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comebacks
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Comebacks
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comebacks
comebacks
If WIlliam Morris hires wireless controversarian Peter Adderton, can they afford the requisite helicopter?
Former Amp'd Mobile CEO Peter Adderton has reportedly landed a new job, says Rafat Ali, as president and CEO at talent agency WIlliam Morris's new-media division, Agency 3.0. (William Morris later confirmed the hire via press release.) Adderton got the gig likely because of the mobile-video hit "Lil Bush," which eventually ended up on Comedy Central. But in our hearts, Adderton will always be the guy who burned through Amp'd's $360 million funding in just two years. Where did investors' money go? More »
comebacks
AMD CEO's "Business Class" brand gambit
Is Hector Ruiz launching AMD into the business of making PCs? Not exactly. But after getting pummeled by Intel in 2007, the chipmaker wants to have more of a hand in designing them. It's no longer enough to sell chips, a field in which AMD excels technically; one must sell "chipsets" — entire ready-to-go packages of computing parts, including all the silicon a computer needs. Dell, HP, and others will actually manufacture AMD's new "Business Class" desktops and notebooks. More »
comebacks
Razorfish founder Jeff Dachis returns, trading New York for Texas
New York entrepreneur Jeff Dachis has landed $50 million from Austin Ventures to fund a comeback — but not as a New York entrepreneur. He's trading a 212 office line for one in the 512, to launch a new company promising to bring the Web 2.0 revolution to businesses. Despite the change in venue, and the new version number, that sounds eerily like the premise of Razorfish a decade ago — the digital consultancy which Dachis launched, and whose value he watched plummet from $5.5 billion at the height of the 2000 bubble to $8.2 million in a 2002 fire sale. So what is Dachis's company, if not simply Razorfish 2.0? More »
comebacks
Frank Quattrone's rebound relationships
Having cleared his name of obstruction-of-justice charges, former Credit Suisse tech investment banker Frank Quattrone is launching his own boutique firm, Qatalyst Partners. Several big Valley names volunteered quotes for the press release. It's not surprising that Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who's made his own moral missteps, would be forgiving of Quattrone. But Gideon Yu, Facebook's CFO, makes a more curious appearance. He gave a statement applauding Quattrone's partner Jonathan Turner, not Quattrone himself. But still, it amounts to an endorsement. Does Yu really think Quattrone did nothing wrong? Or, as a minister's son, is he just expressing the highest form of the Valley's belief in the power of redemption?
comebacks
The triumphant nonreturn of Amanda Congdon
Thank goodness! Just a day after our missing-persons alert on former videoblogger Amanda Congdon, she turned up on her blog with a 794-word entry she's been working on for a month. Here's a version she could have fit in a Twitter: "I'm going daily on a new videoblog in 2008. I'm in pre-production for the new project now." More Amanda, coming to you live in less than 11 months!
comebacks
Yahoo's board rebuffs Microsoft
Belief is a powerful thing in this valley of hopes and dreams. Yahoo's board is set to reject Microsoft's offer to buy the company at $31 a share. Instead, Jerry Yang and Yahoo's other directors are seeking at least $40 a share, or nearly $60 billion — a price Microsoft may not be willing to pay. This is incredibly gutsy. It may wreck the hopes of a deal. And yet it may save the company. More »
comebacks
The return of Terry Semel
Terry Semel is still Yahoo's chairman, but the company is rapidly erasing his mark on the business — chiefly any push into original content, a business Wall Street views as expensive and unrewarding. He's clearly not interested in carrying on that argument in the Yahoo boardroom. Instead, PaidContent reports, he's reviving his old company, Windsor Digital, the investment vehicle which carried him between Warner Bros. and Yahoo. More »
comebacks
TigerDirect to resurrect CompUSA everywhere but here
Electronics retailer TigerDirect plans to raise CompUSA from the grave, using its trademarks and a handful of stores to give its own retail presence fresh life. CompUSA went under last month when it was sold to restructuring specialist Gordon Brothers, which is closing most of its stores, including the helpfully located flagship on Market Street in downtown San Francisco, which catered to hordes of Moscone Center convention-goers. If the deal goes through, TigerDirect would pick up the CompUSA brand and website, as well as 16 stores located in Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico — sorry, San Francisco. (Photo by Mary Jane Irwin)
comebacks
Seth Goldstein acquires funding, common sense
Seth Goldstein, the former Silicon Alley stalwart now stationed in suburban-quaint Mill Valley, Calif., has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding for SocialMedia, his Facebook-application startup. Among SocialMedia's works: the Food Fight and Trakzor widgets. Charles River Ventures lead the investment with SoftTech's Jeff Clavier and Ning cofounder Marc Andreessen (!) participating. Wait a minute, that Seth Goldstein? The ex-VC who brought infamous delivery dotbomb Kozmo to Flatiron Ventures? The guy who, last we heard, was working on AttenTV and other attention-focused ventures? More »
comebacks
Nirav Tolia goes to Benchmark
The rehabilitation of Nirav Tolia is not just complete — it is, at long last, confirmed. The cofounder of Epinions, though tarred by old controversies, will announce tomorrow morning that he has, indeed, landed a long-rumored spot at Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence. (Back in March, Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton was told by several people Tolia was heading to Benchmark.) He'll be joined there by Sarah Leary, a former Epinions executive, and both hope to look at startup ideas having to do with online community and user-generated content. (We'll hold our tongue.) Tolia called Valleywag to share the news. More »
comebacks
Business 2.0 gets a stay of execution
Everyone was expecting Business 2.0, the Time Inc.-owned tech magazine where — full disclosure — I used to work, to shut down this Friday after staffers sent the September issue to the printers. But that is, as of last night, no longer the case. Time Inc. is giving the magazine an eleventh-hour reprieve, in the manner of the governor calling in a pardon just as a sentenced prisoner is being strapped into the electric chair. Top execs at the publisher are now, instead of arranging funeral plans, sorting through a flood of offers to buy the magazine. Here's what's changed — and why. More »
comebacks
Lloyd Braun to peddle Pepsi twaddle
Lloyd Braun, the famously inept media executive who flamed out of a gig at Yahoo, is back on the Internet. He's got a "first-look" interactive deal with Pepsi's entertainment arm, according to Kara Swisher at AllThingsD.com. That's Hollywood-speak for saying that Pepsi has the option to use any online-entertainment concepts Braun comes up with. The alliance, of course, just billboards Braun's tech cluelessness. When Steve Jobs recruited John Sculley to be CEO of Apple, he asked him, "Do you want to peddle sugar water for the rest of your life?" Braun doesn't seem to realize that the right answer to the Jobs question was "no."
comebacks
Jeff Dachis' New Bond
LOCKHART STEELE — With due respect to Nicholas Butterworth, the New York internet comeback of 2006 has to go to Jeffrey Dachis. Dachis, you may recall (if your brain hasn't permanently suppressed the memories from that weekend in Vegas), started the web design firm Razorfish in the mid-1990s, took it public, rocketed to glory, then watched the firm crash, burn, and then, after his departure, rise from the ashes as Avenue A Razorfish and become profitable again. Which is why it made a delicious kind of sense that this year, Dachis would also want back in. More »
comebacks
Nicholas Butterworth's New New Thing
LOCKHART STEELE — Internet industry life in New York City is different than in the Valley. People here don't listen to podcasts not produced by NPR, and they don't read Scoble. (If they do either, they aren't admitting it.) And the sine qua non press hit for your new webtacular isn't a TechCrunch profile; it's a story in the Times' Sunday Styles section. Which is why a Styles piece last March by reporter Warren St. John was probably a happy occurrence for Nicholas Butterworth, the former MTVi CEO and Silicon Alley Reporter coverboy, who, like many from Alley 1.0, was suddenly back at the table, buying back in:''Everything is cranking up,'' said Butterworth. ''There is definitely something in the air. It's not exactly the same as it was the first time around, but it's got some of that same spirit.''... Mr. Butterworth, a founder of the online music site SonicNet back in the day, is soon to move into an office at the Broad Street incubator. Sounding very 1995, he declined to discuss his new venture on the grounds that he is in stealth mode.But like all stealth modes, Butterworth's had to end. More »
