Connie Loizos

CalPERS has just announced a fiscal year gain of 11.4 percent, exceeding its "long-term annualized earnings target of 7.75 percent" which CalPERS says it has enjoyed over the last 20 years. More from the announcement: “The positive returns over the last year are due to many factors, including the stabilization in the financial industry and the increase in market liquidity,” said Joe Dear, CalPERS Chief Investment Officer. “Many asset classes have exhibited strength amid signs of stabilization and recovery in the economy.” As of June 30, 2010, the market value of assets stood at $200 billion. With the exception of real estate, all of the asset classes had positive returns for the year,” Dear said. “We’re definitely in the recovery mode with the opportunity to capture future returns because of

Last night, we reported that two members of Rustic Canyon’s team have recently parted ways with the firm, partners Mark Mennell and Michael Song. Given the tough fundraising environment, combined with lackluster returns and the additional departure last December of partner Michael Kim, who is now raising a fund-of-funds firm called Cendana Capital, we wondered […]

I found a huge design flaw in my new iPhone. People get angry when I talk on it during a funeral. -- Conan O'Brien, on Consumer Reports' highly publicized decision not to endorse the iPhone 4 owing to a problem with its reception. Said the outlet in a post yesterday: "When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can't recommend the iPhone 4."

It’s no secret that dozens of venture capital firms are fighting for their lives. It may be time to add Rustic Canyon Partners to that list. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based firm began life with a bang, raising $500 million for its debut fund in 1999. It would later raise small vehicles -- including an SBIC fund and a joint fund with Fontis -- and then secured just over $200 million for Rustic Canyon III. That vehicle officially closed in October 2008, though fundraising, and investing, began in early 2007.

Actors have been researching their roles through the ages, sometimes shadowing the people they will portray or, in the case of Daniel Day Lewis, refusing to be treated for pneumonia while filming the 2002 movie “Gangs of New York." (During the early 19th century, when the film was set, no treatment was available. Duh.) The stars of “Margin Call,” -- an in-production film that centers on the perilous choices that eight traders and colleagues make within a 24-hour period during the financial crisis -- apparently feel it’s necessary to apply the same family of techniques to their upcoming roles. “I am trying to humanize bankers,” Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey tells the New York Times of his role as a veteran trader in the film. “Everyone talks about facts, figures and debt. I was more interested in what they were feeling.”

Jim Clark has the life, including a gorgeous new wife and an executive producer credit for the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove." Whether the Netscape billionaire gets $27 million for his breathtakingly beautiful Miami penthouse apartment atop the Setai in South Beach is another question. Despite boasting “endless works of art, custom woodwork, unique furnishings, antiques and rooftop terrace [that] this an unrivaled residence for the most distinguished homeowner,” $27 million is a lot of cake for a 6,200-square-foot home with

It’s a Web 2.0 name, but its success hinges on its adoption by traditional media. Meet Jelli, a San Mateo-based startup that’s aiming to put traditional radio listeners in charge of what songs they hear — and making headway toward that end. The company, founded in September 2008, already controls the airwave’s of San Francisco’s […]

VC-backed startup Kwedit is best known for three things: for enabling people to pay for digital goods online through small amounts of virtual credit; for its silly name; and for the viciously funny lambasting it received by Stephen Colbert for both of these things. But Kwedit’s founders and investors have had a bigger ambition for the company almost from the start: to enable at least one-quarter of the U.S. population to make remote cash transactions -- from global remittances to bill paying to catalog shopping to the purchase of virtual goods in social media games. “Basically, if you want to use cash to pay a vendor but can’t hand it to them directly, we’re building a set of services to do that for you,” Shader told me back in March. Apparently, those services are nearly ready. In August, peHUB has learned, the company rolls out PayNearMe. According to its site, the service is targeting “25 percent of American households that don’t have a credit or debit card” along with the “75 percent who do, [but] don’t want to use them online for security, privacy, or budgeting reasons.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taught a class on entrepreneurship and venture capital at Stanford University, but one might wonder whether he did his own due diligence when it comes to TomorrowVentures, a Palo Alto-based venture firm that is regularly cited as Schmidt’s personal investment vehicle. Indeed, a simple Google search suggests that TomorrowVentures’ managing partner, 38-year-old Court Coursey, whose bio cites "numerous successful companies," is more controversial than he might seem at first blush. Not only does his background also include numerous failed startups but at least two lawsuits, including against pop star Michael Jackson.

It’s always been the case that people have a fundamental need to belong -- to feel that they’re valued members of their social group. But social media is having a distorting, disturbing, and possibly lasting impact on the level of that need, say a growing number of psychologists. “In the past, when you were home alone or at work, you weren’t thinking about interacting and shoring up your social status,” says Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford and a social psychologist who specializes in motivation. “Now, any minute of the day, you can be measuring whether you are a viable social partner and whether people want to be in touch with you. You may feel you have to validate your social success around the clock.” Indeed, despite newly released findings by the Pew Research Center -- its fourth “Future of the Internet” survey found that 85 percent of respondents think the Internet has positively impacted their “social world” -- health experts warn that our addiction to social media isn’t positively impacting us. It’s making us incapable of self-regulation.