Not a lot of people in Silicon Valley seem to be paying attention the incredible story of Marc Dreier, the Manhattan attorney arrested in December and accused of cheating more than a dozen hedge funds out of hundreds of millions of dollars. Perhaps it partly owes to geography; though Dreier’s firm had numerous offices, including in New York, Stamford, Conn., L.A., and Santa Monica, he never set up shop in Northern California. Silicon Valley isn’t home to many hedge funds, either. Yet Dreier’s deception, we’re learning, was as far-reaching as his sprawling practice, and I suspect that when all is done and the breadth of his reach is revealed, we’ll learn that his crimes hit closer to home than first imagined. I've already heard talk of one high-profile Valley victim. (I haven’t been able to confirm yet.) In a lesser case, just weeks before Dreier was picked up by authorities, CNet founder Halsey Minor retained the firm to sue the auction house Christie’s on his behalf.
2 min read · 10 April 2009
Jon Holman is a San Francisco-based recruiter who has hired roughly 40 general partners and five times as many CEOs in his nearly 30-year career. His clients include Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and Opus Capital, among about 50 others. We just spoke a bit about the venture industry, how quickly it’s contracting and where many VCs may next find themselves. Yesterday, a reader seemed to take issue with the word “exodus” to describe what’s happening in the venture industry right now. But it does seem like many more VCs are leaving the industry than joining it or finding homes at other firms. What are you seeing? There’s a lot of movement; there’s no doubt about that -- except “exodus” implies that they are leaving by choice, and that’s not generally the case. It’s not just 10 or 20 or 30 people who are looking for new jobs. A lot of people have to find something new to do. This isn’t the first time that the population of VCs is going to go down, but this will be the biggest percentage. And they’ll all have to go somewhere.
3 min read · 09 April 2009
TouchCommerce, a Los Angeles-based startup that sells online chat customer service to companies like Vonage, has just raised $10 million in what looks to be a fifth round of funding. The company, known as InQ until changing its name last fall, has now raised $31 million in its 10-year history, from firms like Partech International, Emergence Capital, Dolphin Equity Partners and Hudson Ventures (all of which participated in the new funding). TouchCommerce isn’t the only startup whose technology prompts a pop-up chat screen to assist customers during their online sessions, either at the visitor’s request or when it senses that someone is stuck. It is, however, one of the few that gets paid when that customer buys something; most others charge a subscription fee.
1 min read · 07 April 2009
2 min read · 07 April 2009
A couple of years ago, while a little bored and awaiting the birth of my son, I Googled the avuncular doctor who was caring for me at the time. To my horror, I discovered that the link appearing topmost wasn’t straightforward information about his practice or even a positive Yelp review (of which there were many), but instead a blogger’s tirade that accused him of extreme negligence decades ago. Whether or not the blogger’s portrayal was accurate (I couldn’t bring myself to mention it and that doctor has since retired), it's those kinds of damaging links that the startup ReputationDefender exists to obliterate, and on which its investors are hoping it will thrive.
2 min read · 06 April 2009
According to Hewitt Associates, European CFOs are making more money than their American peers. How much more? Twenty-five percent. Hewitt estimates that the median pay package for the finance heads of the biggest companies is, on average, worth $4.1 million per year, while CFOs of whatever is left of American blue chip companies make an average of $3.1 million. Hewitt points out another interesting distinction in its recently released report on CFO pay: in the U.S. CFOs tend to earn about half of what CEOs do. In Europe, that gap is far narrower; the median CFO makes almost 60 percent of what their CEOs are paid.
1 min read · 06 April 2009
As if U.S.-Russia relations weren’t sufficiently strained already, now comes word that the space tourists who recently traveled to the International Space Station and return Wednesday have been living out a Cold War of their own. At least, NASA and the Russian governments would reportedly have it that way. Fifty-year-old Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka -- who’s currently in space with four other individuals, including Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi -- says immediately before the Russian Soyuz rocket took off from Kazakhstan, he was told he couldn’t use a U.S. gym aboard the space station, or to eat any U.S. rations, or even to use the same toilet(!) used by Americans. (That toilet, btw, apparently cost NASA around $19 million back in 2007.)
2 min read · 06 April 2009
2 min read · 06 April 2009
1 min read · 03 April 2009
Stephen Colbert last night sat down with Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, just as new rumors of a Google acquisition offer surface (and get disputed). The interview is, predictably, well-worth watching. See it here (embed messing up).
1 min read · 03 April 2009
