Email Details Secret Google-Apple Deal on Employees

Silicon Valley businessmen fancy themselves unflinching hard-core capitalists. Yet they hate to compete for workers — and the New York Times found an email to prove it. More »

Were Valley Immigrants Traded Like Property? Feds Wonder

Tech giants have long sought more work visas, saying they enrich immigrants. But a reported Justice Department investigation raises the possibility Google, Apple and Yahoo, among others, colluded to hold down wages. More »

Genentech laughs off $43.7 billion buyout offer

You're forgiven if you don't know there's a company a few miles north of Google that pulls in more than $10 billion a year selling drugs. Genentech makes the cancer treatment Avastin, the arthritis and lymphoma drug Rituxan, and the breast cancer fighter Herceptin, each of which bring in a few billion a year. Its stock, which trades under the symbol DNA, nearly touched $100 a share yesterday, a three-year high. Market cap is just over $100 billion, not far behind Google's $118 billion. Once you know all that, it's not surprising that the company nixed a buyout offer from Roche, its majority shareholder. San Francisco's bid to become the world's biotech center is moving more slowly than planned, but just you wait another ten years. These little drug companies are going to get a lot bigger.

Will Art Levinson leave Genentech after a Roche takeover?

South of the City and hard by the shores of San Francisco Bay, Genentech rarely attracts the attention of the founders of flashy Internet startups as they drive past its offices on the way to the airport. But the biotech company's longtime CEO, Art Levinson, is an integral part of the Silicon Valley scene, serving on the boards of both Google and Apple. That's why Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche's move to buy the 44 percent of Genentech it doesn't already own for a price north of $38 billion could have reverbations well beyond the world of automated pipetting systems. More »