Instead, he's starting a new site, Kaplan index, which promises to help people "get recognized for your skills in 2009," which, as TechCrunch's Michael Arrington notes, sounds like a boring jobs site.

Kaplan strongly considered relaunching FuckedCompany, even approaching former Valleywag editor Nick Douglas to run the site. "i really wanted it too," Douglas told me by IM. "A new shot at calling out the bad guys, this time with more grace and fewer civilian casualties. [I] wanted to prove I've learned a lot since my rocky tenure at Valleywag."

Too bad for Douglas, and a pity for fans, who must make do with pale imitiations. But understandable for Kaplan, who lived in New York when his site viciously savaged the Valley's failing startups after the dotcom bubble burst in 2000. He now lives in San Francisco and has founded a startup of his own, AdBrite, an online-advertising firm whose troubles would make good fodder for a revived FuckedCompany. He's engaged, too, to a do-gooding lawyer. A happy insider makes for a poor chronicler of disaster. But it's disappointing to see a one-time prince of derisive darkness turn to the light.

(Photo by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us)

Which startup laid off some folks recently, but had planned to make much deeper cuts? They went as far as having their outsourced HR firm send out final paperwork and checks to a number of employees — and then changed their mind. The CEO was so spacey he wasn't sure who got sent the paperwork. So he sent an email out to the entire company saying, "Please ignore any package and letter you might get from our HR firm - you're not fired." Ouch.

Kaplan, best known for founding FuckedCompany, the scathing tabloid tipsheet of the first dotcom bubble's bursting, proposed to his longtime girlfriend Ilona Turner. I'm guessing, from his Twitters, that he did the deed in Paris — how romantic! (She said yes.) He was in Paris to attend a money-wasting tech conference, though, which rather kills the romance of it.

Turner is not a techie; instead, she's a staff attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. (Full disclosure: I met Turner at a fundraiser she, Kaplan, and I hosted to fight the passage of Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban.)

Of course, for those who know Kaplan from his New York days, it's not surprising that he's not adhering to the Valley's strict social mores. Back when he ran FuckedCompany, he prided himself on his outsider status. He's more of an insider these days, as the founder of AdBrite, a turmoil-racked online-advertising startup. But in a world where people only date within a small circle — preferably people who can do them a favor — it's refreshing, shocking almost, to see that love can prosper even when it's not on the same payroll.

(Photo via Mobog)

Internet advertising rose 20 percent in the second quarter, but a disproportionate amount of those gains went to Google search, which is like a more profitable version of the Yellow Pages — companies have to pay each time customers look them up. Ad networks like AdBrite primarily sell display advertising, which might not seem nearly so crucial during tough economic time — and the text ads they do sell don't have Google's massive data-crunching algorithms behind them. (Photo by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us)

Our source speculates that Paul Levine and Jim Benton may be next to go. The tipster suggests that AdBrite CEO Iggy Fanlo is replacing Benton with a yet-to-be-hired SVP of sales.

This strikes us more than the usual amount of startup churn; when there's money to be made, Valley executives make a habit of sticking around for the payday. There's talk of an AdBrite IPO, but the enthusiasm for online ad networks on Madison Avenue and Wall Street is cooling fast.

(Photo by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us)

Given that, is it any surprise Levine might be ready to bolt? From what we've heard of his achievements at Yahoo, he would make a fine CEO for an events-listing startup like Zvents — but perhaps the moments not quite right. It makes sense for Levine to keep his career options open while his AdBrite options vest. (Photo by James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media)

From: Iggy Fanlo To: AdBrite Subject: work hours

I hesitated sending this email for quite some time and had hoped that through your direct managers I would see some improvement. Having said that, I continue to see too few folks here at 9 AM; and too few folks here at 6 PM. I don't care if you are a morning person or a night person; if you want to work 10-8 pm or 8-6 pm, but I fully expect each one of you to put in 9-10 hours per working day. This is still a startup and we need more passion, time and energy from each of our employees than a large company would require. If we succeed, the rewards, both psychic and financial, will be great. But for that, we ask you to give more than the typical 9-5 job.

I respect each and every one of you as professionals, and I would be VERY sad if I/we ever had to keep track of working hours for our employees, but I need each of you to think about your commitment and whether it is strong enough. Again, I want to repeat; for the vast majority of you, this is just an FYI and you should be content in the knowledge that I care about you and don't want you struggling alone long into the night. Those that work hard deserve more from their peers. It's my job to make sure that we fight as a team; we are only as strong as our weakest link.

Ignacio "Iggy" Fanlo
AdBrite
CEO
iggy@adbrite.com

AdBrite is keeping the network's current customers, and, yes, moving them to BlackLabelAds. Which means, as of December 1, AdBrite will officially be in the porn business. AdBrite serves 678 million impressions on its regular network and 267 million impressions on AVNads.com, which means porn ads make up roughly 28 percent of AdBrite's business. That may decrease, of course, if AVN is successful at luring away customers. (AdBrite founder Philip Kaplan has not yet responded to a request for comment, but I'll update the item when he does.)

From the tone of AVN's press release about the split, it seems like the squabbling pair has someone else to blame for their troubles: 365 Main, the troubled datacenter in San Francisco whose backup power system failed during a July power outage. AdBrite's ad servers were among those brought down. AVN goes on at length about its plans to host its network in multiple datacenters, with 24/7 monitoring. One wonders: If 365 Main's failures led, ultimately, to the demise of this relationship, would AdBrite and AVN have a claim for lost revenues?

"He would have been welcome," says Conde Nast's Kourosh Karimkhany of Swartz. "But I don't think he could have come to the bar. He just turned 20." What is it with big media and their unseemly interest in barely-legal entrepreneurs?

Of drinking age — and deserving of a pint — is cofounder Chris Slowe. Dr. Slowe, that is. Besides the one-year anniversary of the acquisition, he's also celebrating his recently awarded Ph.D. Before I get to hear about his thesis, Leah Culver shows up. The Pownce engineer is bubbly as ever, but she has some bad news — she and Google engineer Brad Fitzpatrick have broken up. (More on that later.)

The evening is capped off, though, with an appearance by Frank Chu, the famous "12,000 Galaxies" signholder of downtown San Francisco. Now he's up to 725,000 galaxies, whatever that means. On that absurd note, I make my exit. Impressive, perhaps, that Reddit has maintained something of its startup vibe a year after its acquisition. Less impressive that free beer, on Conde Nast's tab, is what it took to spur a big geek turnout.

Rumors reaching Valleywag from adult-industry sources indicate that Lehman Brothers was weighing a large investment in AdBrite — as much as 10 percent of the company — but decided to pass. That's a heavy blow for both AdBrite and its lead VC investor, Sequoia Capital, which frequently partners with Lehman. The reason for Lehman's cold feet? Apparently, AdBrite's involvement in the porn business was larger than bankers there had been led to believe — a fact that may have been uncovered during AdBrite's recent audit.