<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, bill joy]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, bill joy]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/billjoy http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/billjoy <![CDATA[Bill Joy sells $40 million condo to Hugh Jackman at half off]]> Dreamily inventive billionaire Bill Joy, the cofounder of Sun Microsystems, has predicted doom for the human race in the pages of Wired. He has a new reason for pessimism: A Manhattan condo he put on the market for $40 million has reportedly sold to Australian actor Hugh Jackman for $21 million — down from a previously rumored sale price of $25 million. The five-bedroom, three-floor condominium has a view of the Hudson River. We have a theory on why Joy sold, even at such a discounted price.

It's not like he needs the cash. But we don't think Joy, who joined Kleiner Perkins three years ago, as a partner in the once-storied venture-capital firm which funded Amazon.com and Google, among others, has much time to enjoy the place. Kleiner, like much of the venture-capital business, is struggling, especially with its bets on cleantech which have been battered by both the credit crunch and falling oil prices which make alternative energy sources less profitable. Better to unload it at any price — and invest in real estate closer to the office. As for Jackman, we figure the X-Men star simply knows a bargain when he sees one.

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<![CDATA[Doerr pushes Bill Joy on Obama]]> At yesterday's Web 2.0 Summit, Kleiner Perkins whiz John Doerr — a man so successful he can get away with wearing the same three ties for ten years — told attendees that Barack Obama should skip over Googlers Eric Schmidt and Vint Cerf, and instead hire Kleiner Perkins partner and Sun co-founder Bill Joy as his national chief technology officer. Obama's job description was focused more on counter-terrorism intelligence and IT supremacy. Doerr thinks that's misguided: “The most important thing he's got to do is kick-start a huge amount of research and innovation in energy." Energy tech is Doerr's current focus at Kleiner, of course. But it's unclear to me whether Joy is now a leader or a dilettante on the topic. Doerr also suggested the U.S. "staple a green card to the diploma" to keep foreign-born engineering students from going back home after graduation. Throw in a fixed-rate mortgage for gossip bloggers, and I'll endorse the whole package.

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<![CDATA[The future does not need a $40 million condo]]> You too can own a piece of the dystopian future! Bill Joy, the grimfaced Sun Microsystems cofounder who likes to muse on humanity's demise, is putting his $40 million triplex in Manhattan's West Village up for sale. He never even moved in. The future does not need humanity. Nor does a 11,000-sq. ft. condo, apparently.

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<![CDATA[Loose wires: Such, such were the Joys]]>
  • The Sun hosts an exclusive Webchat with Marissa Mayer, Google's Director of Consumer Products. Our first question for the lovely Marissa: Google bitching aside, just how miffed is she that we excluded her from our Web 2.0 Hotties Competition? [The Sun Online]
  • Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy bought a boat, says Fortune. How will Daniel Gross shoehorn this into his Yacht Index? [Fortune, flip to the ToC]
  • By the way, if the Yacht Index can get a Slate writer on national TV, what can the Ponytail Index do? [The Tech Chronicles]
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    <![CDATA[Three Valley moguls dabble in humanity's future]]> singularity-shake.jpgFormer Paypal CEO Peter Thiel recently joined the board of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a transhumanist org seeking to "help ensure a safe Singularity" by ushering in an age of self-aware computers. But he's not the only Valley exec investing in weird dreams of a super-intelligent race. Here are the top three:

    The mogul The futurism venue The dream
    Peter Thiel, former Paypal CEO Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence Robot-boy Haley Joel Osment brings peace and welfare to mankind
    Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Aliens contacted, befriended, acquired in hostile stock takeover
    Bill Joy, Sun Microsystems co-founder "Why the future doesn't need us" (Wired article) If we're lucky, humanity will survive
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