Gawker: valleywag, dfj

Steve Jurvetson is guy you can let your hair down with

Jackson West — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:00:00 EDT

"Omar first introduced me to dub reggae many moons ago, and I still have his 'Omar’s Dub' tapes," writes Draper Fisher Jurvetson VC Steve Jurvetson about his friend pictured here. Have a better caption? The best one will become the new headline. Yesterday's winner: "The first child Google engineered from a 23andMe 'sample kit' waits for its brethren to hatch" by The_Chris2.0.(Photo from Steve Jurvetson)

It's niiice!

Tim Faulkner — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:37:28 EDT

Pay Per Post, the sleazy blog payola network backed by DFJ, continues to try to sell its human side via its web-based reality show RockStartup. This time with the even more human than human outtake reel. It's quaint to see people tripping, or flubbing a line, or ordering too much swag with that VC green. On the other hand, most businesses wouldn't be proud to show their Chief of Sales telling a woman that she "could make a lot of money stripping" or Ted Murphy, the company's founder and CEO, recycling Borat's ubiquitous "It's niiice" when asked about a woman taking off her jacket at their conference. When you are trying to dampen the negative perception of your company, it's probably best to avoid filming, editing, and uploading to the web proof of womanizing behavior. Of course, one would hope that it could be avoided in the first place.

Steve Jurvetson's fallback career

dtweney — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:24:28 EST

Steve Jurvetson, managing director of VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson and early investor in Hotmail, has a rich life. In addition to rocketry, mountain biking, astronomy, and storm-drain spelunking, Jurvetson also finds time to snap the odd photo or two. One of his pictures even made it into Maxim this month. With DFJ's investment in Tagworld on the rocks, and no big hits in Jurvetson's portfolio since the 1999 IPOs of Kana and Interwoven, maybe Steve is glad to know he can fall back on freelance photography if the whole VC thing doesn't work out.

Telstar Logistics: The most fundable company in the Valley

ndouglas — Wed, 03 May 2006 21:07:53 EDT

Telstar Logistics has spread its brand since the 80s to every loading dock, abandoned warehouse campus, and military base it could reach. It's also fake, but when did that stop anyone?

Todd Lappin started Telstar by tricking out a van with pseudo-official insignia in the late 80s so he could illegally park in loading zones. Todd did the same to a new SUV in the 90s, and the idea ballooned. He could drive onto secure lots, park wherever he wanted, and avoid theft or vandalism. Then came the schwag, the photo series of industrial scenes, and most recently, the Model 442 Shareholder Value Generator.

Half the fun is in the caption and notes (including some from big-time VC Steve Jurvetson), which you can see here:

NEW!! IMPROVED!! The Telstar Logistics Shareholder Value Generator [Telstar on Flickr]
About Telstar [Telstar on Flickr]

To-Do this weekend: DevHouse and Startup School

ndouglas — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 21:39:00 EDT

This is the weekend you make your first billion.

Saturday morning: Learn the 12-step plan for leaving the cubicle farm and running a startup at Startup School 2006 (Upcoming).
Saturday night: Write the app the world needs at SuperHappyDevHouseNine (Upcoming).
Sunday: Get some women at this weekend's taco fest (graphically coined by Min Jung Kim), Women 2.0 (Upcoming).
Tuesday: Schmooze with the VCs at Draper Fisher Jurvetson's New Technology Meetup (Upcoming).
Wednesday morning: ???
Thursday: Profit!

Flipmeat roundup: Odeo, Friendster, organic humans

ndouglas — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 10:12:04 EST

Yahoo may buy Odeo. Seems destined, no? [TWiT via Unofficial Yahoo Weblog]
Google may buy Friendster. Main difference between Friendster and Orkut? At least Orkut has Brazilians. [SiliconBeat]
The NYT already bought news aggregator/annotator BlogRunner. So now writing the Times will cost you too. [PaidContent]
Man and machine may merge. Give it 40 years. [KurzweilAI.net]
Draper Fisher Jurvetson is funding Tagworld, another pretty-faced Myspace wannabe. [TechCrunch]

Some implications up there for the Valleywag Flip Trifecta — send in your buyout trifecta before Odeo sells and it's too late!