hires

owen van natta

Ex-Facebook COO takes Project Playlist CEO gig

Be careful what you wish for. Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook COO who left the social network in February, has gotten the CEO job he said he wanted — as the new chief of Project Playlist, an online-music startup. (It's been widely reported that MySpace wooed him to run its MySpace Music spinoff. He also had conversations with social-news site Digg and shopping search engine Nextag, among others.) Van Natta's an investor in Project Playlist, and the company has just announced funding from former AOL CEO Bob Pittman's Pilot Group. But powerful backers won't change the toxic business environment all online-music startups face. More »

11:00 PM on Mon Nov 10 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,556 views, 4 comments

Latest by Figaro: Don't you just wish you could short startups? more »

tim cook

Apple's CEO-in-waiting

Some days it seems like Steve Jobs will be CEO of Apple until he dies. But after a bout with pancreatic cancer and a health scare earlier this year, peope are starting the grieving process earlier. Part of that involves playing a guessing game about who will take his place. Fortune convincingly argues that Apple COO Tim Cook is the only real candidate. More »

10:40 AM on Mon Nov 10 2008
By Owen Thomas
892 views, 2 comments

Latest by buzzzkilll: This is a clear case of a #2 job being vastly preferable to the #1 job, at which Cook's tenure 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 »

corrections

New MySpace Music chief Courtney Holt is a dude, okay?

I feel sorry for Courtney Holt. Partly because the MTV executive is rumored to be taking a terrible job running MySpace Music, a feature of the social network masquerading as a separate company. But mostly because of his name. In a previous article, I was enough of a bonehead to refer to Holt as "she." Trying to do my part to promote the role of women in the tech industry, okay?

5:40 PM on Wed Nov 5 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,145 views, 5 comments

Latest by longtailwagsthevalley: worst. headshot. ever. more »

hires

Another MySpace Music CEO candidate stalls on the job

Why is it that Courtney Holt, the MTV executive reportedly offered a job running MySpace Music, has yet to take the CEO position there? Because, like the other candidates, he figured out that running a feature of a website is not a real job.

4:20 PM on Tue Nov 4 2008
By Owen Thomas
342 views, 3 comments

hires

Another Microsoftie joins Yahoo's new cult of personality

Heavy.com continues to get lighter; Eric Hadley, who only joined the funny-videos-for-guys startup a year ago as chief marketing officer, has joined Yahoo as its VP of advertiser and partner marketing. He'd previously worked for a decade at Microsoft. We see the hand of Joanne Bradford in this; she's the former MSN chief who now runs ad sales at Yahoo. The pattern here? More »

1:00 PM on Tue Nov 4 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,274 views, 2 comments

Most discussed ValleySag: This guy puts the "I" in Incompetent. He's not qualified to do anything really. He is entry-level pr at best. more »

tony fadell

iPod's father leaves Apple

Tony Fadell, the head of Apple's iPod division, is exiting Steve Jobs's reality distortion field. While Fake Steve Jobs likes to take credit for inventing the frigging iPod, its real mastermind is Tony Fadell, who took his plans for an MP3 player to Apple in 2001 as a consultant. His replacement: Former IBM chip expert Mark Papermaster, whose erstwhile employer is suing Apple to prevent him from taking a job there. That Papermaster is replacing Fadell makes its lawsuit even stranger; it is seeking to enforce a noncompete clause in his contract, but a job overseeing MP3 players and cell phones hardly seems a competitive threat to IBM. Fadell is planning to take some time off Pity. Since he joined Apple, Fadell's homepage has turned into a placeholder. We were looking forward to the return of the "jazzy, shameless self-promotion" it once offered.

11:00 PM on Mon Nov 3 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,755 views, 3 comments

Most discussed ciscokidinsf: Can someone explain this to me like a 4 year old? Why the IBM guy? Is there like a secret more »

hires

Microsoft exec Jeff Dossett really joining Yahoo after all

Mountaineer, philanthropist, and longtime Microsoftie Jeff Dossett has a new claim to fame: He's brave enough to join Yahoo — but it took a while to convince him. Two months ago, Dossett, who joined Microsoft in 1991, went through a curious back-and-forth: BoomTown's Kara Swisher reported he was leaving Microsoft to join Yahoo. A Microsoft rep promptly denied the report, claiming Dossett was leaving a job at the software giant's MSN Web business, but looking at other opportunities within Microsoft. We could speculate about how Microsoft and Yahoo were bidding for Dossett's services, but the real lesson here is: Never, ever believe a Microsoft flack. Dossett replaces Scott Moore, who's leaving Yahoo as reported.

1:20 PM on Mon Nov 3 2008
By Owen Thomas
914 views, Comment

lawsuits

Apple poaches IBM chip guy Mark Papermaster

Who's Mark Papermaster, the chip guru Apple and IBM are scrapping over? Here's one clue: He's the kind of guy who has no photos online. There used to be a "Mark Papermaster" profile on Facebook, but it's gone. No wonder he wants to disappear: Apple hired Papermaster, formerly a VP at IBM, possibly to run its PA Semi chip-design subsidiary. Apple switched to Intel chips for its Macs years ago, but after it bought PA Semi, speculation grew that it might use some variation on IBM's Power chips for the iPhone and iPod. Papermaster could help with that. More »

2:20 PM on Fri Oct 31 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,170 views, 3 comments

Latest by alexr_vw: A guy named on only one patent isn't much of a "chip guru" if you ask me. He's clearly pure more »

Robyn Peterson

Ziff-Davis CTO leaves meaningless job for NBC

The latest we're-supposed-to-care chatter from the tipline: "It was just announced yesterday that Ziff-Davis Chief Technology Officer Robyn Peterson is leaving to go to NBC. Ouch!" Ouch? The real ouch is that Ziff-Davis Media, the considerably reduced tech-magazine publisher, was paying someone to be its CTO in the first place.

2:20 PM on Thu Oct 30 2008
By Owen Thomas
495 views, Comment

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