Connie Loizos

Earlier this week, I reached out to ask several high-profile CEOs the following questions: What about your personal lives is it fair to discuss in an interview, what isn’t, and why. I wanted to know because, as I reported yesterday, in a feature profile with the U.K.’s Sunday Telegraph, LinkedIn’s new CEO refused to answer a number of seemingly harmless personal questions, such as his favorite family vacation spots and his wife’s nationality. I believe that as the head of a popular social networking company that otherwise welcomes press attention, the CEO, Jeff Weiner, needs to do better next time around. Self-made billionaire and basketball impresario Mark Cuban let me know today that he disagrees. Though it’s hard to imagine Cuban himself being tightlipped, he said in an email that “the questions could create security issues depending on what else was discussed. Or [Weiner] may be of the notion that he will never discuss family. Ever.”

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner was recently profiled in the U.K.'s Sunday Telegraph, in a feature that surprised -- not for what Weiner revealed, but for what he didn't. Asked in which country his European-born wife was born, for example, Weiner inexplicably declined to answer. Asked where his family enjoys vacationing, he declined to respond. (I can understand security concerns, but even a country name would have come across as more polite.) Weiner also wouldn’t say what kind of car he drives. The reporter reasoned that “perhaps Weiner's reticence fits in rather well with LinkedIn's business model as ‘a place for serious business people to do serious business.’” I think that’s an overly generous conclusion to draw.

Steven Brill, founder of the company whose "Clear" system allowed members to pass quickly through airport security, has never been a shrinking violet. It should come as no surprise then that Brill is publicly distancing himself from the company's failure, just months after being pushed out by venture capitalists who invested over $50 million. “There are different measures of success,” Brill said in an interview today with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “One is business success. And the other is this: Did you handle yourself in each situation with integrity and were you there to answer questions when it succeeded or it failed? I’m very proud of all of that in my life.”

Earlier today, at the annual weeklong retreat organized by banker Herb Allen in Sun Valley, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters that he’ll soon talk about his role as an Apple board member with Steve Jobs and the rest of his board colleagues. Though some would say that conversation is long overdue, the impetus for […]

Evidently, not everyone is pleased with Facebook’s skyward trajectory or the growing number of employees being hired for the ride. Just days after the company moved from its 18 Soho Square headquarters in London to a bigger office around the corner in Carnaby -- a pedestrian-only district with a dozen streets and nearly 200 retail stores -- complaints are coming in from the Carnaby neighborhood that it’s being overrun by Facebookers. Says Evening Standard columnist Simon Firth in today’s paper: “Who says Facebook is killing off face-to-face social interactions? Only last week, the online network inspired my neighbour Colin to knock on my door. Since Facebook has moved its HQ nearby, it seems, the company's employees have been filling local streets with their cars, making it hard for residents to park.” Colin, apparently, is already leading a petition to restrict parking to residents.

This afternoon, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that his office plans to sue controversial social networking startup Tagged for "deceptive e-mail marketing practices and invasion of privacy." I asked Tagged CEO Greg Tseng for comment; he just sent me the following statement: “Today’s announcement by New York Attorney General Cuomo is disheartening. Identify theft and invasion of privacy are very serious allegations and it is not accurate to portray Tagged, or any other social network, in this regard.

Earlier this afternoon, I had the chance to chat with Faysal Sohail, a managing director of CMEA Capital in San Francisco, which invests in technology, life sciences and energy and materials companies. We talked about CMEA's decision not to keep funding Alien Technology (roughly $300 million raised), why the industry is about to see more “pre-baked” deals (portfolio companies selling at prearranged prices to strategic investors), and whether it’s too late to make nice with the government if you’re still hoping for some of those stimulus dollars. An edited transcript of that conversation follows: You’ve said that in the next few years, you think that the 550 venture capital firms actively investing will drop to 300 or so. That could be pretty drastic. Do you see a downside to the shakeout? I don’t. There’ve been too many companies in the same exact areas getting funding in recent years. I think the shakeout will force entrepreneurs to come up with bigger ideas -- sectors that haven’t been tapped. If an idea has been funded, they’ll find something else. Innovation won’t slow down.

Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz's $300 million VC fund received no shortage of press attention yesterday, with Google showing 420 articles published online alone (including two here at peHUB). Given reader appetite for the story, it isn't surprising that several related articles emerged today. Using the fund as a springboard, the New York Times, for example, published a piece about VCs feeling the need to return to the basics, with Horowitz observing that too many firms base dollar commitments on fund size or number of partners. Another follow-on piece was published by BusinessWeek. It's about the perceived role that superstar VCs like John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Jim Breyer of Accel played in the ability of Andreessen and Horowitz to close on all that money. To wit, the magazine reports that Doerr, Breyer, and Aneel Bhusri of Greylock Partners made numerous introductions to their own LPs on behalf of Andreessen and Horowitz. It goes on to state that in the long tradition of sponsorship in the venture business, such personal introductions translate into more credibility. "Being sponsored is sort of like being a made man in the mob. You are tapped on the shoulder and invited into an elite club.” While true that Andreessen and Horowitz raised their fund with enviable ease -- they began meeting with investors in early March, soon after Andreessen announced his plans to dive into VC on the "Charlie Rose" show --I strongly question whether the other firms' sponsorship should be credited.

If you have time to watch it you may find some use in this panel discussion, which came together in Silicon Valley a couple of weeks ago. The VCs featured — Rory O’ Driscoll, a managing director at Scale Venture Partners; Mike Buckley, a managing director at Intel Capital; Dixon Doll, a general partner and cofounder of […]

From a colleague at Reuters comes news of an interesting study, one that wants to track the world’s wealthiest — who produce most of the greenhouse gases — and base targets on emission cuts based on where they live. By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) – To fairly divide the climate change fight between […]