Valleywag: Bear Stearns

On Wall Street, layoffs mean you get $50,000 for never showing up

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:00:00 PDT

Google offered laid-off DoubleClick employees two options: take two months pay and find work at a competitor or take four months pay and join another industry. Some lucky DoubleClick employees were offered contract positions, which means they have to head to the elevator and buy lunch on the streets every day just like any other non-Googler. Meanwhile, further downtown on Wall Street, MBA grads who recently won jobs at the crashed-and-burned Bear Stearns won't get them. The company has rescinded its offers, reports SAI. But JPMorgan Chase — the company that bailed out Bear Stearns — will still pay the no-longer-needed new hires their promised $50,000 to $60,000 relocation bonuses and offer them career services.

Ad network CEO: hiring greedy ex-Yahoos costs too much

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:20:00 PDT

Brock Purpura, the CEO of ad network Etology, says it's easier to staff his sales team with Wall Street's leavings than to hire ex-Yahoos. Purpura told SAI that since you can't outsource ad sales like you can tech, ad-supported startups have begun offering ex-Yahoos equity. If shares aren't available, Purpura says ex-Yahoos demand between $200,000 to $250,000 to sign. It's more than Purpura, for one, is willing to pay. Especially since ex-Bear Stearns employees and other bankers, well-suited enough to the numbers-based ad game, have shown an eagerness to take on more work for less pay. We've heard they like the punishment.(Photo by Mr.Thomas)

Surprise, Bear Stearns guys like it up the ass

Melissa Gira Grant — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:00:00 PDT

Goodhearted dominatrix Mistress Victoria X doesn't have a soft spot towards the newly unrich men of Bear Stearns; it's more mercenary compassion. For a limited time, she's offering a per-hour discount equivalent to JPMorgan Chase's current offer for their stock: $10. "I approached this decision with some trepidation," she blogs. "You see, in my experience finance guys usually want things in their asses. I do not offer anal play on demand. Consequently the majority of my clients are lawyers." Take heed, boys: the Manhattan-based domme is also available for travel.

Bear Stearns crash costs 7,000 jobs, but Henry Blodget is hiring!

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:40:01 PDT

Soon-to-be JPMorgan Chase subsidiary Bear Stearns will lay off 7,000 workers. The worst of it, reports Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget, is that today's tough job market on the Street makes it a particularly bad time to get laid off. Fortunately, Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget also reports, Silicon Alley Insider is hiring! Where Blodget learned to describe the job market in such a self-beneficial way, nobody knows."We won't drown you in cash the way Bear would have," former financial analyst Henry Blodget writes, "but we need those same same analytical, writing, and competing skills."

"It was that or the trifecta, and I was feeling adventurous"

Jordan Golson — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:00:36 PDT

A Bear Stearns trader with a sense of humor taped a hard-earned two-buck greenback to the front door of Bear's corporate headquarters in New York. $2 is the per-share value that JPMorgan Chase agreed to purchase Bear Stearns for, a far cry from the $60 a share that the bank was trading at last week. Our best caption is above, but you can do better. Leave one in the comments below. (Photo by Reuters/Kristina Cooke)

12 things that cost more than Bear Stearns

Jordan Golson — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:40:57 PDT

Late Sunday night, JP Morgan Chase agreed to buy cash-strapped investment bank Bear Stearns for $2 a share, or $236 million. Last week, the company was valued at more than $14 billion. This is one of the swiftest corporate falls in history. But just how bad was it? Here's a list of things that cost more than the century-old Bear Stearns.

The latest winning Powerball jackpot: $275 million
The salaries of the six cheapest Major League Baseball teams: $242.9 million
Microsoft's investment in Facebook: $240 million
The Houston Texans football team: $700 million
Tom Perkins's 289.1' sailing yacht Maltese Falcon: up to $300 million
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich's forthcoming 482.6' motor yacht, the Eclipse: $300 million
David Beckham's contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy: $250 million
IM startup Meebo's desired valuation: $250 million
Alex Rodriguez's contract with the New York Yankees: $275 million
A brand new Airbus A380: $319 million
The most expensive building ever sold — 666 Fifth Avenue, New York City: $1.8 billion
The divorce settlement Heather Mills wanted from Paul McCartney: $250 million (Photo by AP/Mark Lennihan)

Advertisers will spend $1.35 billion on web ...

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:44:59 PST

Advertisers will spend $1.35 billion on web video in 2008, according to Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck. He says that number should grow to $4.3 billion by 2011, which will still only be about 3.3 percent of total TV spending. [SAI]

Facebook's data guru worked on mortgage mess

Owen Thomas — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:00:11 PST

Jeff Hammerbacher, a research scientist at Facebook, is giving a presentation at Yahoo today about large-scale data analysis. The Harvard grad's prior experience before coming to Facebook? Developing price models for mortgage-backed securities at Bear Stearns — the same kind of securities that led Bear to write off $1.9 billion in December. Does this explain why Facebook is sending him to give a talk at a competitor? Take note, Yahoos. (Photo by jakob)