Connie Loizos
Did you know that by the time they’ve been retired from football for two years, a staggering 78 percent of NFL players are broke or nearing bankruptcy? How about that 60 percent of NBA players find themselves in the same position within five years of leaving the game? The data is among many astonishing findings in […]
Whatever you’re doing this weekend, it’s probably safe to assume it’ll be exceedingly lame compared with that of the 120 people who’ve flown to Richard Branson’s Necker Island for the Sunday nuptials of billionaire Netscape cofounder Jim Clark and his fiancée, Kristy Hinze. Clark, who turns 65 on Monday, and 28-year-old Hinze, an Australian supermodel […]
This afternoon, I attended “demo day” at Y Combinator in Mountain View, a four-year-old company that provides seed financing, guidance and killer contacts to entrepreneurs whose startups it doesn’t merely support but also helps create. Y Combinator has enjoyed no shortage of attention over the years. When I profiled the business in April 2007 for […]
Updated: August Capital, the 14-year-old firm founded by longtime VCs Dave Marquardt and John Johnston, has held a final close on its fifth fund. It raised a stunning $650 million. Even more amazingly, the partners began raising it shortly after Thanksgiving.
Turns out the government wants more than the millions of dollars sitting in Ruth Madoff’s bank account; her various pieces of jewelry, valued at more than $2.6 million; or husband Bernie’s 35(!) sets of watches and cufflinks. Also subject to forfeiture as a result of Madoff’s various crimes is his stake in one of San […]
If you’ve ever been asked to sit on a jury, you know that one of the first things the presiding judge tells you is that you cannot, under any circumstances, investigate anything relating to the case outside of the courtroom. The problem, of course, is that neither the plaintiff’s nor the defense’s attorneys will know what you’ve gleaned […]
Okay, so he can't dance to save his life. But Apple's cuddlesome cofounder Steve Wozniak, "the Woz," may be an even nicer guy than many people know.
According to Newsweek tech columnist Dan Lyons -- who recently compared certain tech moguls to child stars who enjoy a stretch of fame, then go onto lead disappointingly ordinary lives -- Wozniak is no "lost soul." On the contrary, says Lyons, the Prius-driving, commercial-aircraft-flying Woz could be living like an obnoxious king if it weren't for the fact that he's not the self-obsessed type.
Here's a telling story that Lyons shares, one that I'm guessing Woz has confirmed to him at some point in their acquaintanceship:
The Valley has been watching a lot of TV’s Charlie Rose lately, who, since early February, has been hosting the superstars of the tech industry on his PBS show, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, investor Marc Andreessen, MySpace founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson , and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
Unsurprisingly, Rose himself is an interesting interview, as illustrated by Drue Kataoka, an artist and local celebrity who nabbed her Zen sit-down with Rose during his recent trip out here. Personally, I could do without the traditional Japanese music faintly overlaying the video, but I loved learning how Rose manages to wheedle his guests into giving him exclusive tidbits, including by knowing when to keep his mouth shut. Video after the jump...
According to Indian newspaper Mint, VC-backed PIPE deals aren't just on the rise in the United States. Companies trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India also are attracting the interest of venture investors, including some with strong U.S. ties.
In the most recent example, NVP India, the Indian arm of Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners, just invested $15 million in OnMobile Global, a publicly traded spin-off of Infosys Technologies, for what roughly amounts to a 5 percent stake in the company. OnMobile was originally incorporated in California in 2000. The now Bangalore-based company sells "value-added services" for cell phones, like multimedia push services.
TechFlash has a great interview up right now with Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft's corporate vice president of strategic and business development, among whose chief responsibilities it is to identify which Silicon Valley startups Microsoft should acquire.
The interview is wide-ranging, but the most provocative questions and answers center on how Microsoft is perceived today in the Valley as compared with Google.
TechFlash: How would you describe the current state of Microsoft's relationship with Silicon Valley?
Lewin: I think we have reasonably well acclimated and normalized our relationship, as any large company has a relationship with startups. Consistent, ongoing, basic interaction has been the operating premise for eight years. The routine is, we respond. So the relationship there is predictable.