Gawker: valleywag, etsy

New York Times discovers a venture capitalist

Owen Thomas — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Fred Wilson's venture-capital firm, the paper of record tells us, "has built its portfolio making small bets on young companies." That is an excellent definition of early-stage venture capital. But is Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, to be congratulated with a glowing New York Times profile merely for doing his job? Apparently so. The real thing that distinguishes Wilson from his peers are not his practices or his profits; it is his prolixity. Wilson writes a blog read by some 25,000 people a month. Newspaper reporters can relate to him as a wordsmith rather than a financier. Also, he is in New York, which makes him geographically convenient for the media capital. The news event which prompted this profile?

Wilson gave a speech last week in Manhattan. In other words, there was no reason to run the story. What's really going on? Wilson himself explains: The Times had this piece in the works for weeks. My theory: Editors there felt it needed to run soon, before the sector Wilson favors — hipsterish Web startups like Twitter and Etsy — suffered some embarrassing disaster.

(Photo by Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)

And in the end the stock you take is equal to the mess you make

Owen Thomas — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:00:00 EDT

How many ex-Yahoo managers does it take to reproduce a classic Beatles album cover? From left to right: Salim Ismail, Chad Dickerson, Scott Gatz, and Bradley Horowitz. All four were, at some point, responsible for parts of Yahoo's advanced-products group, including the Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco. The band reunited last night at the 21st Amendment bar in San Francisco's South of Market district to bid Dickerson farewell; he is leaving Yahoo to become CTO of Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for hipster-friendly handicrafts one must nod politely about. Ismail is attending to Confabb, the startup he failed to sell before joining Yahoo; Gatz is now running GayCities, a queer-travel website; and Horowitz is now at Google. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments The winner will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: Naughty Jason L. Baptiste, for "One bubble Pete Cashmore would like to pop."

Yahoo Brickhouse head to leave, again

Owen Thomas — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Chad Dickerson, who has been responsible for Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator since December, is leaving the company to be CTO at Etsy, an online handicrafts retailer. We hear Google, where former boss Bradley Horowitz now works, had been heavily recruiting Dickerson. With this move, Dickerson has deftly dissed both Web giants. Well done, Chad! [TechCrunch]

Will Flickr cofounders make a run for the border, or head for the Big Apple?

Jackson West — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Now that Caterina Fake has left Yahoo and Stewart Butterfield has tendered his abstract resignation letter, what will the widely beloved Flickr cofounders do? And where will they go? Brendon Wilson, who worked in the Valley himself before returning to his native Canada, pointed us to an effort by a group of geeks to convince Fake and Butterfield to come back to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Flickr was launched. The welcome wagon even turned out a video slideshow of Flickr photos to remind the couple just how beautiful the city can be. Look, a rainbow! And it may just be working — last night, Butterfield added himself to the Bring Stewart and Caterina Home! group on Facebook. Fake may have other plans, though.

She was recently spotted in New York's startup-laden Flatiron and Chelsea neighborhoods, making the rounds. New York VC Fred Wilsion is an unabashed fan, and the two have already invested alongside his Union Square Ventures in Etsy. Might the pair break hearts in both San Francisco and Vancouver by moving to Manhattan instead? As for New York, all I can say is been there, done that. Head back to Canada for Sonnet's sake, guys. American citizenship ain't what it used to be.

Rank tech's 10 best workspaces

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:00:00 EDT

After reviewing our post "Tech's top 10 workspaces" commenter Dweezil complained that our choices were full of "to much modernism bullshit." Commenter Web2PointOhShit tore at everybody:

Six Apart's offices seem pretty ordinary to me. Their meeting space is *tiny*. Googleplex's niceties are all about enticing their workers to stay at work longer — yeah, that's real HAWT!. Valleywag offices look like a dump to me.

So, OK, not everybody goes for our taste in brick, exposed ceilings and Googley amenities. Let's find out who's in the minority. Below, vote for your favorites and help us rank tech's 10 best workspaces.

Click on each company name for its full galleries.

Tech's top 10 workspaces

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:00:00 EDT

What makes for an appealing workspace? The envelopes they leave in your mailbox every two weeks. But after that, it comes down to design and amenities. Also, we like windows and brick. Lots and lots of brick. After spending some time on Office Snapshots, we present the ten best-looking offices in tech, below.

Etsy

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:55:00 EDT

Etsy founder Rob Kalin's BFF Martha Stewart would never approve of this workplace. It's much too unkempt. But we do, for its handmade feel and the huge window onto Brooklyn. Photos by Amit Gupta and mmmfiber

Arts-and-crafts startup Etsy humiliates new COO with cutesy video

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:40:00 EDT

Meet Maria Thomas, arts and crafts auction site Etsy's new COO. "Why the heck am I COO?" Thomas asks in a video (embedded below). Her answer: She ran Amazon.com's camera business, back when the site still had navigational tabs. The Brooklyn-based Etsy is already profitable. We're hoping it gets really big, goes public, and catches the eye of New York's insular media. Because we can't wait for the SNL parody of clips like this one:

Martha Stewart eyeing Etsy for acquisition?

Nicholas Carlson — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:29:44 EDT

Besides hosting Etsy cofounder Rob Kalin on her TV show, we hear Martha Stewart has been "cozying up" to Kalin off camera to talk about a partnership and — a source connected to Etsy employees tells us — a possible acquisition. On Etsy, members buy and sell only handmade goods, an idea almost as suited to Martha Stewart's audience as Kalin himself. Check out the above video taken just after Kalin finished a recent segment on Stewart's show and try tell us the her demographic won't ache for more of Kalin's handcraft. It's too bad for them we doubt Etsy investors are ready to sell.

Etsy and Kalin just closed a $27 million funding round on January 31 and it's unlikely investors would be ready to flip so soon — especially considering that two Etsy investors, Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake and delicious founder Josh Schachter, were burned selling to Yahoo months too soon. "I don't think either would say "Oh, flipping to Yahoo when i did was awesome!," a source familiar with their thinking tells us.

NASA does not plan to send Etsy arts-and-crafts sellers into space

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:00:00 EDT

At the PSFK Conference in New York earlier today, NASA and auction site Etsy joined to invite the craftsmen who sell their goods on Etsy to compete to see who could make the best NASA-themed handmade good. "We'll send the two winners into space," Etsy founder Robert Kalin told the crowd. The crowd, along with News.com's Caroline McCarthy, took him at his word. Visions of a ride on Virgin Galactic took hold. Only to be dissolved. Because sadly, it turns out Etsy will not send any two people into space, but only their prize-winning goods. (Photo by pingnews.com)

Is Etsy the next eBay? — the 1-word version

Owen Thomas — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:40:40 EST

Little-read blogger Bernard Lunn writes 978 words exploring the ramifications of Etsy, a website which sells handmade goods and recently raised $27 million. It's a deep, dense piece, contemplating Etsy as part of a "much broader economic shift" that heralds "the rise of mass customization." But it doesn't answer the question posed in the headline: Is Etsy the next eBay? Let us explore this lofty concept:

No.

Yahoo angels buy into Etsy.com

Nick Douglas — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 20:20:49 EDT

Online boutique Etsy — think of it as a hipper eBay for handmades — would be just another dot-com, except for the familiarity of its funders. VC Fred Wilson names the Etsy angel investors:

This round was put together by Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, founders of Flickr, and includes Joshua Schachter, the founder of Delicious, and Albert Wenger, the former President of Delicious. These four people have been advising Rob and his colleagues for the past year...

Caterina and Stewart sold Flickr to Yahoo for a rumored $15 to $35 million, and Joshua sold Del.icio.us for somewhere in that range. So what are these mini-millionaires thinking? All but Albert are still in charge of their companies, so it's doubtful they want seats on Etsy's board — too messy, they'd rather just "advise." Maybe these Yahoos hope to adopt another dot-com into the Yahoo Web 2.0 family.

Etsy [Union Square Ventures]