Private Equity
Vanity Fair publishes a compelling accounting of the "fatal" disease known as "Goldman Envy" and its ultimate victims, including Merrill Lynch. Why customers leave: the breakdown. Battery Ventures says Groupon was too big too pass up, though it's not convinced about its future success. Fortune takes a deep dive into the life and times of Digital Sky Technologies' Yuri Milner. Gold mania? Not quite. Examining what the Avis and Dollar Thrifty talks are really about. Peter Peterson, the "Pigpen" character of Blackstone.
1 min read · 06 October 2010
Twitter gets a new CEO. So does Skype. Mark Zuckerberg demonstrates a sense of humor on "The Simpsons." Startup adviser Eric Ries tells entrepreneurs, investors, and other advisers: Enough with the lying on stage at events. Meanwhile, Sara Lee gets a boost from rebuffing an approach from KKR. TheDeal delves into the founding of Blackstone. And Fortune asks: Is it time for a market crash? (It's October, after all.) If you're depressed at that last prospect, perhaps a giant poster of all your Facebook "friends" profile pics will cheer you up! (Okay, we think it's weird, too.) Look at it this way, at least you don't work at the Wall Street Journal, where bedbugs struck today, owing to some poor Barron's staffer who carried them in from his apartment.
1 min read · 04 October 2010
In battling tech giant news, Microsoft is now suing Motorola, alleging several of its Android devices infringe on Microsoft patents. The buyout firm TPG is going Hollywood, buying up a 35% stake in the heavy-hitting talent agency CAA. Mark Zuckerberg has dismissed "The Social Network" as "fiction." But what does Harvard think? A look inside "Inside Job," a documentary on the financial crisis that opens next week. Cold! Bookmakers are actually betting on when New York City will get hit with its next bedbug infestation. A professional "forecaster" on why economic predictions so often suck. Henry Blodget makes the case for Yahoo and AOL to merge. Immediately.
1 min read · 01 October 2010
2 min read · 01 October 2010
A Journal reporter is out; was a heated exchange with Steve Jobs to blame? More turnover at Yahoo. (Yes, it's still happening.) Who wants to buy the government's stake in AIG? Anyone? Bueller? Rahm Emanuel is running for mayor of Chicago; the Twittersphere reacts. Private equity hearts Brazil. Dolly Thrifty shareholders tell Hertz Global Holdings to take its $1.5 billion and shove it drive away quietly. Hewlett-Packard is full of surprises, bringing aboard former SAP top dog Léo Apotheker as CEO. More, in a dig at Larry Ellison, Ray Lane, who long served as Oracle's COO, becomes HP's board chair. (If you thought HP's board was hot-headed before...)
1 min read · 30 September 2010
TechCrunch announces that it's officially being acquired by AOL. (Relive the moment here.) Engadget founder Peter Rojas -- who sold the company to AOL in 2005 -- tells Michael Arrington what to expect. Amazon introduces Kindle for the Web, giving digital book buyers one more way to avoid reading the old-fashioned way. BP sells $3.5 billion worth of debt. Gloomy CEOs say they're far from eager to begin hiring again. Billionaire money manager Ken Fisher calls the concept of a new normal "idiotic." Twitter's head of analytics explains what the company learns from all those tweets.
1 min read · 29 September 2010
Wall Street is getting job jitters again. They say that no publicity is bad publicity. In a tragic exception, Segway's new owner dies, riding a Segway. While the rest of Silicon Valley noodles mobile apps, investor Peter Thiel is on to the next, including robots. “The Yelp of cellphones will be Yelp, the Google of cellphones will be Google,” he said earlier today. The Deal publishes its third annual list of most admired corporate dealmakers. New York magazine profiles the "demon blogger of Fleet Street," Gawker's Nick Denton. Why Facebook isn't suing anyone -- yet -- over "The Social Network." Petrobas's offering last Friday of $67 billion in common and preferred shares may be one of the biggest equity deals of all time, but the fees its bankers will see? Meh. George Bell leaves General Catalyst Partners to become CEO of another startup. If you find yourself in business class seated next to a shrink, be kind; traveling mental health professionals have it tough.
1 min read · 27 September 2010
Psychiatrists find that dropping the f-bomb at work can be good for your #$%&@! career. Winklevoss twins, if you're trying to restore your reputation, carrying your "identical gray Tucano man purses" to a screening of "The Social Network" is the wrong tack to take. In the less than two years since it went public, OpenTable's stock price has tripled; what's going on? New York City's $36 million billion pension fund for civil-service employees has sacked its money manager. G.M.,which long ago coined the tagline, "see the U.S.A in your Chevrolet," will make most of its IPO shares available to U.S. investors. (Let's hope their value doesn't drop "like a rock" afterward.) Getting up to speed on the new Facebook phone? Om Malik says he's got all the information you need to know. Well, that didn't take long. HBS grads are heading back to Wall Street.
1 min read · 23 September 2010
Jamie Dimon may be better at running JPMorgan Chase than pricing his homes. Mark Zuckerberg opens the kimono, giving TechCrunch a glimpse into Facebook's mobile strategy. Mmmwahaha. One of Wall Street 2's villains was based on Rubert Rubin. Looks like former Xerox honcho Anne Mulcahy is the lead contender to replace Larry Summers as the head of the National Economic Council. Good news, business travelers. JetBlue will be offering in-flight WiFi by 2012. Some CEOs recently went undercover for a television show, including Chiquita's top banana. Here's why. Potash really, really doesn't want to be acquired by BHP.
1 min read · 22 September 2010
Remember all those Mark Zuckerberg IMs published by Business Insider earlier this year? Oh, they've received more -- many more -- and they shed far more light on the earliest days of Facebook. Really, S.E.C.? You don't have many more important matters than reviving your now-ancient case against Mark Cuban? Steve Jobs' least favorite college student rightly shames him on "Good Morning America."' Twitter COO Dick Costolo was way too nice to his realtors, and the poor guy is paying for it now. It's been a busy year for defense dealmakers, and it's looking like it'll stay that way. Intel has been on a buying binge; has it gobbled up too much, too fast? BHP threatens to walk away if rival bids for Potash -- which has scoffed at BHP's $39 million offer -- go much higher.
1 min read · 21 September 2010
