Gawker: valleywag, iggy fanlo

You're Fired, Er, No You're Not

Owen Thomas — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:55:21 EST

Sequoia Capital, the backer of Apple, Yahoo, and Google, ordered its startups to slash their payrolls this fall. We hear one CEO fired people so enthusiastically he had to retract some of his pink slips.A tipster asks 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.

We're told the startup in question is based in San Francisco, which narrows things down. One guess: AdBrite, the online advertising network founded by FuckedCompany creator Philip Kaplan. Iggy Fanlo, Kaplan's replacement as CEO, is famously inept in HR matters. If it really was Fanlo who pulled this stunt, that makes this tip all the more delicious — since it's exactly the kind of rumor Kaplan would have posted on his site during the last tech shakeout.

Execs flee AdBrite

Owen Thomas — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:20:00 EDT

AdBrite, the online-ad network best known for its quirky founder, FuckedCompany creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan, is hiring an in-house lawyer. This is odd only in that last we heard, the online ad network already had one. Current general counsel Rebecca Eisenberg is just one of several vice presidents leaving the company, according to a tipster. Engineering VP Mike Reaves left in February, a month after HR chief Melissa Vernon. We'd also heard that cofounder Gidon Wise is out the door.

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)

AdBrite CEO wants employees to work 10 hours a day

Owen Thomas — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:58:33 EDT

Philip Kaplan once ran the website InternalMemos.com, a compendium of leaked company missives. Now Valleywag has obtained one from AdBrite, the online-ad network Kaplan founded. AdBrite is now run by CEO Iggy Fanlo, who earns our Silicon Valley Tool award for railing at his employees about their work hours: "I continue to see too few folks here at 9 AM; and too few folks here at 6 PM." Let's leave aside the issue of whether Fanlo is violating California overtime laws; long hours are part of the startup culture. We just want to know if Fanlo has considered that employees might be avoiding the office in order to minimize contact with the company's erratic founder. The full memo, as Kaplan himself would have run it:

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