Phong Le – the new CEO of software giant MicroStrategy – explained in a recent interview that he was supportive of his predecessor Michael Saylor’s decision to buy bitcoin and add it to the company’s balance sheet.
Phong Le on His Relationship with Saylor
In recent headlines, Saylor announced he was stepping down from his position as CEO of the company he’s been running since 1989. Le will now take over as the new face of MicroStrategy while Saylor – who will not step away completely – will be the firm’s new executive chairman. This will allow him to focus more on the company’s future bitcoin strategy, which up to this point, has seemingly worked quite well in a lot of ways.
MicroStrategy first began buying bitcoin about two years ago in August of 2020. While institutions purchasing bitcoin did indeed happen, it was not exactly the norm, and MicroStrategy’s participation in the crypto market set up a whole new trend that saw many other institutions like Square begin adding bitcoin to their balance sheets.
While MicroStrategy made money in the beginning, things took a nasty turn a month later when the price of bitcoin began a series of small stumbles that ultimately made it shed $2,000 from its price. Many other companies likely would have thrown in the towel at that point and sold their assets at a loss.
However, MicroStrategy did the opposite. It kept buying, and eventually the decision paid off as in October of that year, digital payment firm PayPal announced it would allow individuals to not only purchase and sell digital assets through its platform, but the company would eventually offer custody services as well. This caused the price of BTC to surge, and MicroStrategy began seeing huge returns on its investments.
The firm endured a high number of price jumps over the next year and a half, and its stash continued to grow, but now with the ever-growing bear market, it appears the many bitcoin-related decisions made by Saylor during his tenure with the company are coming back to bite executives in the butt. As a result, Saylor is paving the way for Le to take over where he has allegedly failed.
Prior to bitcoin, Le said the company considered investing in a wide array of commodities including gold, real estate, corporate bonds, treasury paper, and even artwork. The company eventually settled on bitcoin given the trends surrounding it and the potential that it is opening a path to the future of money.
Settling on Bitcoin
Le commented:
We, at our core, are inventors. We’re innovators.
At the time of writing, MicroStrategy is contending with losses exceeding $1 billion. The firm presently owns about 129,000 bitcoin units which are priced at just over $3 million given the price dips BTC has endured.
