Connie Loizos

Aliph is known for the Jawbone, a Bluetooth headset with a sleek design and noise cancellation technology. According to former employees, however, it has another, less-known feature: An extraordinarily quixotic CEO. Stories have begun to leak out about the behavior of Aliph co-founder and CEO Hosain Rahman. Among the most telling is the company’s lavish […]

As the layoffs pile up, a growing number of startups has begun concerted efforts to convey strength, some in strange ways. For its part, Clearleap, an Atlanta-based startup, issued a release today, announcing that it has secured $3.3 million in venture debt from Silicon Valley Bank. The financing comes just eight months after Clearleap raised a $9 million […]

Forbes has just published a list of the world’s thriftiest billionaires, a list that, of course, includes Warren Buffett. (Here’s thrifty: After marrying longtime companion Astrid Menks in 2006, the two went out to dinner with Buffett’s daughter and Menks’s sister at the seafood chain Bonefish Grill.) Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, who famously flies coach, uses his […]

CNET founder turned VC Halsey Minor is desperate to revive the sport of horse racing, but the sport’s declining fan base is just one of numerous obstacles in his way. Minor first went public with his campaign to restore some glamour to the industry back in July, announcing his ambition to buy Florida’s historic — […]

It's hard enough to get the attention of cash-strapped media companies these days, but when their mogul CEOs head toward divorce court, you know it's curtains on acquisition talks for a while. Such could be the case with Viacom's Sumner Redstone and New York Times Co. publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., both of whom are splitting from their longtime wives (well, less longtime in Redstone's case). But I don't want to give away too too much! To test your knowledge of media moguls and the women they've divorced (or will soon)...

This morning, a venture capitalist who has rarely enjoyed the privilege of “flying private” received solicitations from two different private jet companies — one within 20 minutes of the other. Private aviation outfits like NetJets are already under pressure from the Transportation Security Administration, which reportedly intends to greatly expand its  screening of private aircraft. Fuel prices haven’t helped […]

No doubt that in today’s uncertain financial climate, the work of startup founders and CEOs has grown exponentially more challenging, with every major decision akin to an absurd minefield. Communicating such decisions to outsiders can’t be a walk in the park, either.  Easier to identify are several ways not to discuss such developments, like: Fire people, then […]

David Knight is either crazy like a fox, or just plain crazy. As the country moves inexorably toward the worst recession in roughly 20 years, Knight is gambling on a big idea, literally. Think 40-foot-wide, 22-foot-high HDTV screens -- the largest LED screens ever produced -- for which his company is paying $1.5 million a pop.

At a dinner tonight in Silicon Valley that featured LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Benchmark Capital’s newest general partner, Matt Cohler, the mood was surprisingly — but decidedly — upbeat. “It’s a very good time to be an investor, and, if you can get the financing, it’s a great time to be an entrepreneur,” said Hoffman […]

Yesterday, I wrote a story about JuicyCampus.com, an online free-for-all where anonymous users can post anything disparaging about any college student they choose and apparently face no recourse. I observed that the 14-month-old's site's traffic was declining, despite its expansion into 500 campuses across the country; I hoped it meant that users had been turned off by what they were reading. Unfortunately, it seems that my traffic sources -- Alexa and Compete.com -- were way off. I know this because I just received an incongruously professional letter from the site's public relations firm, stating their surprise at my premise that people have begun eschewing JuicyCampus's forums. "It might be helpful to see the 'actual' numbers vs. the 'estimated' numbers provided by Alexa and Compete," reads the firm's note. "As the enclosed information from Google Analytics shows, the numbers you cite