based on the information he has now. If you are overly pessimistic about everything then eventually you will be right, that doesn’t mean your arguments were good or logical. What is more important is making logical and reasonable arguments and statements with the information you have now. You seem like an “I told you so” type of person and nobody likes those types of people.

Generally, RPis lag behind in terms of cutting-edge hardware but you get much better stability over some of the more progressive competitors. The main reason to buy an RPi is the software support. If you want to attempt a project with an RPi, then there's a good chance that someone else has not only done it but they've fully documented the steps required. If RPi goes full capitalism, how are the people who do all this work for essentially free going to be rewarded?

@EnglishMike

4 ай бұрын

How is that any different from the tens of thousands of for-profit games, apps, devices, computers, and platforms, that are already supported by volunteer modders and enthusiasts?

@andrewdavies877

4 ай бұрын

@@EnglishMike How many of those companies went from being an Ltd. to a PLC? RPi Ltd. is a hardware company whose value has been built on the back of the free software community. As I said in my comment, there are plenty of hardware competitors to RPi, none of them have the software support that you need for long term use. I've had Orange Pis, Banana Pis and Radxa SBCs and all suffer for not having long term support. The RPi is where it is because of the unpaid volunteers supporting the hardware.

@EnglishMike

3 ай бұрын

@@andrewdavies877That's not remotely the whole story. They do benefit from volunteer support, but they also continue to invest their own development resources in maintaining RPi OS for all their hardware platforms going all the way back to the original models, and updating the kernel and core packages as they come available. Can any of their competitors say that? And the fact that they have such solid volunteer base is simply because they got there first and cultivated their customer base. How do you think Facebook succeeded? Reddit? KZread? Any of the social media behemoths? Millions of unpaid volunteers using a platform for the benefit of themselves, for others, and yes, the company who owns the platform. They all started off as small private companies before going public. Raspberry Pi Ltd. is following a well trodden route, but I'm sure they are still mindful of what got them here in the first place, so we shall see what happens in the long run.

RPI has been continuously shooting themselves in the foot since Pi4. The ESP32 is the new king.

@dakatzenhund

4 ай бұрын

Also the gap where the Pi fits in (for the hobbyist at least) gets smaller. On the lower end, microcontrollers like the ESP32 are insanely powerful now while at the higher end for things like smaller home servers or low end desktops there are tons of good cheap enough options (e.g. those used 1L PCs) now which are just better suited for that most of the time.

Well, I guess now I should assume that the Pi 6 will only be available via a monthly Pi subscription

ultimately it's all about a small number of people wanting to cash out and follow the route it seems all British companies take these days of sell out as fast as possible. I've no doubt that ideally they would rather another company just bought them but the IPO route will still generate a huge wedge of cash for the founders and that's ultimately all they care about. The current CEO can say whatever they like - they won't be in the role for long once they get their share of the cash and shareholders replace them with someone appropriately compliant who can asset strip the business and sell it on.

@paul_boddie

4 ай бұрын

"follow the route it seems all British companies take these days" It has been like this for decades. ARM went public, several people got minted, the company was eventually bought for tens of billions. But when its owner wanted to sell it on, some of those people started to get upset about it, telling the UK government it had to get involved. I mean, they probably had to slow down a little in their Rolls or Bentley, they were so upset.

You said it extends the opportunity for their competitors to do better, but if quality of the Pi drops because of an IPO then the company doesn't have to do better.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

Well true. Hopefully the Pi quality won't drop, but if it does, it's a market opportunity! The tough thing is low end hardware is a hard market to make any meaningful profit on if you're just starting out.

I'm yet to see an example of a company getting better while being publicly traded. I find it hard to believe Rpi is going to prove me wrong...

I think long term the IPO will definitely be bad. But long term we should also start seeing more RISC-V boards - some of which might actually be running fully (or almost fully) open hardware.

Damn, the layoffs are gonna be brutal

@erkinalp

4 ай бұрын

RPi is already pretty lean 😅

The Pi4 i bought was the last Raspberry Pi I bought. I'm so glad that there are options. The mini PC trend is amazing for homelabs.

@vshah1010

3 ай бұрын

Tthe Raspberry PI is a maker board. The mini PC is in a different category. Mini PCs don't replace the maker boards. They are used for other purposes.

@NickyNiclas

3 ай бұрын

Yes but most people who bought a Pi don't use the GPIO @@vshah1010

My university had fully adopted raspberry pi's we had lots of projects with the 3, and they bought some 4 then pandemic hit and there was no availability of RPI, about all projects went ESP32 some requiring extensive reworks the ones that required more than esp32 ended up finding other especial hardware, died or went the way of developing special hardware inhouse. personally (from my very biased point of view) i think they are cashing out, my uni, which used to order hundreds (maybe thousands?) of rpis didn't buy any rpi 5 i also have seen very weak interest in rpi 5, and considering their price in Brazil, i doubt there is a lot of interest.

@thelbp

4 ай бұрын

due to the price increase a rpi5 cost 60% of a minimum wage in brazil (4gb model) up to about 80% (8gb model) add acessories and your project doesn't make any monetary sense anymore the absurd taxes hit hard the price increases you can also find older x86 hardware from companies for probably less than that (about 3rd or 4th gen intel core for the same price)

@tschorsch

4 ай бұрын

​@@thelbp Is that hourly, daily or weekly minimum wage? Daily federal minimum wage in the US is less than 60 USD, before taxes. Of course, it's higher in blue states.

@MrPir84free

4 ай бұрын

@@tschorsch Higher wages in blue states only matters when there's disposable income leftover when everything is said and done. Many in those same blue states are also living paycheck to paycheck, so even a raspberry pi represents an investment that many won't make. Higher wages in blue states with significantly higher cost of living certainly does not amount to disposable income..

@Beany2007FTW

4 ай бұрын

Your uni is lacking in Pis, but a small business locally who relies on having Pis for their products is still employing their staff. That was the decision that the company had to make when the supply chains fell apart. Your Universities loss of available hardware is the 'lesser evil' than half a dozen people (multiplied by hundreds, if not thousands, by now, globally) out of work. It seems very few people realise quite how entrenched the Pi is in embedded/POS/display gear around the world.

I don’t agree that they were focused just on hobbyist community, it has been unavailable for two years from local stores and it was due to other markets they sold. It was good for me because I discovered that mini PC (N100) offers more power, integrated NVME, more memory and other good goodies for similar prices. At least for projects you want to last

@tschorsch

4 ай бұрын

Plus an x86 will also be compatible with most Linux distributions out of the box, and doesn't rely on vendor support. That's because Intel and AMD have already written the drivers or released the full specs.

@tschorsch

4 ай бұрын

They stated clearly, during the supply chain crisis, that they were explicitly giving preference to commercial customers. Almost none of the supply went to hobbyists or education.

@Beany2007FTW

4 ай бұрын

@@tschorsch Indeed - If hobbyists or education couldn't get a Pi, they could stick with existing hardware, or try an alternative. If small (and fairly large) companies couldn't get a Pi, it wasn't feasible for them(partiuclarly smaller places) to re-validate alternatives and possibly have to change their entire software and hardware stack, so they go to the wall - and industry never trusts Raspberry Pi again. They made the right decision.

All good things must come to an end

"That kind of support earns loyalty". That's the point

Appreciate the coverage and clarification, great video. It's helpful to hear more details and related topics.

RasPi did an amazing job with the documentation around the RP2040; which is stark in its contrast to the the BCM SoCs on the Pis where Broadcom prevents any documentation being released

My Pi 5 just arrived yesterday. The long term support of even original my original Rev 1 Model B boards has been part of the descission. I do own an Orange Pi PC board but have stopped using it due to stability issues (could be OS related) haven't had the time to troubleshoot

If we have learned anything. Them going public means customers are screwed. I mean its already feeling bad now. But with shareholders now? Abandon ship!

I first read RPi PIO not RPi IPO on the title card and thought does RPi want to charge for the PIO feature like intel plans to do with some CPUs

I agree with your sentiment that we all hope for the best with the Pi foundation. I'm personally hoping that this will encourage them to continue ramping production to match demand, it still feels like there's a shortage.

Hey Jeff! Good to see your video again 😀

Unless you will be using most if not all of the connections the Pi 5 has to offer or use it as a very low power headless server, you can't really justify getting a Pi 5 over a decent mini-PC. I recently got a Beelink SER 5 mini-PC with a Ryzen 5700u for about $279 but that comes with 16GB of dual channel RAMs and 500GB of Nvme storage. Not to mention this is an 8 core 16 threads CPU with an iGPU that truly can do 4k @60Hz without dropping any frames while multitasking which the Pi 5 still struggles. To make matters worse for the Pi 5, after tweaking the power options, the 5700u CPU only draws 2.3-2.6w while idle and 9.9w when playing 4k videos and doing office tasks. The max power draw is about 19-21w when fully stressing the CPU which you will hardly see in a regular day-to-day computing. At least I didn't see it at all when I'm not doing benchmarks. That said, I still luv my Pi 5 but I have spent more than I would like on it with all the upgrades I did--cases, heatsinks, nvme ssd, hats, fans, etc. With the total amount I have spent upgrading my Pi 5, I could have gotten a more powerful mini-PC. This might be my last Pi if this trend continues. 😔

Yea, sounds like they're selling out and I wouldn't be surprised , Pi alternatives are getting so much better, I really find it hard to justify a Pi purchase nowadays with the competition being so aggressive now.

You are not a journalist but in your videos you are as objective as few! And you don't sell crap just to let us click on your link! Respect! Regarding che Raspberry Pi IPO, I would love to see lot of normal people buy their stoks to protect the company but it's another story

Guess I've already bought my last Raspberry PI. R.I.P. RPi. 😢

you just cant beat their and the communities support. that's been my biggest issue with those "other boards" - its just not there. Hopefully this works out, otherwise I hope the foundation is still able to accomplish it's mission.

We really appreciate having you Jeff, even if we don't always say so. Your content and channel is enlightening. Thank you for your service 🤗

don't forget ARM recently brought 20% in Raspberry Pi. thats a really good thing as its easier now to push more recent ARM CPU into the hands of hobbyists. The PI 6 could be a really interesting bit of kit.

@MrPir84free

4 ай бұрын

There are already ARM boards out in the wild with 8 cores, and upwards of 32GB of ram. The biggest difference I see between RPI and other companies is support; many of the RPI competitors release one board, basically one set of OS packages for it, and well, that's the breadth of support. Another big difference is stability; I've downloaded distro's for other boards, and distros for the RPI, and the RPI seems "better" and more "well-rounded".. Some of the other "brands" - well, can be a tad bit buggy, and will make some reach for a cheap N100 mini PC..

Not to mention the extreme amount of inside trading that goes on even though they say it doesn't.

yeah this is highly unfortunate. I hope someone takes their spot

The only Pis my local Microcenter has had have been the $80+ models, and they've only had any of them in stock regularly starting around mid December.

Thanks, Jeff. Over the years, I have purchased five Raspberry Pi, ranging from a Model B Rev 2 to CM 4. All five are healthy and fulfill their tasks to this day (early 2024). Am I happy about a possible IPO? No. Will my five Pi stop working as a result of a possible IPO? Also no. Life means change, and more often than not change I don't like, but an IPO would have no immediate effect on what I am doing with my RPi. Still, the thought pains me, I won't deny it.

It will most definitely change, and not be a good change.

All of our boards run the latest Raspbian. Even the first ones made in 2017.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

And you have fun names for your boards!

@cesarposadasatamusic

4 ай бұрын

Potato!

Great Vid Jeff, informative and well rounded!

I love how Ebon Upton apparently thinks there will be "no change in focus" with this move. It's almost like he thinks that he'll get to make that decision. So cute. Gave me a good chuckle...

"Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded" -- Yoji Berra

YOU never received a penny from RPi but....what about Red Shirt Jeff?

The shareholders will want the products to remain sexy and sell at least as well as they currently do. So while it'll change that mom'n'pop shop feel, I don't think the products will go downhill. It might open some really great business connections that would be unavailable to them as a private company. That's my rosy outlook anyway. Nobody knows (not even Eben), but for this I'd rather speculate positively. Here's a concern. Well, I'll narrow it down but it could be any associated company. What if Broadcom bought a whole lot of Raspberry Pi stock. They'd suddenly have a lot of control. In some ways they already do, but this is not the same thing then. I have no control if they do or don't IPO. I truly hope they don't. But if they get the right board members, they might understand the core niche that Raspberry Pi fills, and how foolish it would be to relinquish it freely to their top competitor(s).

Thanks for the info... It's the second time I loose all attraction for the Raspberry PI, the first was during the Brexit. Time to focus on alternatives, like the Orange PI 😄

I thought they said that the Pi5 would be readily available lol.

@JeffGeerling

4 ай бұрын

They did, and it will :)

@sarkybugger5009

4 ай бұрын

@@JeffGeerling "When Nelson gets his eye back", as my Grandad was wont to say.

@rrittenhouse

4 ай бұрын

@@JeffGeerling LOL I thought they meant at launch though. I don't need one for me specifically but it seems like a good time to upgrade based on specs doubling.

@KameraShy

4 ай бұрын

@@JeffGeerling Fat chance

I'm so over subscriptions.

Your new office looks great Jeff. This background is very fitting for your content.

I've worked at a large company that used Raspberry Pi boards for SDR R&D since the typical development boards were way more expensive. However, they could not be implemented in the final project due to licensing issues. Perhaps an IPO and the increased backing from ARM would allow RasPi to offer more higher end products and still keep the Maker space feasible.

@JamesHughes65

4 ай бұрын

What was the licensing issue? Pis get used a lot in industry without licensing problems.

@TheJoMoVO

4 ай бұрын

@@JamesHughes65 It was a defense contractor, but I do not know the exact issue.

Can't wait for Raspberry Pi 365 when you pay monthly for the privilege of using their boards.

I don't know why they would go public and not seek out private investors

@ConfuSomu

3 ай бұрын

I believe that they do already have a few private investors.

Does anyboby know what piece of hardware you can see at 6:16?

Thanks Jeff to clear this up in your fantastic video! Great news that CM5 is coming! I pray it is pin compatible with the CM4!

we need a risc v competitor with a decent npu and gpu

@conorstewart2214

4 ай бұрын

Why does it need to be RISC-V?

@monstercameron

4 ай бұрын

@@conorstewart2214 open source instruction set. Invites longevity of support. Who will make x86 or arm chips when the licensors become patent trolls or irrelevant like mips?

Meanwhile all we ask from them is better upstream work... 👀

Thanks for the heads up I totally missed this

I really like the balanced and nuanced nature of this video

Man what a huge disappointment! Hopefully something better comes along to replace Raspberry if this is what they want.

the fact that I thought you were speaking seriously during the first 30 seconds speaks volumes about the Raspberry Pi situation right now

@var67

4 ай бұрын

No, it speaks volumes about you.

@RAN-os5gz

4 ай бұрын

@@var67 of course it does, I've been mired in this Pi situation for a very long time, years, watching what it used to be going down the toilet into what it is now. What I said reflects how I feel as well. Thanks for the reply, though.

When the rpi came along in 2012 it seemed a good way to add connectivity to projects. When I became aware of the esp32 it seemed to fit my needs better at a lower price point. The pico also looks interesting but the ESP32 has taken my attention lately. I have old laptops kicking around so I don't see the point of a raspberry pi 4 or 5 for myself.

0:12 I love that the host pointed out that the "core market" of makers hate Raspberry PI and that they abandoned hobbyists and makers.

This is definitely against the entire spirit of the pi community at large. I can only hope this is some sort of market size gauging tactic. That way they can better understand their place in the market, without having to do super intense research or something along those lines? Would line up with the previous IPO happenings as well.

Hopefully, this will boost open source.

@mensch4434

4 ай бұрын

hahah😂 it wont 😔

the eclipse picture in the background is really sick, did you take and edit that yourself? 2017 eclipse?

I think one thing that gets missed, especially with an entity like Raspberry Pi is that private investor money will only take you so far. IPO's are often initiated when a company wants to expand, market indicators say there is room for expansion but the company is strapped for free cash flow to finance that expansion. Hand in hand with talk of an IPO I'm asking myself are there things Raspberry Pi would like to do that require a stout infusion of money. It may also be that with the proliferation alternative choices in SBC's cash is harder to come by because now people have multiple options to choose from where not too many years ago Pi probably towered over every other SBC fabricator.

Going public is a great way to financially bankrupt a company. All the money that should go to building the business instead get drained out through shareholders.

Ok someone make a project for high frequency trading using a raspi to day trade raspberry pi stock.

Yep. I don't need to watch past the first 30 seconds. You made a lot of good points.

The company already has outside investors whose size are immense. Don't think that they are wanting to give up their share unless one of them wants to reduce their exposure. There are many reasons why people buy a companies stock. One reason is that it's a way to support a company you love by being a shareholder. You can be assured that the controlling interest will be held by the existing owners. This is a way to build a company that might last past the existing owners.