Valleywag
venture capital
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roger mcnamee
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venture capital
the sum of all human knowledge
Wikipedia gerrymanders its board
Sue Gardner, the power-hungry executive director of Wikipedia's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, has carried out the first phase of her master plan. She's orchestrated a reorganization of Wikipedia's board. The chief changes to the rulers of the world's most complete list of people affected by bipolar disorder: Only 30 percent of the board is now elected. Two board members will be appointed by Wikipedia's "chapters," country-specific nonprofits which wield power far greater than their actual numbers would seem to warrant. Jimmy Wales has been granted an unelected "community founder" seat. The other five board seats, three of them currently empty, can be filled by board appointees with no connection to Wikipedia. Which would make it easy for Gardner to stack the board with wealthy venture capitalists interested in profiting from Wikipedia's highly-trafficked website. More »
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
Jimmy Wales's $1,300 dinner with the VC
Everyone's beating up on Wkipedia founder Jimmy Wales for his shady dealings. But evidence has now arisen that if he's a money-grubber, he's not a particularly skilled one. When Wales turned in receipts for $30,000 in expenses charged to the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's nonprofit parent, among them was a $1,300 dinner at a steakhouse in Tampa. In attendance: Marc Bodnick, another Elevation Partners cofounder. Bodnick later introduced Wales to Bono. (His sister-in-law Sheryl Sandberg, then a Google exec, now Facebook's COO, helped connect Bodnick and Bono, a contact from her Washington days.) The foundation's board ultimately turned down Wales's request to get paid back for the dinner. 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 »
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 »
valleywag calendar
Tonight: LeWeb3 host and blogueur Loic Le Meur and blogger-cartoonist Hugh MacLoud host a dinner at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco's Mission District. Warning: The event may already be overbooked. [Eventbrite]
What to do this week
- Tuesday: Pictured above: Moonalice, the band comprised of Elevation Capital partner Roger McNamee and former Saturday Night Live band leader GE Smith, performs a free lunchtime show in Union Square. [Moonalice]
- Friendster and Socializr founder Jonathan Abrams leads the GeekSessions at the City Club of San Francisco. [Upcoming]
- Wednesday: Lunch 2.0 hosts a happy hour at Facebook's offices in downtown Palo Alto. [Facebook]
- Former MarketWatch columnist Bambi Francisco is among the all-women presenters at this month's San Francisco New Tech Meetup. [Eventbrite]
