Feature,

stocks

Why founders win

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like to talk about their hopes of "changing the world." Yes, of course: Changing the world from one in which they are poor to one in which they are fabulously wealthy. The question in the air is whether the founders of companies do a better job at creating wealth, for themselves and their investors, than professional managers. With Yahoo announcing Jerry Yang's plans to step down as CEO, it would seem like a losing time for founders. But Yang is an exceptional case; he took his hands off the steering wheel when Yahoo had a mere five employees, and never really ran anything until he stepped in as CEO last June. Most founders of successful startups eagerly seize power, and have to be forcibly dislodged from the driver's seat. The best never let go. Just take a long-term look at the stock market, and you'll see why. More »

11:20 AM on Tue Nov 18 2008
By Owen Thomas
3,008 views, 13 comments

Most discussed TinaTyndareus: There's something to be said about being in the right place at the right time. No such thing as luck. more »

nerdfight

Why Elon Musk could be the next Steve Jobs

When visionaries clash, whose vision do we believe? On newsstands this week, Newsweek's Dan Lyons savages Tesla Motors, the electric-car maker. Tesla was once the brightest hope of Silicon Valley's clean-transportation industry; now on its fourth CEO in less than two years, it's better known for manufacturing boardroom drama than actual vehicles. Lyons writes that Tesla's Roadster is a "classic Silicon Valley product — it's late and over budget, has gone through loads of redesigns, still has bugs and, at $109,000, costs more than originally planned. Company founder Martin Eberhard (left, at bottom) says that lead investor Elon Musk (left, at top), who recently installed himself as the company's fourth CEO, made costly changes to the car's design and is "a terrible CEO." Musk's retort: "Martin is the worst individual I've ever had the displeasure of working with." More »

12:00 PM on Mon Nov 17 2008
By Owen Thomas
4,808 views, 20 comments

Most discussed aerospaceman: Jobs makes toys for spoiled yuppies. Musk makes the future of the human race. Sorry, not the same league. more »

don't be evil

Eric Schmidt and the YouTube election

Is YouTube making Google a political player? The video-sharing site, with its stratospheric bandwidth bills and questionable new ad formats, may never pay Larry and Sergey back in cash for the $1.65 billion they shelled out to buy it in 2006. But it doesn't have to. YouTube, having conquered online video, is taking over political broadcasting. The conventional unwisdom in Manhattan and Washington, D.C., is that this election made YouTube. Pah! It's true that campaign videos spread faster than ever thanks to YouTube. But they made up a tiny fraction of clips and traffic on the site. Politicians owe YouTube a debt that Google is just starting to collect on — and hosting President Obama's 21st century fireside chats is just a down payment. More »

2:20 PM on Fri Nov 14 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,918 views, 5 comments

Latest by CaesarSpider: I think you've misspoken by saying that Net Neutrality is only about advertisements. That may be Google's reason for supporting more »

peter thiel

Billionaire Facebook investor's anti-immigrant heresy

Insiders at Clarium Capital, the $5.3 billion hedge fund run by Facebook investor Peter Thiel, are buzzing about their boss's $1 million donation to NumbersUSA, an anti-immigrant group. The donation is an open secret within Clarium, and it has enraged several staff members who joined Clarium because they believed Thiel shared their libertarian ideals. When I asked Thiel if he'd made the donation, an underling passed on a nondenial saying the company didn't comment on "gossip and heresy." A typo — he meant to say "hearsay" — but a suggestive one. Thiel has fallen under the sway of Robertson "Rob" Morrow III, a Christian right-wing thinker who has personally donated to NumbersUSA, and persuaded Thiel to make his own, much larger donation. More »

11:20 AM on Fri Nov 14 2008
By Owen Thomas
6,458 views, 34 comments

Most discussed zach: I think someone at Valleywag might be confusing anti-"immigrant" with the fact that organizations like NumbersUSA are working to stop more »

hires

Microsoft takes over Yahoo

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang publicly pines for another bid from Microsoft. On stage at the Web 2.0 Summit conference yesterday, he said, again, that he was open to talks. Microsoft has taken pains to say it's not interested. But really, besides corporate raider Carl Icahn, who cares? A new leadership team, all with lengthy Microsoft resumes, has taken over key parts of Yahoo. More »

1:40 PM on Thu Nov 6 2008
By Owen Thomas
4,558 views, 7 comments

Most discussed longtailwagsthevalley: interesting analysis but i would also argue though that much of this is simply that members of internet's "C" team more »

great moments in journalism

Googler mom Esther Wojcicki's sideline job as Google publicist

What about the children? Palo Alto High School teacher Esther "Woj" Wojcicki took time away from educating future reporters to write about America's teens for the Huffington Post. In the piece, she promotes a nonprofit letter-writing project sponsored by Google and touts the use of Google Docs. No surprise there: Woj, whose daughter Anne is married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin and whose daughter Susan is a Google executive, has been promoting Google's pet causes from the first. But only now, after Valleywag has twice pointed out Woj's failure to disclose family conflicts of interest, has she started to include a disclaimer. Too bad it's deceptive. More »

10:40 AM on Thu Nov 6 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,554 views, 6 comments

Most discussed AntonioJenkins: aww, what's with valleywag commentors' obsession with making fun of people's appearance? there's a lot of great conversation on this more »

meltdowns

The Facebook layoffs

Mark Zuckerberg's college-spawned startup is supposed to hire its 1,000th employee sometime this year. I don't think that's going to happen. If Zuckerberg isn't talking about layoffs behind closed doors, one of his executives must be brave enough to bring it up. I don't think the company is going to issue pink slips. But I do think its headlong growth in employees will come crashing to a halt before the end of the year. More »

5:00 PM on Tue Oct 28 2008
By Owen Thomas
29,458 views, 44 comments

Most discussed johnnyletter: A 3.5 GPA from a top school nets nothing. I've worked with plenty of academics (up to PhD) that more »

meltdowns

The layoff lie

A wave of layoffs is sweeping startupland. But why? "Today is my last day at Revision3," writes Damon Berger, one of the victims, in a mass email. "Due to budgetary cutbacks that are a direct result of the economic meltdown, I will no longer be employed at the company." Revision3, an online-video startup, has slashed five Web-video shows from its lineup, and with it some unknown number of employees. But are we to believe that collateralized debt obligations killed "Internet Superstar"? Of course not. More »

12:20 PM on Mon Oct 27 2008
By Owen Thomas
8,653 views, 24 comments

Most discussed aa: "Big companies lay people off because of economic conditions; startups lay people off because their managers have fundamentally misjudged some more »

meltdowns

Sequoia calls off the boom

The good times are over, the partners of Sequoia Capital are telling the entrepreneurs they fund. Quite literally: They sent a summons to a summit meeting with a picture of a gravestone with the writing "R.I.P. Good Times," rival venture capitalist Om Malik reports. There, partners including Michael Moritz and Doug Leone told CEOs of companies in their portfolio that they should steel themselves for a prolonged downturn, make their businesses self-sustainable, and cut all unnecessary costs. More »

9:00 PM on Wed Oct 8 2008
By Owen Thomas
6,898 views, 15 comments

Most discussed babyjesus: nice post owen. while i don't agree that it's a play to somehow trick other vc's into changing their plans, more »

Armchair General

Why Facebook is foundering

The great hope of the Valley, the startup everyone thought was the next Google, the company whose IPO might restart the stock-market gold rush for everyone, is not well. Why? Look to its founder. Mark Zuckerberg is mismanaging his creation's transition to greatness. In Facebook's own parlance, the company's plight is "complicated." It will take in $300 million to $350 million in revenue this year, thanks in part to a lucrative ad deal with Microsoft. But its $15 billion valuation is premised on a far brighter future — a future that may never materialize. The biggest symptom of Facebook's ailment is the flight of technical talent. In the Valley, success attracts smart people, who attract other smart people. Yes, they're after money, too, but having brilliant coworkers counts for a lot. These great minds bond and form, yes, a sort of social network of their own. When they leave, the network frays, weakening the company's ability to attract new talent. More »

12:00 PM on Tue Oct 7 2008
By Owen Thomas
22,053 views, 48 comments

Most discussed raincoaster: I really don't think that the flaws in management you see are the fault of Zuck's youth; the flaws you more »

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