Valleywag
the sum of all human knowledge
Posts Tagged “
elevation partners
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the sum of all human knowledge
failanthropy
Wikipedia receives $500,000 from another VC
Ordinarily, this would be good news: Vinod Khosla, the former Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist, and his wife Neeru Khosla, have donated $500,000 to Wikipedia's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation. But founder Jimmy Wales's dalliances with other VCs — chiefly Roger McNamee and Marc Bodnick of Elevation Partners — have cast a shadow over every dollar the organization receives. Is this one of the $500,000 donations McNamee recently said he helped broker? And if so, what do he and Khosla expect to get in return? For starters, keep a close eye on Wikipedia's articles on ethanol, a major business interest of Khosla's. Wales, ordinarily Wikipedia's front man, makes no appearance in the press release, quoted below: More »
the sum of all human knowledge
Sloan Foundation's $3 million grant to fund Wikipedia power struggle
Jimmy Wales remains frustrated that he hasn't profited from the creation of Wikipedia, former confidants tell me. And even though the world's most complete list of sexually active popes is now run by a nonprofit, the Wikimedia Foundation, Wales is still trying to figure out how to commercialize Wikipedia on the side, with the help of private-equity firm Elevation Partners. Now comes a spanner in the works: The foundation has won a $3 million donation from the Sloan Foundation. Wales does not appear anywhere in the press release announcing the deal. The grant will be doled out at the rate of $1 million a year, meaning Wales, for the first time, has a powerful outside watchdog. The Sloan Foundation won't look kindly on attempts to have their monies fund ways to line Wales's pockets — or put Elevation Partners investors like Roger McNamee or Marc Bodnick on the Wikimedia board. The full release: More »
wikpedia
Jimmy Wales's bigger scandal: Elevation Partners
The New York Times has picked up Valleywag's extensive reporting on the ongoing Jimmy Wales scandal (How to decode the Times story: Whenever they say "a gossip Web site," they mean us.) While most of the story is a rehash, it does raise one interesting point: What's the relationship between Wikipedia and VC firm Elevation Partners? Roger McNamee of Elevation insists he's just acting as a donor and volunteer fundraiser in pulling in $1 million for Wales's Wikimedia Foundation nonprofit. But Wales admits in the article to proposing Wikipedia-branded business ventures like a trivia game or a TV documentary, with funding from Elevation Partners. Another plan we've heard: Changing the terms by which Wikipedia contributors add to the online encyclopedia to a more liberal Creative Commons license. That would make the site's content more readily reused in, say, printed works sold for profit. (Illustration by a newspaper)
rock star
As Chubby Wombat, Roger McNamee fails to rock
Roger McNamee founded Elevation Partners, a tech private-equity firm with $1.9 billion in assets. He can claim Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg as friends. Bono is his coworker. He earned a 700 percent return saving Seagate Technology in the 1990s. But according to Portfolio, McNamee can't succeed in the one thing he really loves: rock and roll. More »
party report
Elevation Partners — you know, the hedge fund with added Bono — threw a party for Wikipedia at the Third Street Grill. The big news was that Wikipedia has updated its license to be compatible with Larry Lessig's Creative Commons, which should make it even easier for schoolkids to copy entries wholesale into their term papers. Or something. I was on my fourth Cape Codder by the time they started announcing things, so I wasn't really paying attention. More »
Take this Wikipedia and shove it
Elevation Partners — you know, the hedge fund with added Bono — threw a party for Wikipedia at the Third Street Grill. The big news was that Wikipedia has updated its license to be compatible with Larry Lessig's Creative Commons, which should make it even easier for schoolkids to copy entries wholesale into their term papers. Or something. I was on my fourth Cape Codder by the time they started announcing things, so I wasn't really paying attention. More »
12:22 PM on Tue Dec 4 2007
By Megan McCarthy
564 views,
2 comments
Latest by Owen Thomas: @Philipp Lenssen: Should we update the piece to read, "Something inconsequential happened with Wikipedia and Creative Commons"? Sounds like it. more »
Everyone's a winner!
Tonight, celebrate Wikipedia, replicants, and videobloggers in an orgy of self-congratulation.
Tonight, celebrate Wikipedia, replicants, and videobloggers in an orgy of self-congratulation.
exclusive
Fake Bono revealed!
Since I first noticed that Fake Bono had taken over Fake Steve Jobs's blog, I've been wondering who Fake Bono really is. We had a number of guesses: Dan Lyons was taking on a second alter ego; Bono himself was writing; Marc Bodnick, cofounder of Elevation Partners, where Bono is a partner, was taking a turn; and Bono-wannabe Valleywag contributor Paul Boutin. After carefully reviewing the Bono posts, we're ready to reveal the identity of Fake Bono. More »
elevation partners
A previously unreleased song from U2's upcoming rerelease of Joshua Tree is already available on the Internet. But we're not just talking about unlicensed BitTorrents here. "Wave of Sorrow" and the video embedded above explaining the song, is available on iLike, and not, as far as we can tell, on the band's MySpace or official site. So why did U2 favor iLike, the music widget best known as a Facebook success story? More »
How iLike got U2's new song
A previously unreleased song from U2's upcoming rerelease of Joshua Tree is already available on the Internet. But we're not just talking about unlicensed BitTorrents here. "Wave of Sorrow" and the video embedded above explaining the song, is available on iLike, and not, as far as we can tell, on the band's MySpace or official site. So why did U2 favor iLike, the music widget best known as a Facebook success story? More »
party report
The dirty secret behind last night's book-tour party for Dan Lyons, the man behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog? Rumor is it almost didn't happen, thanks to a little tiff over who was going to rep him. Flack fight! After the jump, the real battle over Fake Steve.
More »
Fake Steve Jobs gets down with San Francisco's filthiest hacks
The dirty secret behind last night's book-tour party for Dan Lyons, the man behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog? Rumor is it almost didn't happen, thanks to a little tiff over who was going to rep him. Flack fight! After the jump, the real battle over Fake Steve.More »
rumormonger
Wikiprofits on Wales's mind?
A tipster is telling us we got it right on why founder Jimmy Wales is moving Wikipedia to San Francisco: dollar bills. Tall stacks of them. Specifically, Wales is looking to tap the deep pockets of Wikipedia benefactor Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, our source believes. You know, the firm U2 frontman Bono shills for. Our tipster writes that McNamee and Wales have plans to profit from Wikipedia. Curious, since Wikipedia's run by a nonprofit. The tip, after the jump. More »
Private-equity firm Elevation Partners — which counts U2 frontman Bono among its partners — sold gaming companies BioWare and Pandemic Studios to Electronic Arts for $860 million. Elevation Partners, which is named after the U2 song, was a natural for EA to do a deal with. One of the founding partners, John Riccitiello, is the CEO of Electronic Arts. Elevation purchased the two game companies in late 2005 for $300 million. Not bad for less than two years' work. [WSJ]
party report
ATHERTON — I'm told I left the party too early, but once Third Eye Blind started playing, Thursday night's iLike bash was pretty much over for me. Don't get me wrong — I like Third Eye Blind. It's right in tune with my utterly bland and more than slightly gay musical tendencies. But this is exactly why I will never, ever use a service like iLike, which makes a Facebook app that allows you to reveal your musical taste, or lack thereof, to your friends by posting songs, and find people with similar tastes by seeing who's going to concerts. Here's the thing: I know my taste in music is egregiously bad. I don't want to advertise the fact to the world, and if anything, I want to meet people who specifically dislike the music I listen to. That's all right, though — what I really wanted to listen to was the buzz in the room.
More »
iLike a good mustache, don't you?
ATHERTON — I'm told I left the party too early, but once Third Eye Blind started playing, Thursday night's iLike bash was pretty much over for me. Don't get me wrong — I like Third Eye Blind. It's right in tune with my utterly bland and more than slightly gay musical tendencies. But this is exactly why I will never, ever use a service like iLike, which makes a Facebook app that allows you to reveal your musical taste, or lack thereof, to your friends by posting songs, and find people with similar tastes by seeing who's going to concerts. Here's the thing: I know my taste in music is egregiously bad. I don't want to advertise the fact to the world, and if anything, I want to meet people who specifically dislike the music I listen to. That's all right, though — what I really wanted to listen to was the buzz in the room.
More »
comics
From cartoonist Hugh MacLeod, a concise explanation of why Apple CEO Steve Jobs keeps pushing his company deeper into the music business, and why rock star Bono has joined tech private-equity firm Elevation Partners.
Steve Jobs and Bono explained
From cartoonist Hugh MacLeod, a concise explanation of why Apple CEO Steve Jobs keeps pushing his company deeper into the music business, and why rock star Bono has joined tech private-equity firm Elevation Partners.
Left hobbled with debt by Elevation's cash-out refinancing, the smartphone maker is laying off developers. PCWorld.com
