3 min read · 24 March 2009
Halsey Minor, the 44-year-old founder of the tech news company CNet, is currently being sued for $60 million dollars, by a variety of creditors, at least one of which suggests that he doesn't have the money to pay what he owes. If true, the speed at which Minor has built up, then torn through, his assets is breathtaking. As readers of this column will likely know, in recent years, Minor has been running Minor Ventures in San Francisco, a venture capital fund that Minor has funded himself. He’s also been living like a billionaire, a point I made in a Portfolio magazine profile of Minor last fall. There’s little question that Minor has done exceedingly well for himself at varying points in his career. At age 35, he walked away from CNet in 2000 with a stake worth well over $100 million. Minor made another $300 million as an early investor in Salesforce.com, though he and his first wife Deborah split those assets when they divorced in 2006.
5 min read · 24 March 2009
If you’re still dialing for dollars, trying to raise your newest fund, don’t bother calling up Bowdoin College, Colby College, or Bates College. The schools, based in Brunswick, Waterville, and Lewiston, Maine, respectively, have watched the value of their endowments plummet since the global economy entered its tailspin. Indeed, according to the Associated Press, the trio have lost a collective $373 million in the fourth quarter of last year. It might not seem like much, considering the billions of dollars the likes of Yale, Harvard, and Dartmouth have watched disappear in recent months, but the total represents 22 percent of schools' funds. The silver lining for alumni, if not cash-strapped private equity and venture firms: Bowdoin, Colby, and Bates, which have backed the likes of Madison Dearborn Partners and Summit Partners in the past, are doing no worse than schools across the U.S. They’re down an average of 23 percent
1 min read · 23 March 2009
2 min read · 23 March 2009
2 min read · 20 March 2009
2 min read · 20 March 2009
Updated: August Capital, the 14-year-old firm founded by longtime VCs Dave Marquardt and John Johnston, has held a final close on its fifth fund. It raised a stunning $650 million. Even more amazingly, the partners began raising it shortly after Thanksgiving.
2 min read · 18 March 2009
2 min read · 18 March 2009
2 min read · 17 March 2009
Okay, so he can't dance to save his life. But Apple's cuddlesome cofounder Steve Wozniak, "the Woz," may be an even nicer guy than many people know. According to Newsweek tech columnist Dan Lyons -- who recently compared certain tech moguls to child stars who enjoy a stretch of fame, then go onto lead disappointingly ordinary lives -- Wozniak is no "lost soul." On the contrary, says Lyons, the Prius-driving, commercial-aircraft-flying Woz could be living like an obnoxious king if it weren't for the fact that he's not the self-obsessed type. Here's a telling story that Lyons shares, one that I'm guessing Woz has confirmed to him at some point in their acquaintanceship:
2 min read · 17 March 2009
