Well Ladies and Gentleman,
I've taken the weekend to digest this and try to craft some poorly worded pseudo-pithy comment on SB and the future of CXO being both incredibly bright but the honest truth is that I wouldn't be doing justice to either so I'll try to keep it fairly short and sweet.
Stephen, if by chance you are reading this, from the very bottom of my heart thank you. Thank you for the tireless hours of work you have put in, thank you for wearing the stress of dozens of employee's and thousands of investors depending on you to succeed, thank you for the sleepless nights, the long exhausting days and for the personal life sacrifices you have almost certainly made over the last 11 years. In a few short years, you've lifted a very tiny but very promising little 3 MT project at Grants into a multi billion dollar company which is already a Defacto member in waiting of the ASX200. Thank you for choosing lithium and focusing your efforts on the Green revolution and thank you for steering all this little company that for many years ran on the smell of an oily rag through some extremely turbulent waters at times, when a lot of us long term holders weren't sure if we were gonna make it and potentially lose it all.
I know I've had a few hissy fits over the years here on the forum, particularly at certain junctions when things seemed to be going wrong, the LT holders thought information was being deliberately withheld from them, delays were announced, the lithium market was in the toilet and but of course, when our shares got diluted or better yet, when there CR's and I was too broke-ass poor to get in on them quickly enough before they were all gone.
I'm not a massive holder by any measure. I pretty much YOLO'd every dollar I had (and then a bunch more I borrowed) on a company which many of my friends thought was stupid with no real chances of ever getting off the ground and which was often laughed at as "cute" by holders of actual producers and was little more than a promising dream with a mountain of obstacles in front of it. I don't have millions of dollars waiting on me to bail on the opening of the bell tomorrow and I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be driving a Lambo with CXO on my number plate any time soon. But what I can say is that already this company has literally changed my life in terms of the opportunities it has opened up for me (in particular, funding my MBA studies) and the problems it has solved for me (one day in the not too distant future I genuinely believe I could be moving into a house with a deposit paid for by CXO). And it would not have been possible without you at the helm Stephen.
Your legacy here is extraordinary. You have literally created hundreds of jobs, likely will create hundreds of millionaires, would have helped reduced carbon emissions in the millions of tons and have managed to somehow do it with a bit of style too.
It's genuinely saddening to think you will be leaving us at the end of the year just as the party is really getting started for the company. While I'm absolutely sure that you would have considered this exit incredibly carefully, which is why you are giving this much notice, will be seeing it through till the plant is operational and possibily even have a few people in mind for your succession, I wish you nothing but the best in all future endeavours. I had been hoping to catch you in person before the years end to thank you for accomplishing nothing short of the incredible and hope that maybe, just maybe, some day in the future that our path's cross so that I can actually shake your hand and thank you in person.
Oh Captain my Captain!
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