@stayer no worries. I'm not stressed. Actually i like these...

@stayer no worries. I'm not stressed. Actually i like these conversations. Regardless of hewjet's motivations its his points that matter. If he has legitimate negative points about the company then i want to know that, and arguing against them improves my knowledge of the company and industry. So in my view negative posters and resulting conversations are a good thing.

The $310k figure is an average. Most law firms (in terms of raw numbers) are small. Of course there are also some monsters firms out there but those firms have many partners and the cost of that equity is certain to be priced accordingly. If equity is given away for free it's the existing owners that pay for it out of their shares: do we think self interested lawyers are going to do that? the equity in these firms is subject to market forces like everything else. These companies are businesses like any other and they don't make profits by giving away equity ownership for free.
Regarding SGH's market cap - note this is an example of a publicly listed firm. In terms of size it's an outlier in the Australian market and it got that way in part through public listing, organic growth, and acquisition. There was also a speculative bubble going on at one point with investors pricing the stock based on the "bigger fool" principal. As such the market cap cannot be considered an indicator of the firm's intrinsic value.

As to your last point Shine is not in such a bubble - in fact the price is depressed (or I perceive it to be so). Part of that is due to splash damage from Slater and part of it is from recent write offs due to a previous overvaluing of WIP (being forward looking/speculative revenue)