Here's What Investors Need to Know Before Buying Tech Stocks

In this episode of Motley Fool Answers, Alison Southwick and Robert Brokamp are joined by Dylan Lewis, host of Industry Focus: Tech, who offers some insights into the tech sector and what investors need to know about this exciting and fast-growing corner of the economy.

A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on June 27, 2017.

Alison Southwick: This is Motley Fool Answers. I'm Alison Southwick and I'm joined, as always, by Robert Brokamp, personal finance expert here at The Motley Fool. How are you doing, Bro?

Robert Brokamp: Just great, Alison!

Southwick: Wonderful. Today we're taking a closer look at the tech sector with the help of Industry Focus's Dylan Lewis. Hey there, Dylan!

Dylan Lewis: How's it going?

Southwick: Great! We're also going to answer your question about the differences between share classes and look up some of the worst names in tech start-up history. All that and more on this week's episode of Motley Fool Answers.

[...]

Southwick: It's time for Answers, Answers and today we're actually going to tackle two questions — two very similar questions. One is from Kevin and the other is from Andy. So Andy writes, "What's the difference between a company's Class A stock versus Class C? I know different shares typically have different rights in a company, but how does that affect it as an investment?" Then Kevin wants to know, "For an investor who's not concerned about voting, is there any real difference, or is it beneficial to own both types of shares? Do they both increase or decrease at the same proportion?" So Dylan is going to give us just a quick master class in the different types of share classes.

Lewis: That's a lot of pressure, but I'll try.

Southwick: Here we go.

Lewis: So that second question really answers the first question in a way. The different share classes really just boil down to different shareholder rights, and if you want to think about a really high-profile example of a company with two different share classes to help illustrate this a little bit, look at Alphabet (GOOGL 0.13%) (GOOG 0.21%) -- or Google, as many people know it.

The A Shares trade under the ticker Google, GOOGL and the C shares trade under, GOOG. The A shares are slightly more expensive and that's because they wield one vote, whereas the C shares are non-voting shares. So it really comes down to your say as a shareholder when it comes to votes and things like that.

Southwick: So as an individual investor, I'm only going to be buying like 100 shares.

Lewis: Of Google? Good for you!

Southwick: Well, OK, fine. I only have like a share of Google, but the point is... OK, that makes my point even more. I'm only going to have one, little, lonely vote, so does it really matter?

Lewis: Not really. Honestly...

Southwick: For me, no. It's OK.

Lewis: The easiest explanation, here, is it doesn't make much of a difference as you tee up. Like if you only have a few shares, you're not going to be able to really do that much, but if you're a major institution and you have a sizable chunk of shares, having that voting say can be valuable, and that's why the voting shares command a slightly higher price.

As an individual investor, like I said, it doesn't matter all that much. If you look, there's generally a pretty consistent spread between A and C shares for most businesses. For Alphabet, for example, the C shares have typically traded at a 2-3% discount relative to the A shares, so I would say as long as you're seeing that spread hold consistent, it doesn't matter which one you buy; the caveat being if you see that spread widen, it might be an opportunity to buy the C shares because they're trading at a larger discount than the A shares. There have been times where that spread has reached 5%, or something like that, at which case, it might make sense to buy the Cs instead.

Brokamp: I did a little research on Berkshire because I was curious if it was the same thing. You have the A shares, which are now worth $253,000 each.

Lewis: Alison owns a hundred.

Southwick: You know, whatever.

Brokamp: That's right. I've got the B shares, which are trading at $169, so they're 1/1,500 of the A shares. But the voting, you only have 1/10,000 of a vote with the B shares, so you still have voting rights with the B shares, but they're significantly watered down.

[...]

Southwick: All right, well he's been doing enough talking, so I guess I should probably tell you more about who he is. Dylan Lewis is in charge of the tech bureau, here, for Fool.com.

Lewis: Yes.

Southwick: And you also host Friday's episode of Industry Focus which focuses on...

Lewis: The Tech show.

Southwick: The tech! The tech sector! So we brought you on because it's your turn as a member of the Industry Focus team to help us dive into a sector, of course being tech. But before we get into that, we always want to know how you came to be working at The Motley Fool.

Lewis: Well, I was actually co-oping somewhere while I was in school. I went to Northeastern, which is a co-op program school, so we have all these six-month work placements. And I was working as an asset manager. It was kind of a fixed income fund shop. Very traditional. Very conservative. I didn't really like it all that much.

My boss at the time saw that I was more interested in writing and the blend of finance and written work, and said, "Hey, you know, I used to live in the D.C. area. There are a couple of outlets you should check out. You should look at Kiplinger and you should look at The Motley Fool and consider applying to them after you graduate." And so I did. And being a finance major, journalism minor I was somewhat well suited to come join Fool's editorial team and so I've been doing that for several years, now. Actually just coming up on my third Fooliversary.

Southwick: Hey! Happy Fooliversary!

Brokamp: Ah, congratulations!

Southwick: Nice. What do you get? A few hundred bucks? Should I not spoil the surprise?

Lewis: I'll let you know. Who knows?

Southwick: Enjoy the surprise. Because everyone here at The Motley Fool, for our listeners who don't know, every anniversary -- we call it a Fooliversary -- that you've been working here, you get a nice present from the company.

Brokamp: That's right.

Southwick: I'm going to spend my $500 by going to The Inn at Little Washington later this year.

Brokamp: Wow. Let me know how that goes.

Southwick: I know! I know. It's an institution, here. All right, enough about me. So let's get back to the tech sector for a moment, shall we? What is the tech sector comprised of, because I feel like in this day and age, every company is a tech company.

Brokamp: Everything is a tech.

Lewis: Well, a lot of companies are trying to position themselves as tech companies, and part of that is the valuation that tech companies command, because a lot of their businesses are so scalable it tends to be a lot higher than your conventional bricks and mortar business type valuation.

But the tech sector really touches a lot of different things. You have platform companies. Software as a Service businesses. Social media companies. And then you can look over to the consumer device side of things where you have what you'd actually buy. They're companies that manufacture things like televisions, or Fitbits, or something like that.

Then, you have all the component companies that go into those devices, and so there are kind of businesses within businesses on the manufacturing side, on the semiconductor side. Which is to say that there are times where the tech sector can be very inaccessible.

I think that's one of the joys of doing the Industry Focus show, actually, is being able to spend 15 or 20 minutes explaining what these companies do and giving people a better sense just beyond the name and what's going on with the stock price.

Southwick: And so why should someone have exposure to this tech sector if it's so complicated and crazy? And probably pretty volatile and risky too, I imagine, to some extent if they're these hot, little tech stocks.

Lewis: Yeah, it is. I will say that a lot of the big gains in the market have been driven by tech stocks. You'll commonly hear the acronym FANG, which is Facebook (META 0.29%), Amazon (AMZN 0.20%), Netflix (NFLX 2.02%), and Google. And those stocks have performed incredibly well, as have a lot of other big tech names, so they're driving a lot of the market's results. You think of tech as a growth market, and it is. Obviously in a large bull market like we've been in for the last couple of years, those companies have done very well.

So you obviously want to be diversified and have some more conservative plays, but tech can offer your portfolio some really awesome growth opportunities.

Southwick: It's easy to feel like your opportunity has already passed you by with a big tech company, too, especially if you're not super tech savvy and you didn't get in on Amazon when it was $7.00. How nervous should I be about that? I bought Amazon maybe five years ago when I felt like I was getting in too late.

Lewis: You're sitting pretty.

Southwick: Yeah, actually I'm sitting pretty. And then I bought like a million shares of Berkshire Hathaway, so whatever. I don't even know why I work here, anymore.

Lewis: I think one of the important things to realize with tech companies, and why they can command these really high valuations, is because a lot of them are so nimble, and so what they do now might not reflect what they are going to be doing in five years. Or the way that they're making most of their money, now, might not reflect what it's going to look like in the future.

I think two high-profile examples of that are Netflix and what that business looks like now and what it looked like 10 years ago. I've heard David Gardner talk about how just the name Netflix kind of cues you up to the idea that they were not a DVD-by-mail company. Their name signaled that they were going to be fairly nimble and move as people consume content differently. So there's different iterations of a lot of these businesses.

Then, Amazon's another great example. You brought them up. People have thought about them as an e-commerce company for a really long time, but they have the segment Amazon Web Services which is infrastructure, hosting, and all of that stuff. That is a cash cow for them and has just been printing money.

People didn't really know how big it was until they started breaking it out a couple of years ago. And since it's really proven to be a great opportunity for them it will be something that will fuel a lot of growth and give them an opportunity to plow cash back into the business. So with a lot of these companies that have already seen a ton of success, you're seeing that they're not too content with that and they want to keep pushing the limits, and they're investing in all these nascent technologies.

Southwick: Everyone's got a self-driving car that they're working on.

Lewis: The self-driving car. AI. Machine learning. You name it. So they're always investing in new things and their businesses lend themselves very well to bringing those more nascent and emerging tech options into the fold.

Southwick: So you have come here to share with us three things that our listeners need to know before they start investing in tech, and the first one is... All right, you're going to have to bear with me because I kind of went down the pun road for this. Pun Street. I don't know.

Brokamp: I can't wait.

Southwick: Yeah, they're going to be awful, but OK. The first one is that you've got to fight for your right to invest in tech stocks!

Brokamp: That was good.

Lewis: That was on note, I think.

Southwick: It was close enough. All right, it's all about knowing your rights when you're an investor in tech stocks.

Lewis: Yes, this is kind of what we were talking about a little bit before. It's relevant to that conversation we were having about share classes, but I think it's something that is worth reiterating, because we're seeing more and more instances of non-voting shares in the tech space.

This is something that became really popular because of something that happened a couple of years ago. Alphabet -- then Google at the time -- decided that they were going to have a stock split in 2012 and they announced it. The idea, there, was every shareholder would receive one share as a dividend for each share they owned, so it'd be a 2 for 1 split. The difference is the share stockholders received were non-voting shares. And they were holding shares that had one vote, most likely.

And so it was very controversial at the time. People were saying, "Well, you're consolidating power for the insiders that have super voting shares" That had like 10 votes, or something like that, and you're giving founders like Larry Page and Sergey Brin the opportunity to maybe sell off some of their shares and also preserve their control of the company. There were some lawsuits along the way, and it's something that eventually passed and we now know that they have two different voting share classes.

But this is something that is going to continue to come up again and again. It's something that Facebook announced that they had intentions of doing, although it is unclear if it's something that will actually wind up happening. But it's certainly something to keep an eye on there.

And you look over at what happened when Snap IPO'd earlier in 2017. The company, from the get-go, issued non-voting shares. That's the first time that a major company has ever done that in its first public issuance.

So what you're seeing more and more is these share class structures that allow these founders, and very often these pretty young CEOs, to have total control over the business, and the reason that I think that's really important is as an investor, you have to buy into what that founder's vision of the company and direction for the company should be. And if you don't, you don't really have much recourse.

Southwick: It indicates that the founder is here to stay. They're not just looking to make a payday. They actually want to retain control of the company.

Lewis: Absolutely. It is not something that is necessarily a bad thing. I'm a Facebook shareholder. I want Mark Zuckerberg at the helm. I want him to be able to make the decisions that he thinks are going to put the company in a great position for the next 10, 20 years, because I know that's his vision. He's been really great in all the conference calls and all this commentary talking about this blueprint that he has. And so far he's been excellent in executing and the stock's done very well.

But you have to have the same buy-in and the same belief in where things should be going that the founder does, or that the CEO and the people that control most of the shares do, because they're going to be able to do pretty much whatever they want.

Brokamp: How much of this is due to trying to fend off activist investors? The big news, now, is Amazon buying Whole Foods. Before that happened there was some of that going on with Whole Foods in that outside investors were accumulating shares and trying to influence the company. I assume that if you're the founder of the company you'd prefer that not to happen. Is that part of it?

Lewis: I think that's a little bit of it. You see with like Carl Icahn and his stake in Apple (AAPL -1.55%) he was a very vocal activist shareholder. Granted when you are as big as Apple is and you've been around as long, you don't have the same flexibility, so I think there are some founders that see the nuisance that activist investors can be and say, "I don't want to have to deal with that. I know the vision that I have for this."

I think also there's an element of it where this is their baby. This is the thing that they brought into being, have taken public, and they're growing into these massive valuations. And they don't want to have to cede control to anybody. So it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Brokamp: Right. It always emphasizes to me that these are publicly traded companies and to a certain degree they're owned by the public, at least the people who own the shares. You were speaking about Apple, and if you haven't followed them from the beginning, you might not remember that at one point Steve Jobs got fired from Apple because in the end once you go public, it's no longer your company even if you own the majority of the shares.

Lewis: Absolutely.

Southwick: And then they brought him back because the company could have collapsed.

Lewis: Please, please, Steve!

Brokamp: The stock dropped like 20% in one day back in 2000. If you talked to someone back then and said, "By the way, Apple in several years is going to be the biggest company in the world," people wouldn't have believed you.

Lewis: Oh, they would have laughed at you.

Southwick: The next thing that you need to know before you invest in tech stocks is IPO more like IP no!

Lewis: Oh, groan.

Brokamp: That was a good one!

Southwick: Oh, that stinks. These are the jokes, kids. So tech is known for high-flying IPOs.

Lewis: Absolutely. Very often tech companies are pretty highly followed before they even go public. You know, you have that class of unicorn companies, start-ups that have been around and grown into these massive valuations. Part of that is just that they're companies that we use all the time. Like Airbnb is something that we're super familiar with. Lyft. Uber. These are all companies that we know very well and they're kind of consumer facing.

It's exciting being on the editorial side and being on the coverage side of this that there's so much fanfare and investor interest around these companies. I think something that people need to be aware of, though, is it's not necessarily great to buy into these IPOs immediately after they're available. Really, in recent history, a lot of tech IPOs have not performed all that well. So my guidance -- and we can run through some companies that back this up -- is to wait maybe six to 12 months after an issuance before seriously considering buying into it.

Looking at three of the biggest tech IPOs from 2016, you have LINE Corp, Nutanix, and Twilio, and none of these companies are currently trading above where they ended their first day on the public markets. As a reminder, the S&P 500 is up since every one of their issuances. So, the broad market has done fairly well. Like I said, we've been in a bull market for quite some time now, and yet all of these companies are down.

Some of that is there's this pent-up demand for these companies when they go public, so shares get bid up to these extreme valuations and then they have to come back down to reality, a little bit, as the business posts quarterly results and management provides commentary.

One of the reasons that I say people should probably wait six months -- maybe 12 months -- is really because ultimately the company decides when it's going public and I think that's an important thing to remember. So management is choosing when they are selling shares, and they're going to do it at a time when the business results look pretty good. They want to be able to command top dollar for part ownership of this business. At the end of the day, an IPO is a capital-raising event so they're doing a service to their own company by raising capital at the highest valuation they can. It gives them more cash to work with. So there's that side of it.

I think you also want to just have a couple of quarters of numbers to look at. And if you start seeing a troubling trend in the prospectus that the company files, you might want a couple of more quarters of updates before you decide that margins are going to stay where they are, or user growth is going to continue and that was just a minor blip. And so just waiting a little while and letting them weather the first couple of months of being a publicly traded company and the scrutiny that comes with that can give you that insight.

Southwick: Ideally, here at The Motley Fool, we believe in holding stocks for three, five, 10 years. Forever. So what's a few months, really, in the grand scheme of things?

Lewis: I mentioned that Facebook has been such a great stock to own, but Facebook largely foundered for the first year that it was a publicly traded company, and it wasn't until a little bit more than a year out from its IPO that the business results really started to back up its valuation and investors saw things take off. So even a wildly successful company follows this rule.

Brokamp: The guy who I think is most known for research on IPOs is a professor named Jay Ritter at the University of Florida, and if I'm recalling correctly, it's pretty clear that for the three-year holding period after a company goes public, on average an IPO will underperform the market. It's generally better to wait to see what's going to happen to the company.

Southwick: The third thing you need to know before you invest in a tech stock is to please mind the GAAP.

Lewis: That was a good one!

Southwick: Hey, thanks! By which we mean the acronym for "generally accepted accounting principles." And here's where I'm going to have to nudge Bro every now and then. I don't know. Are you going to stay awake?

Brokamp: Were you talking? What? Huh?

Southwick: Yeah. Let's talk generally accepted accounting principles.

Lewis: Riveting stuff, right? This is important because the tech space is notorious for its fun-with-numbers approach to accounting. All public companies have to submit financials that are put together using the GAAP approach. And the idea, there, is these are reporting standards that all companies that are publicly traded have to comply with for regulatory purposes. And really they help investors and everyday people just make apples-to-apples comparisons on companies and just understand what's going into the numbers that they're seeing.

On top of that companies can offer non-GAAP numbers, and so these are financials that are not GAAP-compliant but the company might feel that it helps illustrate what's going on with their business. And very often because they are high-growth and unprofitable companies, tech companies will report GAAP and non-GAAP numbers in their quarterly results. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it's just important to understand which one is which and why the company might be doing that.

Just an example that helps illustrate it. Twitter lost $62 million last quarter if you're looking at GAAP financials, but the company focuses on a metric that they like to tout, adjusted EBITDA, which was positive $170 million. You say how? That's a $230 million swing.

That $170 million figure is a non-GAAP number, and it excludes things like stock-based compensation, which was $117 million during the quarter.

There's debate about how people should treat stock-based compensation for accounting purposes, but for GAAP you need to include it as an expense. Stock-based compensation is particularly important in tech because a lot of firms use it to bake it into the compensation packages. Like they are high-growth businesses and it's just a good way to provide compensation and equity for people. But it comes at an expense and businesses need to recognize that.

So just taking a second to look at GAAP versus non-GAAP numbers for companies that you're interested in and the reconciliation there can be really helpful.

Southwick: Where should someone go to get all up on their GAAP education? To learn more about GAAP?

Lewis: You'll hear companies go through it in their conference calls very often. They'll talk about their GAAP numbers and they'll talk about their non-GAAP numbers. Very often analysts will ask questions that poke at the difference, so you can get some of that there. But they also have to put out reconciliations. Twitter, for example, on their investor relations page, has their slides that reconcile how you get from that net loss number to that positive EBITDA number. For regulatory purposes they have to make that available.

Southwick: So just dig a little farther and you'll find it.

Lewis: Yup.

Southwick: Well, those are three things that investors need to know before they invest in tech stocks. Let's close out this conversation by giving us a stock to watch.

Lewis: I think one of the most interesting stocks to watch in tech in 2017 is Snap. No surprise there.

Southwick: It's controversial.

Lewis: Yeah, no surprise there. And it's for a couple of different reasons. So I am not super bullish on Snap. Based on its current valuation I think it's super rich and it has a lot to live up to. But the company is doing a lot of interesting things in the augmented reality space and I think it will be kind of cool to see how users interact with that and how that might shape what's going on with some of the other social media firms out there.

For me it's also interesting to see what happens there because their interface looks a lot more like Facebook Messenger than it does Facebook's core property and the next frontier for Facebook to monetize is Messenger and WhatsApp, so seeing how Snapchat can make money off of people sending each other images, and text, and things like that might give you an idea of what success might look like for some of these other platforms that won't be broken out for financial purposes because Facebook is so large.

Southwick: Wonderful. Thanks! You're going to stick around and help us talk about some of the most ridiculous names in tech start-up history.

Lewis: I'd be happy to.

Southwick: Thanks! Great!

[...]

Southwick: Tech start-ups are well known for their ridiculous names that really don't tell you a thing about the company. What about those good old days of Pets.com? It's dot-com for pets. How could it possibly fail? So what's in a name? We're going to test your smarts. You have to guess what some of the most poorly named tech start-ups in history actually do. Or did, as the case may be. So the first one we're going to talk about is...

Brokamp: So just to make this clear. You're going to give us names. These are actual companies.

Southwick: You don't know what it is. These are actual companies. You're going to guess what they do and then bonus, you get to guess whether it's still in business after I tell you what it actually does.

Brokamp: Ah, OK.

Southwick: The first one is Shpoonkle-S-H-P-O-O-N-K-L-E. Who wants to go first?

Brokamp: Shpoonkle.

Lewis: I have a serious guess, and I have a joke.

Brokamp: Mine are all ridiculous, so...

Lewis: I'm going to guess it's a messaging app or something along those lines. A communication company, maybe.

Southwick: Oh, I got a shpoonkle from Bro!

Lewis: Exactly. But it also sounds like a new utensil competitor to the spork.

Southwick: Oh! See, I was thinking it could be like Uber but for cuddling.

Brokamp: Oh, that's so funny. I said it's a company that makes robots that will hold you at night. Somebody come shpoonkle me.

Southwick: Affirmative!

Brokamp: Commence shpoonkling!

Lewis: I'm going to guess it's still in business.

Southwick: Well, let me tell you what it is, and then you can guess. Surprise, you're both wrong. It's actually --

Brokamp: That's too bad.

Southwick: -- a reverse-auction site for lawyers and legal services. So you basically say, "Hey, I need a lawyer to help me do blank." Then you would get different lawyers bidding on how much they would charge you to do it. It was founded in 2011. The founder of the company told VentureBeat, "Shpoonkle is a funny word. It brings a smile to your face and it's definitely something that you will remember." So, bonus. Is it in business still or not?

Brokamp: It makes sense to me, so why not?

Lewis: Yeah, hearing the business, I think it's a good business.

Brokamp: I'm not sure about that.

Lewis: I don't know if the name make sense, but it's a good business.

Southwick: Ah, no. Sadly it did not last.

Lewis: Really!

Southwick: Despite a huge amount of hype with stories in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, it closed shop in 2014, just three later. But no worries. The next contender is Lawtendr, but it's like bartender, but law, and then there's no "e" in the "er." Anyway, whatever.

Brokamp: Is there a Law Tinder? It's a different thing.

Southwick: That might also work. Oh, let's get going. Write that down. Write that down! Law Tinder. The next one is Doostang. D-O-O-S-T-A-N-G.

Brokamp: Doostang. Gosh!

Lewis: I went first last time.

Brokamp: An autonomous self-driving dune buggy.

Southwick: Oh! OK!

Lewis: That's good.

Southwick: That's not bad.

Lewis: I'm going to say it's somehow like hairstyling related.

Southwick: Oh, I like your do! It's like a mustang! No, you're both wrong, of course. It's a job search website focusing mostly on, from what I could tell, finance and consulting. So bonus question. Is it still in business?

Lewis: Yes.

Brokamp: I'm going to say no, just because I never heard of it before.

Southwick: Yes, it is.

Brokamp: What does that mean, right?

Southwick: So Dylan got a point. So this one is going to be hard for me to say. Big Tuts. B-I-G. Next word T-U-T-S. If I pronounce it a different way it might give you a hint on what they do, but let's see what your initial guess is. Big Tuts.

Lewis: It's an extra-large tunic and loincloth company.

Brokamp: That's good! For the plus-size toga party.

Southwick: For the husky man.

Lewis: For the big and tall.

Southwick: You've got to get that hem just right.

Brokamp: Well as we know, King Tut's parents were probably siblings, so I think it's a DNA analysis service to see how related your parents are to each other.

Southwick: OK, you're both wrong. Do I need to say that? If I pronounce it Big Toots, does that help?

Brokamp: Is that that charcoal underwear?

Southwick: It's a marketplace for selling online tutorials. Big Tuts.

Brokamp: Oh. Gotcha.

Southwick: Is it still in business?

Lewis: No.

Brokamp: I'm going to say no, too.

Southwick: It's not. So despite changing their name to Contento, they ended up going out of business. At that point what are you going to do? The next one is Xobni, and it's spelled X-O-B-N-I.

Lewis: I'm going to guess that it has something to do with sleep. Maybe it's an app that adjusts the colors on your screen, so it's like warmer at night, or maybe it's like a sleep-monitoring app, or something like that.

Brokamp: I'm going to say it's a company that will make all your electronic devices and the internet safe for your children except for the mild electronic shock it gives the kids if they've been using the devices for too long. Has nothing to do with the name. It's just something I hope someone invents at some point.

Lewis: Spoken like a true father.

Brokamp: There you go.

Southwick: So what if I were to tell you that Xobni is inbox backwards.

Lewis: Ohhh!

Brokamp: It helps you clear out your inbox.

Southwick: They did software applications for Microsoft Outlook back in the day. So is it still running? Is Xobni still in business?

Brokamp: Does it clear out your inbox, or is it just related to email management?

Southwick: Somehow related to email management. Software applications for Microsoft Outlook.

Lewis: Yeah, sure. If they got bought by Microsoft, maybe it's just in there somewhere.

Brokamp: I'm going to say no, just to be contrary to Dylan.

Southwick: You know what? It doesn't exist, but it did get bought by Yahoo! It was acquired by Yahoo in 2013 for $60 million and shut down a year later. That's so Yahoo! Other weirdly named acquisitions Yahoo has made: Kelkoo, Meedio, WRETCH, Xoopit, Yoyodyne, Ptch -- but there's no vowel, so maybe it's pronounced pitch, patch, putch, petch, I don't know. It doesn't exist anymore because it was bought out.

So there we go. And for the final score of...

Brokamp: Did you actually keep score?

Southwick: I don't know. You know I don't really do a great job. I think Dylan won.

Brokamp: Sure. I'm going to say Dylan won, too.

Southwick: All right. Dylan, thank you for joining us!

Lewis: Thank you so much for having me on!

Southwick: Hey, it's been great. We have fun on this show.

Lewis: You guys do have fun.

Southwick: If you listeners want to learn more about investing in tech, and just want to hear more from Dylan, than Fridays' episodes of Industry Focus are for you, so head on over and get some. What are you going to be talking about on this week's episode? What are you going to be talking about?

Lewis: You know, I'm not sure yet.

Southwick: OK, good.

Brokamp: Something tech oriented.

Lewis: We like to fly by the seat of our pants. See if any news comes up that might be interesting.

Southwick: Ah, the old news fairy. The news fairy that you're looking for.

Lewis: You never know when Amazon's going to buy something.

Southwick: OK, well let's hope. I'm rooting for you. So today we have a special guest in the studio who's going to come in and help us with our disclaimer because I think all the best legal advice comes from nine-year-olds and that's Katie who's visiting today with her dad, James, to watch us tape the episode and we're super excited to have her come in and tape our disclaimer for us.

Katie: As always, people on the program may own companies discussed on the show and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against stocks mentioned. So don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. [Applause]

Southwick: All right, that's the show. Hey, I want to thank Ben who sent a postcard in from Talkeetna, Alaska and it's a postcard of the mayor of Talkeetna, Stubbs, which is a cat. I would say that's a tabby cat. According to Ben, Mayor Stubbs, the cat, has been the mayor of Talkeetna since 1997 and Talkeetna, for those of you who don't know, is the starting point for climbers trying to ascend Denali. So thank you, Ben!

And for those of you who are dying to send me a postcard -- because I know you are -- please send one in. Our address is 2000 Duke St., 2nd Floor, Alexandria, Virginia, 22314. If you can beat a mayor cat, then I would like to see it because this postcard is breathtaking.

The show is edited technically by Rick Engdahl. If you want to send us an email to ask a question yourself you can send it to [email protected]. For Robert Brokamp and Dylan Lewis -- didn't say Dylan Thomas, even though I wanted to -- I'm Alison Southwick. Stay Foolish, everybody!