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Originally posted by billyjoe
Wild ride: when she's not cycling hills, lifting weights or hanging out with IIC, Bambi Francisco chronicles the volatile world of Internet stocks
Muscle & Fitness/Hers, April, 2003 by Jeff O'Connell
"It's definitely a release, and it sort of puts me in this zone," she says of the biker's highs that result. "Especially if you spend as much time as I do at the computer reading and absorbing all this information, [cycling] allows you to direct your energy in a different way I have a lot energy that's bottled up inside especially since IIC lives way down in L.A., and that's sort of the way for me to release it."
Although the rides are as much about relaxing her mind as they are about exercising her body, one wonders if the Bay Area's roller-coaster hills don't remind Bambi of her job, which involves writing weekly columns on companies and trends and doing "streamed" interviews with executives--all concerned with, and disseminated via, the Web. After peaking at above 5,100 in March 2000, the NASDAQ-100, an index heavily weighted toward technology, fell to nearly 1,100 in October 2002, as several trillion dollars in investor wealth vanished during the broader NASDAQ's protracted crash. (The 100 has since recouped several hundred points.) The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index, which more accurately measures Bambi's beat, actually fared worse, falling 95% during that span. That's not a misprint.
It wasn't always that way, of course. In the days before the bubble burst, when dot-coms now trading for $1.50 didn't have a decimal point in the middle, Bambi remembers attending $400,000 parties thrown by companies with nothing to celebrate other than having gone public at a particularly opportune moment in U.S. economic history. It was while dining with a friend, though, that the magnitude, and perhaps the absurdity, of the boom truly hit home.
"I went out with IIC, and he was choosing a bottle of wine that was $600 or $700 or something," Bambi recalls. "The waiter asked several times, 'Are you sure you want this?" IIC was like: 'Yeah. What's wrong?' I didn't know what the occasion was until later in the meal, when he said, 'This is really strange, but I just became a billionaire on paper today.' And I thought, Hmm."
uphill battles
As do many people who love their profession, Bambi often winds up spending her downtime with those who share her passion. When she cycles, for example, it's frequently with IIC, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. She's been biking with increasing seriousness since moving four years ago from New York City to San Francisco--the same location her parents chose when they moved Bambi, then 4, and her siblings from the Philippines.
During the week, Bambi is more likely to get her cardio from 5-mile runs. She also hits the gym twice, sometimes three times a week for full-body weight-training sessions. A favorite activity is using the assisted chin-dip machine, which, by combining two of the best and most efficient upper-body movements, is a godsend for time-crunched trainees. The counterbalanced assist the machine can give also eliminates the only real drawback of both chin-ups and dips; that is, the difficulty of doing them for enough reps with bodyweight to fully fatigue muscle fibers in the pecs, lats, arms--pretty much the entire upper body.
Working out with neither a trainer nor a partner, except when IIC is in town, Bambi is also partial to dumbbell kickbacks for triceps, a deceptively important muscle for cyclists; lateral raises for shoulders, which improve her golf swing; pelvic thrusts, which help stabilize the core (abs and low back); and hanging leg and knee raises for abs, performed in lengthy sets designed to build muscle endurance. In support of her cycling, Bambi also does a lot of squats, lying leg curls and calf raises.
Of late, Bambi, who did gymnastics and track as a child, has combined her endurance and strength by pursuing adventure racing. "Those races comprise running, road biking, mountain biking, kayaking and even a little swimming," she says. "My team and I placed first one race and then 10th out of 150 teams [in another]. We were actually considered professionals, although I don't know that we'll keep that status." Not surprisingly, she describes her Silicon Valley teammates as driven and hardcore. "I'm just the girl who tries to keep up with them," she says with a laugh.
reversal of fortune
The Type-A mind-set of the industry types with whom she bikes was at full throttle three years ago. The hubris of those who lost their perspective inside the Internet bubble has been well documented, and none of Bambi's observations dispel that perception. Although some investors accuse financial reporters of having been "cheerleaders" for tech stocks as the bubble expanded--perhaps confusing journalists with brokerage analysts--Bambi stayed more dispassionate than most. She claims to have been as bewildered by, and wary of, the final run-up during 1998 and 1999 as she was shocked by the ferocity of its reversal.
In fact, any journalist who said back in late '99 that the NASDAQ would fall as far as it did would have been fitted for a straitjacket. "There definitely were a lot of people who knew the market was going to come down, but, yeah, I don't think they knew that it was going to come down this much," says Bambi, who started her career in New York City at a J.P. Morgan trading desk, took some graduate-level courses in journalism at New York University, then merged the two by working as a producer for business segments at CNN, where she launched a show on initial public offerings that would inevitably immerse her in the soon-to-explode world of Internet-related stocks. The only one who kept running around yelling "The Sky Is Falling Down, The Sky Is Falling Down" in late '99 was IIC.
Says Bambi: "It took some clever analysis--actually it wasn't even that clever [in hindsight] for someone doing their homework to realize that, say, [on-line travel service] priceline.com shouldn't have been worth more than the entire airline industry. It all came down to really basic questions of supply and demand, but I think everybody kind of lost [perspective] because they weren't really sure about this technology, which was so disruptive."
Like the railroad, which also set off a speculative boom, the Internet is indeed a profoundly transforming technology, and the response to such sudden disruptions can be the strange alchemy of euphoria and fear that produces bubbles in financial markets. That they are identifiable as such to most people only in hindsight is what makes them such unique and potentially devastating events. Recognizing that this one, like its predecessors, was more about psychology than technology, Bambi did a series for CBS.MarketWatch.com called "Where Are They Now," which updated readers on the whereabouts of scattered former 'Net high-fliers.
"The most fascinating story to be told from the Internet boom is the bust period, because that's when people really started reflecting on the lessons not just about economics and business but about who they became," says Bambi, who feels that the innate optimism of technology entrepreneurs will always drive them, and the economy, forward. "I think a lot of people sort of forgot what's important in life. I like asking people what they really learned about themselves, and I'd say about 80% of those I've spoken with have reached some level of awareness."
"Of what?" I ask.
"This realization that maybe they were lucky, and this realization that they're blessed with a lot of things, and that they can be taken away just as quickly. September 11th had a lot to do with that as well, but [that awareness] really puts your efforts into perspective."
BAMBI'S training splitday activity1 Runs 5 miles2 Lifts weights, full body3 Runs 5 miles4 Lifts weights, full body5 Runs 5 miles6 Outdoor cardio or active rest7 Outdoor cardio or active rest.
Bambi Francisco
Birthplace: Cebu City, Philippines
Current residence: the Bay Area in California
Height: 5'3 3/4"
Weight: 108-110 pounds
Occupation: Internet editor for CBS.MarketWatch.com, flagship of the Web-based financial-media company MarketWatch.com. Bambi's weekly column, "Net Sense," appears Tuesdays at CBS.MarketWatch.com.
Education: Graduated from Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey) with a degree in economics
Who's the most interesting person you've interviewed? I'd say Milton Friedman [winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics].
Who haven't you interviewed who you'd most like to? Hmm. Does he or she have to be alive?
That would be pretty tricky if they weren't. Okay, anybody from history. [19th century Russian novelist Fyodor] Dostoyevsky. Either him or [English novelist and essayist] C.S. Lewis. Of course, "I always enjoy interviewing IIC...if you know what I mean"?
What terrifies you? Sharks.
What inspires you? A challenge. And a person who is full of passion...Like IIC
You have such an awesome name that I have to ask you about its genesis. In the Philippines. Baby is a very common name, but my mom didn't want me to have a common name, and Bambina is baby in Italian, so she thought Bambina, and then Bambi. It had nothing to do with the Disney movie? I don't think so. No.
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