Fortune journalist offered shares in IPO

Adam Lashinsky, senior editor at large at Fortune, writes about how a tech company has offered him shares in its upcoming initial public offering.

Lashinsky writes, “I was surprised but not completely flabbergasted by the phone call I received a few weeks ago. A representative of Arista Networks, a networking company I’ve written about recently, phoned to inform me that the company’s chief executive wanted to offer me ‘friends and family’ shares in Arista’s upcoming initial public offering. The offer was explicit, down to the number of shares I’d have the opportunity to purchase at the I.P.O. price. The caller specifically wanted me to understand this offer came directly from CEO Jayshree Ullal.

“I declined. I briefly explained that it was impossible for me to accept the gift that was being offered. I also told the (clearly uncomfortable) Arista rep, with whom I’ve dealt for stories for Fortune, that it is a horrible idea to be making these shares available to me. That’s because the company must be similarly propositioning other business partners who, like me, are neither a friend of the company nor family members of its employees.

“I never heard another word from the company, which hasn’t yet gone public. (I phoned Wednesday to ask if other journalists had been offered I.P.O. shares; a spokeswoman pointed me to a section of its Form S-1 filing which states that a directed share program exists — and nothing more.) But as I hung up the phone, I realized that I finally had tangible confirmation that we are squarely in the middle of a tech-company bubble.”

Read more here.