Gawker: valleywag, sean+parker

First Pic of Justin Timberlake as Facebook President

Ryan Tate — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:12:36 EST

It's always been tough to imagine Justin Timberlake fitting into a movie about the geeky origins of Facebook, even if he was slated to play hard-partying advisor and "founding president" Sean Parker. That mental struggle is over.

Pacific Coast News has snapped a picture of Timberlake on the set of The Social Network, the Facebook flick also staring Jesse Eisenberg as co-founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield as spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin. We've put the shot, above, next to a Jan. 2009 Getty picture of real-life Sean Parker. Timberlake's got the the curly hair down; with some highlights and that wardrobe he might pass for the 'N Sync version of himself from the late 1990s. Click to enlarge.

Timberlake picture by Pacific Coast News

Justin Timberlake Officially Joins Facebook...The Movie

Andrew Belonsky — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:02:20 EDT

Well, the contentious rumors have been confirmed: Justin Timberlake will play founding president Sean Parker in a little film entitled The Social Network, which everyone else just calls "that Facebook movie." Meanwhile, Jesse Eisenberg will play founder Mark Zuckerberg. [AFP]

Facebook Movie Turns Sean Parker Into Rock Star

Ryan Tate — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:16:24 EDT

The blog ScriptShadow got hold of the first draft of Aaron Sorkin's Facebook movie. The verdict? The movie reads oddly mesmerizing, and has an unexpected hero: Sean Parker, an early investor in the social network.

As the co-founder of Napster, Parker (pictured) was overshadowed by Sean Fanning, who actually wrote the wildly-popular music-sharing software. Sorkin reportedly brings Parker to the fore, giving him credit for lighting a fire under Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and accelerating the company's growth.

ScriptShadow's Carson Reeves:

And don't get me started on Sean Parker - a character that can become

iconic if the film is made. The brash techy rock star revels in his own

ego, and is a key player in why Facebook is on our computers today

(Parker ended up selling his portion of the company for - I believe - a

couple hundred million dollars).

Zuckerberg, meanwhile, looks comparatively pathetic. In what Reeves calls a "heartbreaking scene," he sits alone ("not one true friend") in a dark room and "friends" the girl who dumped him right before he started Facebook. The movie nevertheless bops along as something of a comedy, thanks to Sorkin's "crazy unknown voodoo screenwriting tricks" and, apparently, jokes involving Facebook use.

Zuckerberg, whose flacks have been trashing the unreleased book on which Sorkin's script is based, may yet discover there are worse things than being depicted having sex in bathroom stalls.

(Pic: Sean Parker, by Andrew Mager)

Facebook execs to favor widgets built by investors, relatives

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:20:00 EDT

Today at its F8 developers' conference, Facebook will announce a plan to give favored widgets more abilities to promote themselves on the site. The first two apps to get "preferred" status will be Causes and iLike. What does being a "preferred" widgetmaker mean? A source tells us that in the short term, Facebook will simply promote preferred apps in users' News Feeds more often, increasing their chances of spreading from friend to friend. "Basically, it is a subsidy program for their favorite darlings," says our source. Causes is an app backed by former Facebook president Sean Parker; iLike is a startup backed by Marc Bodnick of Elevation Partners, who is also a private Facebook investor and the brother-in-law of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Our source also tells us that after top tier preferred apps, there will be a middle tier of "certified/approved/vetted" applications as well.

Facebook has been punishing widgetmakers for some time now on its platform, banning them here and there, for the most opaque of reasons. Widgetmakers should probably glad to hear the favoritism is at least codified now, and comes in the form of a carrot, not just a stick. But they aren't that happy. There is resentment among some widgetmakers over the politicking gaining preference on Facebook's platform will now likely require: "[We are] in the business of satisfying users every day, not lobbying for subsidies." No wonder Facebook put Elliot Schrage, a thoroughly political former think-tanker, in charge of the platform.

Founders Club partiers revel in the view from the top

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:00:00 EDT

HEARST TOWER, NEW YORK — Far from the sweaty, screaming fans that attended Digg's Brooklyn meetup Wednesday night, the suits of the Alley and Valley gathered last night on the top-most floor of the Hearst Tower for another Founders Club party to celebrate each others' transcendent splendor. All night, giant screens at either end of the party played clips from Citizen Kane, the barely fictionalized biopic based on the life of Hearst Corp.'s own founder, William Randolph Hearst. There wasn't a Hearst in the crowd, but there were those who aspire to be him. Blog moguls like PaidContent's Rafat Ali, Gawker Media's Nick Denton and AlleyCorp's Henry Blodget mingled. New Gifts.com CEO Jason Rapp attended, as did Digg cofounders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's mentor, Valley bad boy Sean Parker, was rumored to be in the crowd as well. Jimmy Wales, cofounder of the world's most comprehensive list of William Randolph Heart's angry responses to Citizen Kane, attended with Andrea Weckerle on his arm. Photos below.

(Photos by NewYorkInsider and NYFoundersClub)

P is for Parker, the Valley's bad boy

Owen Thomas — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:00:00 EDT

Sean Parker has had a hand in some of the Valley's biggest successes. His first company, Napster, took the world by storm, but didn't make Parker rich. His second, Plaxo, just sold to Comcast. And his third, Facebook — well, say no more. Except for the bit about him getting kicked out, according to Mark Zuckerberg's legal testimony, for a cocaine arrest. (Parker characterized the incident as "a misunderstanding.") That and more is covered in the 21 pages Sarah Lacy devotes to Parker in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, new book about Web 2.0. The index page where Parker is listed:

Previously:

A is for Adelson, who cofounded Digg

B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big

F is for Fitzpatrick, and "hookers and blow"

L is for Levchin, who never goes slow

Plaxo torn between two lovers?

Owen Thomas — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:39:44 EST

Is Plaxo going to Google, as some rumors have it? Possibly. We hear Joe Kraus, a Google executive knee-deep in its effort to catch up in social networking, skipped the company trip to Disneyland this week so he could finish a deal. But other insiders say Google's not doing a deal with Plaxo. Another plausible bidder: Comcast.

The cable giant has been an active buyer of startups recently, and Plaxo already runs its online address book. Whoever buys Plaxo is likely to be after its engineers and its Pulse social network, not its legacy address-synching business. That's what we hear drew Facebook's interest. But Facebook has, as far as we can tell, dropped out of the bidding for Plaxo.

Facebook's cash is reserved for a massive datacenter expansion. And a stock deal would bring Sequoia Capital into Facebook as an investor. We hear Sequoia is keen on that prospect. Facebook's investors — a group which includes Plaxo founder Sean Parker, whom Sequoia forced out of the company — are not as sanguine about such a scenario.

Is Plaxo ready to sell to Facebook?

Owen Thomas — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:30:20 EST

It's curious that rumors of a Plaxo sale exploded at the same time that Robert Scoble got his Facebook account suspended using a secret, unreleased tool for extracting data from Facebook. Curious, too, that Plaxo is so eager to milk the incident for good PR. While a battle of words takes place in public, we hear that quieter talks are happening behind the scenes: A sale of Plaxo to Facebook. A clash between the companies' backers, though — the powerful VC Michael Moritz and the rising VC star Peter Thiel — could sink any deal.

Technically, the sale makes sense. Plaxo's chief platform architect, Joseph Smarr, is an engineering rock star, with many fans among the Valley's brainiac collectors. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to admire other members of Plaxo's engineering team. The process of synching multiple address books, Plaxo's specialty, is more complex than it sounds, and would save Facebook some trouble as it tries to become more of a hub for its users' online activities on and off the Facebook site.

Bringing the investors to terms, however, would prove troublesome. Michael Moritz, of Sequoia Capital, is said to be eager to get a stake in Facebook, however small, so it can claim to have had a hand in its success. It's a move he played skillfully in the first bubble when he merged a failing online bank, X.com, into Peter Thiel's PayPal.

Thiel, now a Facebook board member and venture capitalist in his own right, remembers that maneuver all too keenly, and believes Moritz got the better of him in the deal. Then, too, Moritz forced Sean Parker, now a partner in Thiel's Founders Fund, out of Plaxo; he next joined Facebook, and while he didn't stay long, he still owns a substantial stake in the company. Any deal that reunites Sequoia, Thiel, and Parker would produce a moment of boardroom drama the likes of which we haven't seen in a long while.

The talks aren't advanced, and haven't even reached the point of naming numbers. But Facebook's lofty $15 billion valuation gives it a currency for acquisitions. Will Plaxo take Facebook's paper? The decision, if it ever comes to that, will rest in part with Thiel. How delicious it would be to have Moritz at a disadvantage.

Sean Parker was kicked out of Facebook for cocaine-related arrest

Megan McCarthy — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:05:37 EST

There was a rumor floating around last year that Valley bad boy Sean Parker was forced out of startup Plaxo for a cocaine arrest. Turns out that rumor wasn't exactly true. According to a transcription of Mark Zuckerberg's deposition from the ConnectU v. Facebook case, it was Facebook, not Plaxo, which dropped Peter Thiel's protégé from its executive ranks after Parker was arrested for possession while at a house party. A house party Parker attended with a female Facebook employee who was also a Stanford undergrad at the time. Parker earlier told Valleywag that the arrest was "a misunderstanding." We'll say.

Sean Parker drops out of college, again and again and again

Owen Thomas — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:13:27 EDT

Earlier this week, we noted that on Facebook, Sean Parker, the social network's former president, claimed to have graduated simultaneously, from Columbia, Sarah Lawrence, Pepperdine, USC, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, New York University, and Stanford, in 2002. As far as we can determine, the only diploma Parker has ever received was from Oakton High School. (A fellow northern Virginian!) Parker's profile has since been updated. He no longer belongs to those colleges' Facebook networks, a status which allowed him to view otherwise private student and alumni profiles. Oddly, though, he still claims to have attended those schools in the "Education" section of his profile. Parker, still a Facebook investor, now works at Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, the Founders Fund. One hopes the fund's investors weren't going on Parker's fictional degrees when they plunked down their cash.

Sean Parker's illustrious college career

Owen Thomas — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:30:32 EDT

One of the chief justifications for Facebook's $15 billion valuation is that it traffics in real identities. To prove that you belong to a college or workplace, you must give the social network a matching email address. Unless, that is, you're an early employee and major shareholder. Sean Parker reportedly never even made it to college. But on Facebook, he lives out the fantasy of having simultaneously graduated from Columbia, Sarah Lawrence, Pepperdine, USC, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, New York University, and Stanford. All this in 2002, when he was also working on Plaxo. He's also the member of several regional networks; Facebook allows most users to only join one. So why would Parker, of all people, need so many fake IDs?

He could simply be showing off, of course. But membership in a network gives you privileges on Facebook not extended to ordinary users; you can view the profiles of people in those networks, even if they don't list you as a friend. What Parker is doing, in other words, isn't just boastful; it's a little bit creepy. (Parker is currently dating Kate Jurkiewicz, a member of Facebook's UCLA network. One wonders how she and Parker met. And if Parker enjoys reading up on her college friends' antics.)

By all rights, Parker should have his Facebook account terminated. The site's terms of service are clear on this point: No user may

... impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity

Somehow, though, I think his Facebook holdings, and his ties to Facebook board member Peter Thiel, for whom he works at the Founders Fund, will keep his account safe for now.

Facebook cofounder takes his shirt off

Megan McCarthy — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:57:22 EDT

We were wrong about the identity of the Viking-clad Facebook founder living it up on Friday night. It wasn't Sean Parker, who, we hear, is in Spain. (Sorry about that, Sean!) VentureBeat claims it was Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook's VP of engineering and one of the three official Facebook cofounders. The person in question wore a Viking helmet and a fur skirt. Nothing else. (Ed.'s note: Rawr!) Our tipster must have been pretty hammered, because the description supplied — "tall, has dirty blond hair and glasses, and is not particularly attractive" — fails on two out of four counts. Moskovitz has brown hair and is, according to AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, "such a fox." ~~Again, our apologies. But we're glad Moskovitz is taking notes from Parker on how to get down.~~ Update: We now hear Moskovitz was in Palo Alto Friday and Saturday. Can anyone identify that fur-skirted man for us? (Image by VentureBeat)

Facebook funders party naked

Megan McCarthy — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:59:12 EDT

"One of my roommates tells me this morning that she went to 'the craziest party ever' in Pacific Heights last night," a tipster writes in. "It involved an indoor pool, a lot of champagne, naked people, and someone in a Viking costume who said he was a Facebook founder." Ah, she must be talking about the house owned by Founders Fund partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, nicknamed the Grotto. And who was the Hagar the Horrible Facebook Founder? "She's trying to find out his name from other friends who were there, but said he's tall, has dirty blond hair and glasses, and is not particularly attractive." Based on that somewhat unkind description, we'd guess the Viking was Sean Parker. Shame we weren't there to remind people that Parker's not actually a founder of the social network. The party was ostensibly held to toast Microsoft's recent investment into the social network, though we've heard whispers of other reasons behind the celebration. Were you there? Snap any pics? Let us know.

Mark Zuckerberg, the $5 billion man

Megan McCarthy — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:48:34 EDT

One thing has been overlooked in today's Facebook valuation announcement — how much the major players can now claim to be worth. A source tells us that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg owns about 30 percent of the company, meaning that the 23-year-old Harvard dropout is now a paper billionaire, four times over. That's more than Yahoo cofounders Jerry Yang and David Filo, and closing in on Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He is, possibly, now the wealthiest 20something in the world. (I checked on the Forbes Young Billionaire list, and the only one who was close was Albert von Eurosomething.) Other winners?

We've heard that Facebook not-quite-a-founder Sean Parker holds 5 percent of the company, now theoretically worth $750 million. That more than makes up for the payday he missed out on for Napster. And Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder who presciently backed Facebook? Sources put his stake at between 5 and 7 percent, or between $750 million and $1.05 billion. If he's ever able to cash out his initial $500,000 investment, it will prove one of the smartest moves in the history of the Valley. And if the Microsoft deal proves to be the last time Facebook is valued as high as $15 billion? Perhaps the most painful paper loss since the bubble burst.

An upcoming conference, TieCon Southwest,...

Owen Thomas — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:12:43 EDT

An upcoming conference, TieCon Southwest, promises attendees that they'll hear from Sean Parker, the "cofounder of Facebook." One small problem with that agenda item: Parker's not a founder. [Marketwire]

Facebook's wannabe founders

Owen Thomas — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:42:03 EDT

As Facebook's theoretical value soars, the interest of its hangers-ons grows practical indeed. I think that's why Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra are pursuing their lawsuit against sandal-sporting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with such tireless vigor. But the three Harvard school chums, who say they hired Zuckerberg to work on their competing ConnectU site before he launched what became Facebook, are far from the only ones pressing a claim to have been present at Facebook's creation. (For the record, long-suffering Facebook PR chief Brandee Barker says the company's official cofounders are Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskowitz.) After the jump, a gallery of everyone who's not an official founder — but who'd like to be.

The natural language of Powerset

Chris Mohney — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:20:33 EST

The Palo Alto Research Center today announces the licensing of its "natural language' search tech to Powerset, a startup search engine that will attempt to "out-Google Google," in the words of angel investor and board member Peter Thiel. Lots of Valley traction around this one, as even Thiel pal Sean Parker put down his beverage long enough to throw in. So what's the big deal?
Some are mighty impressed with the search-fruits of natural language, but its principal selling point is a little counter-intuitive. Users who don't know how to use power search methods in Google or elsewhere are just as unlikely to realize they can ask Powerset (or any other search engine) a grammatically correct question. They're also going to always enter the simplest terms to start with anyway, since it's much easier to just enter "cow porn" into the search field rather than "where can i find me some good porn about cows." (Let's see some natural-language porn search results, please.) Power users will like the better results rendered by natural language, but they'll also be very quick to ferret out the problems and logic gaps in the system.

All of which is kind of beside the point. It's naive to think that Google won't build a ground-up natural language system if and when Powerset becomes any kind of threat, and unless the amazing PARC search tech is so brilliant that it knocks everyone's socks off, the differences between the two systems will be academic, consumer-wise. The only way to "out-Google Google" at this point is to rack up a few billion dollars and purchase it. Smart money says that if Powerset is any kind of success, it will be Google buying out Powerset.

By the way: big Powerset party this weekend! You're going, right? Right?

Sean Parker interview

ndouglas — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 13:55:19 EST

Sean Parker's reaction to today's techie-spotting item, Sean Parker pisses off Lindsay Lohan: "The least you can do is use a pic that looks like me." Done. And the Facebook founding president sat down to IM (at my request) about the incident:

Valleywag: So the drunk story. True?
Sean Parker: it happens
VW: was it really lindsay lohan's fault?
SP: it was some kind of accent, i mean, who doesnt scream in some kind of accent when they're drunk?
i don't think lindsey lohan had anything to do with it. i didn't even see her. though according to my sister she was sitting at the table next to ours.
VW: so that's the only thing you've been kicked out of lately?
SP: very funny...yes
VW: any further comments before we go off-record?
SP: this is my chance to be witty in my own defense, right?

Unfortunately, Sean couldn't think of anything — nothing we could run here, anyway, cause this is a family blog. Thanks for chatting, Sean!

Earlier: Your privacy is an illusion: Sean Parker pisses off Lindsay Lohan [Valleywag]

Your privacy is an illusion: Sean Parker pisses off Lindsay Lohan

ndouglas — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 11:08:26 EST

Okay, everyone has a loud drunk moment now and then — I just returned from a week entirely made of loud drunk moments. But not everyone is a Napster co-founder and Facebook's founding president. So here's a Sean Parker sighting, sent by a reader last weekend (all sics apply):

odd spectacle tonight. just witnessed sean parker of napster infamy getting kicked out of bungalow8 in NYC for getting a wee bit too rowdy. he was screaming like a banchee in a faux scottish accent. lindsey lohan was at the next table, so i suspect someone from her party complained and one of the bouncers approached him and escourted his party out.

Then again, it's not hard to piss off Lindsay Lohan.

Have your own spottings (we're shooting for "very Internet famous" and "media famous" here)? Drop an IM to heyvalleywag or e-mail tips@valleywag.com.

Photo: The Last Digerati Dinner [Edge]