Gawker: valleywag, idealab

To-Do tonight: See embarrassing pre-production Pixar sketches

Nick Douglas — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:50:43 EDT

Startupper Kevin Burton's so proud of launching Version 2 of his Tailrank news aggregation site that he'll let you buy yourself a drink. Join him (and his core crew of cynical Web 2.0ers) at 21st Amendment, 7 pm. RSVP to burtonator at gmail.
Should someone be proud of holding "a slew of interim CEO gigs" at the 90s startup incubator idealab? (Hint: No.) Go heckle Bill Trenchard ($15 in Palo Alto at 6:30) as he shares the lessons learned as a serial entrepreneur. [Upcoming]
Oh sweet! Pixar talks about the making of Cars at San Fran's Academy of Art, just $9-12 for the public. [Upcoming]

Remainders: A healthy career in Chinese gold farming

ndouglas — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 01:27:45 EST

Now playing World of Warcraft can get you a job. Thrilling, really, to discover that a game played by destroying arbitrarily assigned enemies ad infinitum, rising up a ladder until reaching a disappointing top that isn't a top at all, commiserating with socially inept addicts with little life outside the computer, could prepare you for tech work. No, seriously, I am shocked at this news. [Wired]
It's funny 'cause it's petty: Just as Microsoft pushes Vista to 2007 and shuffles the whole Live department, MSN goes down for an hour. [Threadwatch]
AT&T doesn't really want to break your Internet. Sure, that's what it says while it's sober. [ZDNet]
Google Finance doesn't just disappoint Yahoo blogger (and "Expert Author") Jeremy Zawodny, it makes him sad. Jeremy comes this close to naming the folks who let Yahoo Finance rot, then praises the product manager in charge of Google Finance. "Not speaking for my employer" indeed. [WebProNews]
Idealab shareholders agree to pay founder Bill Gross's $50 million loan. And now he can't have that puppy he asked for, because that was the agreement about responsibility, Bill, and for now you can only keep your goldfish. [LA Times]
Songbird plays a good game of gotcha. Steve Jobs in 2002: "If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own." France fighting iTunes in 2006: "The consumer must be able to listen to the music they have bought on no matter what platform." Oh, they couldn't mean it the way he did, they're just the French. [Songbird]

Vindicated: Bill Gross still broke

ndouglas — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:39:04 EST

Idealab CEO Bill Gross scored board approval to make shareholders take over his $50 million personal loan. If shareholders approve, Bill will pay back the cash over the next four years (or find a new sucker to buy the loan). The jet's sold, the Ferrari's sold, but Bill must have some tchotchkes left to make a $50-mil yard sale.

By the way, congrats to the L.A. Times for catching up to Valleywag's March 7 post.

Slope-shouldered photo source: David Strick [davidstrick.com]
Downsized and in Debt, Idealab Chief Still Pitching [LAT]

Is Bill Gross broke again?

ndouglas — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:25:52 EST

Another would-be Valleywagger does our job for us, with a report that Bill Gross, CEO of Pasadena business incubator Idealab, is still paying for his sins during the dot-com bubble — or, well, his shareholders are.

Is Bill Gross broke again? Gross and Idealab became the icon for the internet bubble riding the crest up and then way down, ultimately resulting in a billion dollar lawsuit in 2000 by shareholders who claimed misuse of funds and other improprieties by Gross. The hangover from that time is apparently not over.

Shareholders of Idealab last week received a Proxy from the Idealab Board of Directors asking them to approve Idealab buying out Bill Gross $50M loan from Bank of America. Gross apparently borrowed the money in 1999 to fund his lifestyle, including buying a house, a plane and Idealab stock. Now according to the Proxy he can t afford to pay it back.

You might ask how the Idealab BOD throws common sense and accepted corporate governance out the window in proposing such a transaction. The justification given in the Proxy centers around the claim of Gross invaluable and irreplaceable ideas and business leadership.

Kind of humorous when coupled with the fact that Idealab raised over a billion dollars and now according to the Proxy is worth only about $300M. That is quite a negative IRR.

And rumors from VC s and entrepreneurs in Idealab companies persist of how difficult Bill and his wife Marcia, who happens to be President of Idealab, are to work with. The most common used phrase is family run business , and it s not used in the kindest sense. Also insiders say that due to the financial distress Idealab won t be incubating any new companies until they can get some liquidity events to pay off Bill s debt.

Photo: David Strick Photography [DavidStrick.com]