Gawker
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exits
Google's Still Got a Crush on Flickr, How Cute!
Yahoo has started its latest round of layoffs, which hit its pixel-cute photo-sharing site Flickr, a formerly sacrosanct fiefdom. We hear Google has its eyes on some of the Flickr employees Yahoo let slip. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by twig: This post is a trainwreck; let me count the ways. 1. The conversation is a remarkable non-story. If Sergey... 1 Responses | Other threads
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hires
MySpace Job Is Sweet Revenge for Ex-Facebook Exec
Owen Van Natta, Facebook's former COO, is officially taking over MySpace, News Corp.'s social network. With its user numbers stagnant, MySpace desperately needs a restart. Is Van Natta the guy to do it? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Cheap Shot: I don't know why I haven't killed my MySpace account. It would be great if he rechristened it 'MySpaceBook' just... 2 Responses | Other threads
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hires
Should MySpace Hire the Hero or the Zero?
Former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta is the frontrunner to replace Chris DeWolfe as MySpace CEO. Blog lordling Jason Calacanis has been jokingly nominated for the News Corp. gig. Here's who should get it. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by nirreskeya: Obviously it's possible, but is it common for execs to live in the Bay Area and commute to L.A.? 3 Responses | Other threads
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hires
If Facebook Needs Faux-Documentary Recruiting Videos, It's Already Lost
How do engineers decide which jobs to take in Silicon Valley? It's a complex algorithm involving money, friends, hype, and free food. Nowhere in the equation: slick videos. That's why Facebook's recruiting is failing. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Shamoononon, Vampire Grater - Now SWF: I've always hated places that think the hip new thing for Engineers is open work places where you can see... 4 Responses | Other threads
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confirmed
Google Designer Heads to Way Cooler Job at Twitter
So much for Twitter being a source of real-time news! Nearly three weeks after Valleywag first reported the startup's poaching of top Google designer Doug Bowman, cofounder Biz Stone confirms the hire.
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By Owen ThomasComment by LeftCoastLady: That photo looks like he's getting a "job" alright... 2 Responses | Other threads
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hires
AOL Outcast Jon Miller to Join News Corp.'s Soap Opera in Progress
Rupert Murdoch's media empire continues its turmoil after the announcement of COO Peter Chernin's departure. The newest player: Former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who's widely expected to take the top digital job there. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Miss Anita Manbadly: Are those his legs, or is this some Muppet-like trickery? It looks like they stuck some poles through his... 1 Responses | Other threads
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hires
Obama's Facebook Genius Lands Venture Capital Gig
Chris Hughes, the Facebook cofounder who helped Barack Obama win the election online, has landed a real job, he tells us via Twitter: He's working at General Catalyst Partners as an entrepreneur-in-residence. More » -
exits
AOL Boots Loser CEO for Google's Tim Armstrong
At last, AOL has done something right: The Time Warner Internet unit has hired Google's Tim Armstrong as its new CEO, booting the laughably incompetent duo of CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Nick Denton: Why are you so sure he's the best man for the job? He's no product guy -- and arguably that's... 4 Responses | Other threads
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hires
Twitter Claims Valley Crown by Poaching Google's Top Designer
Twitter, the twee San Francisco messing startup, is all hope, no revenues. That makes it irresistable to Silicon Valley's best and brightest — like Google's top designer, Doug Bowman, whom we hear Twitter just hired. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Andy Johns: Sure, Google isn't flashy. But don't forget that simplicity is design. Google also does as much if not more MVT... 5 Responses | Other threads
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yahoo
Carol Bartz Gets New Yahoo Org Chart Half Right
Yahoo's new CEO Carol Bartz hates leaks, and we love Yahoo org charts, so the fact that we've received her announcement of the new Yahoo corporate structure is some kind of harmonic convergence. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Rock tha Hizzee: How different is the Customer Advocacy group from the Customer Insights group that Sue Decker championed? I mean, seriously. 4 Responses | Other threads
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conflicts of interest
WSJ Conference Organizer's Wife Secretly Running Google
Megan Smith, a Google executive little known outside Silicon Valley, is taking a high-profile role running the search engine's in-house charity. She's part of a power couple whose louder half is AllThingsD blogger Kara Swisher. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by JewelAlthaemenes: I think you are letting her off too lightly. Kara has a massive conflict of interest problem, not only does... 3 Responses | Other threads
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portfolio
Portfolio's Loss Is Political Blog Empire's Gain
Sinking ship Portfolio has one less expensive contract to worry about. Matt Cooper, formerly the D.C. bureau chief of Time, has joined web outfit Talking Points Memo. More » -
field guide
Carol Bartz, the Woman Everyone but Yahoo Forgot
Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz, was at her career peak in 1992. Named CEO of design-software maker Autodesk, she'd beaten cancer, defeated a clique of ornery geeks, and hobnobbed with a president. Where'd she go? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by extra!extra!owentookVAQUERO'sstar★: Hll, wn. Hw r y? 9 Responses | Other threads
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carol bartz
Yahoo CEO's First Job: Fire Her No. 2
Yahoo's board will soon announce it has hired Carol Bartz, a software-industry veteran, to run the troubled Web-media business. The first question: How long before Bartz fires Sue Decker, Yahoo's president? (Update: not long!) More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by giddieup: i think you are giving decker too much credit. that amount of plotting is impossible to scheme by someone like... 1 Responses | Other threads
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sue decker
Yahoo's Depressing Backup Plan
No one wants to buy Yahoo. And the only person who wants to run Yahoo is an insider who helped sink it. Is there any hope left for the beleaguered Web giant? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Beautiful Stranger: Yahoo's impending demise raises an interesting issue which I am sure will delight us all (or at least those of... 7 Responses | Other threads
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Mike Murdock
Disabled vet nominates self for Yahoo CEO
How sad that no one convincing has stepped up to run Yahoo! Pursued then spurned by Microsoft, the company is looking to replace founder Jerry Yang. Mike Murdock, a disabled Navy veteran, has raised his hand. The name sounded familiar.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Churchill: Hire em'. He can't be worse than Yang. That's humanely impossible!! 2 Responses | Other threads
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owen van natta
Ex-Facebook COO takes Project Playlist CEO gig
Be careful what you wish for. Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook COO who left the social network in February, has gotten the CEO job he said he wanted — as the new chief of Project Playlist, an online-music startup. (It's been widely reported that MySpace wooed him to run its MySpace Music spinoff. He also had conversations with social-news site Digg and shopping search engine Nextag, among others.) Van Natta's an investor in Project Playlist, and the company has just announced funding from former AOL CEO Bob Pittman's Pilot Group. But powerful backers won't change the toxic business environment all online-music startups face. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Figaro: Don't you just wish you could short startups? more » | Other threads
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tim cook
Apple's CEO-in-waiting
Some days it seems like Steve Jobs will be CEO of Apple until he dies. But after a bout with pancreatic cancer and a health scare earlier this year, peope are starting the grieving process earlier. Part of that involves playing a guessing game about who will take his place. Fortune convincingly argues that Apple COO Tim Cook is the only real candidate. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by buzzzkilll: This is a clear case of a #2 job being vastly preferable to the #1 job, at which Cook's tenure... more » | Other threads
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hires
Microsoft takes over Yahoo
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang publicly pines for another bid from Microsoft. On stage at the Web 2.0 Summit conference yesterday, he said, again, that he was open to talks. Microsoft has taken pains to say it's not interested. But really, besides corporate raider Carl Icahn, who cares? A new leadership team, all with lengthy Microsoft resumes, has taken over key parts of Yahoo. More » -
corrections
New MySpace Music chief Courtney Holt is a dude, okay?
I feel sorry for Courtney Holt. Partly because the MTV executive is rumored to be taking a terrible job running MySpace Music, a feature of the social network masquerading as a separate company. But mostly because of his name. In a previous article, I was enough of a bonehead to refer to Holt as "she." Trying to do my part to promote the role of women in the tech industry, okay?
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By Owen ThomasComment by PaulaSilo: i've worked with him. he's a total loser. more » | Other threads
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hires
Another MySpace Music CEO candidate stalls on the job
Why is it that Courtney Holt, the MTV executive reportedly offered a job running MySpace Music, has yet to take the CEO position there? Because, like the other candidates, he figured out that running a feature of a website is not a real job. -
hires
Another Microsoftie joins Yahoo's new cult of personality
Heavy.com continues to get lighter; Eric Hadley, who only joined the funny-videos-for-guys startup a year ago as chief marketing officer, has joined Yahoo as its VP of advertiser and partner marketing. He'd previously worked for a decade at Microsoft. We see the hand of Joanne Bradford in this; she's the former MSN chief who now runs ad sales at Yahoo. The pattern here? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by ValleySag: This guy puts the "I" in Incompetent. He's not qualified to do anything really. He is entry-level pr at best.... 1 Responses | Other threads
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tony fadell
iPod's father leaves Apple
Tony Fadell, the head of Apple's iPod division, is exiting Steve Jobs's reality distortion field. While Fake Steve Jobs likes to take credit for inventing the frigging iPod, its real mastermind is Tony Fadell, who took his plans for an MP3 player to Apple in 2001 as a consultant. His replacement: Former IBM chip expert Mark Papermaster, whose erstwhile employer is suing Apple to prevent him from taking a job there. That Papermaster is replacing Fadell makes its lawsuit even stranger; it is seeking to enforce a noncompete clause in his contract, but a job overseeing MP3 players and cell phones hardly seems a competitive threat to IBM. Fadell is planning to take some time off Pity. Since he joined Apple, Fadell's homepage has turned into a placeholder. We were looking forward to the return of the "jazzy, shameless self-promotion" it once offered.
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By Owen ThomasComment by ciscokidinsf: Can someone explain this to me like a 4 year old? Why the IBM guy? Is there like a secret... 1 Responses | Other threads
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hires
Microsoft exec Jeff Dossett really joining Yahoo after all
Mountaineer, philanthropist, and longtime Microsoftie Jeff Dossett has a new claim to fame: He's brave enough to join Yahoo — but it took a while to convince him. Two months ago, Dossett, who joined Microsoft in 1991, went through a curious back-and-forth: BoomTown's Kara Swisher reported he was leaving Microsoft to join Yahoo. A Microsoft rep promptly denied the report, claiming Dossett was leaving a job at the software giant's MSN Web business, but looking at other opportunities within Microsoft. We could speculate about how Microsoft and Yahoo were bidding for Dossett's services, but the real lesson here is: Never, ever believe a Microsoft flack. Dossett replaces Scott Moore, who's leaving Yahoo as reported. -
lawsuits
Apple poaches IBM chip guy Mark Papermaster
Who's Mark Papermaster, the chip guru Apple and IBM are scrapping over? Here's one clue: He's the kind of guy who has no photos online. There used to be a "Mark Papermaster" profile on Facebook, but it's gone. No wonder he wants to disappear: Apple hired Papermaster, formerly a VP at IBM, possibly to run its PA Semi chip-design subsidiary. Apple switched to Intel chips for its Macs years ago, but after it bought PA Semi, speculation grew that it might use some variation on IBM's Power chips for the iPhone and iPod. Papermaster could help with that. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by alexr_vw: A guy named on only one patent isn't much of a "chip guru" if you ask me. He's clearly pure... more » | Other threads
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Robyn Peterson
Ziff-Davis CTO leaves meaningless job for NBC
The latest we're-supposed-to-care chatter from the tipline: "It was just announced yesterday that Ziff-Davis Chief Technology Officer Robyn Peterson is leaving to go to NBC. Ouch!" Ouch? The real ouch is that Ziff-Davis Media, the considerably reduced tech-magazine publisher, was paying someone to be its CTO in the first place. -
hires
Jim Cramer chairman at TheStreet.com
Back when Jim Cramer was an active hedge-fund trader, rather than an on-air fit-thrower for CNBC, he kept his distance from TheStreet.com, lest the site be accused of advancing his portfolio. No such distance now: He's replacing Thomas Clarke as chairman. Clarke remains CEO. [Silicon Alley Insider] -
owen van natta
MySpace Music's fruitless CEO search
Why can't News Corp. find anyone to run MySpace Music, the spinoff from its social network which is part-owned by major labels? No one seems able to state the obvious: MySpace Music is a feature, not a company. The outside investment it garners is just an elaborate way of cutting in the labels on MySpace's music-related profits. No wonder former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta turned down the job; TechCrunch reports that he cleverly tried to get MySpace to buy Project Playlist, a music startup he'd invested in, as part of the deal. Van Natta picked the right test: If MySpace had been willing to fold Project Playlist into MySpace Music, it would have proven that the music venture really had some independence. Any other CEO candidate should ask the same questions Van Natta raised with his quid-pro-quo deal.
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By Owen ThomasComment by nirreskeya: Was Owen planning on moving to LA, or just commuting from the Bay? Both sound terrible to me. more » | Other threads
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ev williams
The guy we always thought was Twitter's CEO now Twitter's CEO
Jack Dorsey, a programmer who's famous South of Market, is stepping down as Twitter's CEO. Why? Ev Williams, who's taking over, has a long, involved explanation about changing times and changing roles, and how Twitter was spun off from this loser podcasting startup he hated working on, and that's where he met Dorsey, who came up with the idea for Twitter as an in-house communications tool. Boring! What he really means: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by fredwilson: owen, i know Valleywag is supposed to be snarky but to call Jack "some software engineer" is ridiculous. he came... 1 Responses | Other threads
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jeff hammerbacher
Bear Stearns, Facebook escapee set to inflate open-source bubble
A quartet of Valley veterans has started Cloudera. They're pitching it as "Red Hat for Hadoop." Hadoop is an open-source implementation of Google's MapReduce infrastructure software, supposedly useful for Internet-computing projects. Cloudera plans to offer technical support for Hadoop. And yet here I thought the whole point of cloud computing was that someone else ran Hadoop so you didn't have to. Whatever! I'm confident that the founders of Cloudera will make tons of money, if only for this reason: Its data guru, Jeff Hammerbacher, worked on credit derivatives at Bear Stearns before he left and joined Facebook. He joined the social network in time for its notional value to soar to $15 billion. Cloudera's business looks questionable, but I trust Hammerbacher's ability to convince someone else that he's built something so vast and complicated that they buy it before they figure out what it's really worth. (Photo by jakob) More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by michaellamb: was that dude walking backwards in a windtunnel? 1 Responses | Other threads
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hires
MySpace brings in Yahoo veteran
As Yahoo tries to catch up to Google in automated advertising, it continues to lose the human capital now-departed managers like Wenda Harris Millard so carefully built. The latest defection: Valeh Vakili, an eight-year veteran of the portal's salesforce, who has joined MySpace as a senior vice president in charge of sales strategy, based in New York, the heart of the ad business. The Valley's algorithmists scoff at MySpace's naive "hypertargeting" ad strategy, which lumps users into broad groups (sports fans, for example). And yet those very simple labels are very easy to explain to the very simple people who buy large amounts of advertising. True, MySpace has struggled to meet its revenue targets. But for anyone who believes that people still have a role in the buying and selling of ads, it's a better place to be than Yahoo. -
hires
Mevio, née Podshow, replaces cofounder with new CEO
As they say in fashion: One day you are in, and the next day, you are out. And the same is true even for podcasting startups long after podcasting went out of style. Ron Bloom, cofounder of then Podshow, now Mevio, just touted the rollout of a site redesign on Monday. Now a tipster tells us that Bloom has been replaced as chief executive by Jeff Karp, the SVP of marketing at video game publisher Electronic Arts. The company received $15 million more in funding in July for a total of $23.5 million. The new site has rolled out "channels" of entertainment and other programming, but one look at the trend on Compete shows you all you need to know about the startup's prospects even after the name change. -
jeff leeds
New York Times music reporter resurfaces at Buzznet
New York Times music reporter Jeff Leeds, who had reported on stories such as Apple's behind-the-scenes fight with Universal last year, was given the newspaper's version of a layoff — a "buyout" — earlier this year. Leeds is now editor-in-chief of Buzznet, the music community site that also bought Idolator from Valleywag publisher Gawker Media. What we'll find out in the next few weeks: Can Leeds get the same kind of well-placed sources to talk to him now that he doesn't have the Times backing him up? Here's the full press release: More » -
hires
Marc Andreessen joins eBay's board, will crush you
Marc Andreessen has been invited to join the board at eBay. The online auction company has been struggling of late, never mind CEO John Donahoe's assertion that what's bad for the American economy is good for eBay. Andreessen, probably smelling the stink blowing in from the rising tide, stockpiled enough venture capital to last Ning through a "nuclear winter." Proving his acumen at swindling investors if nothing else — and he does know how to keep employees overworked between stints at eager, young startups like Netscape and Ning and layoff-happy AOL. [San Jose Mercury News]
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By Jackson WestComment by ResearchZilla: dude, it just hit me: marc is the chubby and nerdy twin of corgan (smashing pumpkins) but in his zwan... more » | Other threads
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hires
Microsoft reshuffles search again
Yusuf Mehdi, a longtime Microsoft dealmaker (read: geek who looks good in a tie), is now running marketing and product management for MSN and search. But there's still no one in charge of Microsoft's entire portfolio of Web businesses. [BoomTown]
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By Owen ThomasComment by SnarkyDude: He is certainly a nice guy but what business on the planet would look at the MSN numbers posted on... more » | Other threads
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Ted Ullyot
Facebook hires Alberto Gonzales's former chief of staff
Accused of permitting unwarranted spying on citizens, torture, helping to blow a CIA agent's cover and firing non-political appointees for political reasons, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left the White House shrouded in ignominy. Facebook just hired his former right-hand man, Ted Ullyot, as its general counsel. The privacy advocates who plagued Facebook during its Beacon controversy might not be pleased, but Washington insider and top Facebook flack Elliot Schrage is giddy. "He has an extraordinary combination of private legal practice and public sector experience. So many of the legal issues we face touch on both of those arenas,” Schrage told the Los Angeles Times. “Ted's arrival really demonstrates we're a little more grown-up.” Ullyot's impressive resume: More »
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Comment by markathitakis: Gonzales is spelled with an "s" at the end. "S" as in "slimy, loyalty-testing, publicly shamed Attorney General." 2 Responses | Other threads
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danah boyd
Microsoft hires social network wonk, lets her keep her Mac
The 2.0 crowd's favorite social media academic, Danah Boyd — she types it as "danah boyd" because it looks prettier — is going over to Microsoft's newest research team in Boston (read: Harvard and MIT.) She's already done research at both Yahoo and Google, so the move makes sense. Even though Boyd once likened Microsoft to Germany: More »
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Comment by bjs: I don't think the ecstasy is as good in Boston. What is she going to do? 1 Responses | Other threads
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hires
You don't have to be crazy to join Yahoo right now — it just helps
Earlier this year, MSN exec Jeff Dossett climbed to the summit of Mount Everest in order to bring attention to the problem of AIDS and HIV in Africa. But now he's doing something really crazy. Dossett quit Microsoft last week and likely plans to join Yahoo, BoomTown reports. BoomTown's Kara Swisher notes that Dossett might be going because he's an old friend of fellow ex-Microsoft exec and new Yahoo exec Joanne Bradford. It's unclear what Dossett will do at Yahoo. At MSN, Dossett's job description labeled him as "the lead for audience, content and programming strategy and execution in the U.S," but apparently that was just his latest gig in a long line of online sales and strategy positions.Update: Dossett is not actually leaving Microsoft at all, Valleywag has now learned. That'd be crazy.
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Comment by Ted Dziuba: "Jeff Dossett climbed to the summit of Mount Everest in order to bring attention to the problem of AIDS and... 1 Responses | Other threads
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david hirsch
"Useless" ex-Google sales guy turns venture capitalist
David Hirsch, a former Googler who has just joined a venture-capital firm as a partner after an eight-month-long job search, has one provable talent: Excellent timing. Hirsch joined Google in 2000, and spent eight years at the company. But a former colleague tells us Hirsch was "useless." Google's touchy-feely management were too confrontation-averse to actually fire him; instead, Hirsch was demoted twice and eventually moved to a recruiting job in HR, where he worked for the last two and a half years of his so-called career at Google, accourding to our source. Unqualified even for a sales job? Sounds like most venture capitalists we know.
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By Owen ThomasComment by joebob2: Ha! Are you seriously implying google is not a mediocre place for slackers to work? 1 Responses | Other threads
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caroline waxler
Henry Blodget taps Forbes survivor to edit tabloid business-news site
Does Henry Blodget, the disgraced former Wall Street stock analyst, have a Forbes fetish? We ask because his latest hire, Caroline Waxler, has the business fortnightly on her resume — as does soon-to-depart Blodget employee Peter Kafka. Blodget, best known for his Silicon Alley Insider site, seems to fancy himself a business-blog mogul, running two other sites — Clusterstock and the Business Sheet. Waxler will edit the latter which, in a refreshing piece of honesty, explains, "We’re still in beta, which means we still suck." More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by EastCoastNinja: Owen- I thought that after doing a bunch of derivative articles using Alley Insider news over the last six months, you... 1 Responses | Other threads
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