Google's Chief of Fabulous Opens a Disco — In His Penthouse

We couldn't persuade Orkut Büyükkökten to invite us to his opulent birthday-and-housewarmingparty Saturday, but we won't hold it against him. After all, Google's ambassador to the gay party scene had to fit several billionaires between his new dance poles. More »

Founders Back Away from Scary New Google

It's official: Google's co-founders will relinquish their voting control of the company over the next five years via stock sales, netting $6 billion in the process. Which begs the question: Are they getting bored? More »

Sergey Brin Escalating War Against Chinese Oppression

First Google refused to continue censoring its Chinese search engine. Now the company is helping a Congressman rebuke China's authoritarian regime for human rights violations. It all just confirms that Sergey Brin is by far our favorite top Googler. More »

Google CEO: Secrets Are for Filthy People

Eric Schmidt suggests you alter your scandalous behavior before you complain about his company invading your privacy. That's what the Google CEO told Maria Bartiromo during CNBC's big Google special last night, an extraordinary pronouncement for such a secretive guy. More »

Katie Couric Reveals Who Really Controls the Media

Katie Couric made a list of the "most powerful" people in media for Forbes and they're all... Jews. Kidding, only six of 11 are Jews. The real power belongs to computer nerds. Couric mentioned zero old media people. More »

Did Mrs. Google's Company Curl Into the Googleplex To Die?

For a company with deep support from Google, 23andMe seems awfully beset by problems: Two layoff rounds in five months and the departure of a co-founder. So when we hear the company is "hemorrhaging cash," we're inclined to believe it. More »

Sergey Brin Continues to Butter Up Mother-in-Law

<Google co-founder Sergey Brin knows how to pave the way for a smooth holiday season: Make sure your mother-in-law is invited to speak at a conference of "the nation's top thought leaders," sponsored by your company and some nonprofits. More »

What Gets a Freaky Google Overlord Excited at Night

Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a weird guy. A smart programmer whose ideas lifted humanity, but a weird guy nonetheless. A coder who dislikes coffee. An American who knows virtually nothing about baseball. And then there are his evening jollies. More »

Google Honchos: Our Employees Should Be Grateful They're Not Starving in Gutter

Google used to say its lavish perks bolstered productivity and, if anything, would only grow more posh. But a recession changes things. Now the official line is more like, just be happy you're working, you ungrateful fucking pigs. More »

Google Billionaires Say Happy Days Are Here Again

Good news, jobless poors: The recession is over, according to the billionaire nerds who run Google. Their computers told them so, and now the executives are in New York to spread the word and count their gold bars. More »

MySpace Is For 'Stalking,' Says Owner of MySpace

Media mogul and grumpy old man Rupert Murdoch has developed a "personal antipathy to the Internet," biographer Michael Wolff writes. Murdoch even thinks MySpace, which he himself paid $580 million for, is kind of a criminal piece of garbage: More »

Sergey Brin's a Saint To His Mother-in-Law

Say what you will about Google's propensity for funneling money to a tight, back-scratching coterie of friends; but co-founder Sergey Brin does right by his mother-in-law, which is more than many husbands can say. Witness his new half-million-dollar donation. More »

The Google-Cash-Swapping-Orgy Blimp

Google hasn't been shy about sharing its riches with select friends outside the company. And the number one rule of this tightly-knit group seems to be: spread the love. Which brings us to 23AndMe's new, very incestuous blimp. More »

Google Moves in with Founder's Wife's Company

Google's complicated relationship with its founder's wife just got more tangled. Anne Wojcicki's genetic-testing startup, 23andMe, not only took a second round of funding from the company — it's now cohabitating with the search giant. More »

Jargon from Hell Rides in on Google's Wave

The open secret about Google's forthcoming product "Wave" is that no one knows what the hell it does. Here's the tech gibberish the Guardian used to describe the software after talking to Google co-founder Sergey Brin: More »

Google's New Paranoia

Former Intel chief Andy Grove famously believed that "only the paranoid survive" in Silicon Valley business. Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page seem intent to inject this spirit back into fat, dominant Google. They're even worrying about Bing. More »

Google Mentor Dead in Swimming Pool

Rajeev Motwani, a computer science professor who mentored Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford, was found dead in the pool of his Atherton, California home. He was 47. More »

Valleywag: An Instruction Manual

Dear Ryan:

As I head to NBC to run its Bay Area site, I'm leaving you one Silicon Valley gossip blog, used but in good condition. A few thoughts on how to keep it that way. More »