Facebook Haters Reach a Million Strong

More than a million Facebook users have voted against Facebook's latest redesign, which displays an unreadable spew of friends' status updates on the homepage. A flack says the company is "listening carefully." Yeah, right! More »

Why Facebook is foundering

The great hope of the Valley, the startup everyone thought was the next Google, the company whose IPO might restart the stock-market gold rush for everyone, is not well. Why? Look to its founder. Mark Zuckerberg is mismanaging his creation's transition to greatness. In Facebook's own parlance, the company's plight is "complicated." It will take in $300 million to $350 million in revenue this year, thanks in part to a lucrative ad deal with Microsoft. But its $15 billion valuation is premised on a far brighter future — a future that may never materialize. The biggest symptom of Facebook's ailment is the flight of technical talent. In the Valley, success attracts smart people, who attract other smart people. Yes, they're after money, too, but having brilliant coworkers counts for a lot. These great minds bond and form, yes, a sort of social network of their own. When they leave, the network frays, weakening the company's ability to attract new talent. More »

Leave Sheryl Sandberg alone!

The best thing Valleywag ever did for Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was to call her a liar. That's just not done in the genteel office parks of Silicon Valley. It garnered the embattled executive a much-needed wave of sympathy within her company, on which she's now planning to capitalize. More »

Sheryl Sandberg's reign of terror

Facebook's COO is tearing down the temple. That's the only conclusion I can reach after witnessing the Sheryl Sandberg's management of the Palo Alto-based social network. What I hear from inside Facebook: She demands total loyalty, and brooks no dissent — even the healthy, boisterous debate that's common to startups. You're either with Sheryl, or you're against Sheryl. And if you're against Sheryl, you're not long for Facebook. What's really frightening is how she effortlessly cajoles lies from her underlings. Note how Matt Cohler and Ben Ling exited the company singing her praises — despite what the talented executives were telling confidants in private about Sandberg. There's a simple explanation for that: She bought them off, with still-valuable Facebook stock. More »

Yet another hoodie-wearing Harvard kid drops out of Facebook

Following fellow early Facebook employees CTO Adam D'Angelo and VP Matt Cohler, Facebook's head of data and analytics Jeff Hammerbacher will leave the company. Cohler left for a prestigious partnership at VC firm Benchmark Capital. D'Angelo left — or was encouraged to leave — in order to find a project more suited to his interests. VentureBeat, which broke the Hammerbacher news, doesn't know why he's going. One thing all the departures have in common: They've come after COO Sheryl Sandberg's arrival. "Scaling up is hard and it's not as much fun not to know everyone you work with," she told employees when she joined the company. We're wondering if it won't be harder for Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg than he might think — what will he do without all his friends? More »

Venture capital remains dominated by white men

Shall we all pretend to be shocked by a new study that shows that the venture-capital industry is overwhelmingly — no, disgustingly white and male? A National Venture Capital Association survey found that 88 percent of general partners — the people who can actually greenlight an investment at a firm — are white, and 86 percent are male. On the VC blog Private Equity Hub, Alex Haislip takes hope, noting that the junior ranks of VC firms are more diverse — and that some less lily-white firms have delivered good returns lately. Greed and the relentless herd-following instinct should take care of the industry's inequities, he seems to argue. Good luck with that! More »

Matt Cohler, another member of Mark Zuckerberg's braintrust, leaves Facebook

Facebook's vice president of product management, is reportedly leaving the company to join Benchmark Capital. Two possible interpretations leap to mind: Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook COO recently hired away from Google, is pushing out, one by one, the executives closest to Zuckerberg, leaving him increasingly isolated. Or Zuckerberg, loathe to give up control over Facebook as a product, is doing it himself. Update: Cohler is joining the VC firm as a general partner, not an entrepreneur-in-residence, as we'd first reported — a considerably more prestigious role, where he'll be investing money in startups himself, rather than waiting to get funded. He'll stay tied to Facebook a "special advisor" to Zuckerberg — which suggests that any falling-out was not with the Facebook CEO. Cohler, for his part, tells Swisher he got along well with Sandberg, and helped recruit her to the firm.

Mark Zuckerberg SXSW keynote

AUSTIN, TX — 1:53 p.m. Central Time: Facebook PR director Brandee Barker gave me this exclusive scoop: CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who's due to take the stage for his SXSW Interactive keynote in minutes, is not wearing his famous Adidas flip-flops. In other news, Julia Allison just chewed me out and then gave me a granola bar. Daft Punk is playing on the sound system. More »

Mark Zuckerberg demotes his No. 2 exec

Founders never share power willingly, gracefully, or for very long. That's a lesson that Facebook's Owen Van Natta should have learned at the knee of Jeff Bezos, when Van Natta was an executive at Amazon.com. Instead, though, he's been schooled in it by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who just demoted Van Natta from COO to chief revenue officer and VP of operations, Kara Swisher reports on AllThingsD. Zuckerberg's former No. 2, once trusted to attend the Sun Valley media-mogul conference in his stead, now shares key duties with a host of other executives. Here's a rundown on Van Natta's new rivals. More »