• 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 »

    Feature

    12:20 PM on Mon Oct 27 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    8,696 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 »

  • great moments in pr

    Seesmic wins at layoff spin

    "At Seesmic, a video blogging service, the day of reckoning — when it runs out of the $6 million it raised in May — will come in three years. To make the money last, Loïc Le Meur, the chief executive, recently laid off seven employees, or one-third of his staff, and cut all projects not directly related to the video service." Great messaging, Loic. Now for the bad news: No video blogging service will get its picture in the NYT until Web 3.0.

    9:40 AM on Mon Oct 27 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    712 views, 2 comments

    Latest by fireproof: Caption competition time? "You in the back, keep forcing that smile, or you're next!". more »

  • Layoff Memos

    Tough times, unoriginal blog posts

    Mahalo founder: "Tough times, hard decisions." Zillow founder: "Difficult times, difficult decisions." Seesmic founder: "Tough times. Tough decisions." The only thing easy in these times is what to headline your post about the employees you just laid off. Also, make sure to note that you are sad.

    4:20 PM on Wed Oct 22 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    1,490 views, 7 comments

    Latest by giania: Uncomfortably challenging zeitgeist, deductions of an equal or greater magnitude of concern. more »

  • meltdowns

    Why Seesmic's layoffs don't mean what you think they do

    Seesmic has laid off 7 employees — a third of its staff. Never heard of Seesmic? You must be doing something right with your life. The startup was ridiculous from its very conception as a tool for embedding videos as comments on blogs. Only to people who spend all day reading and commenting on blogs did that sound like a good idea. But that's exactly the kind of people Loic Le Meur attracted to himself — the groupthinking commentards of Silicon Valley, a self-appointed A-list of the blogosphere. To anyone conducting serious business, Le Meur's bloggy pals were an A-list, all right — "A" as in "avoid." Predictably, Le Meur and his investors — a group which includes Michael Arrington, a frequent promoter of Seesmic on his TechCrunch blog — are spinning the layoffs as a result of the recent economic unpleasantness. More »

    2:40 PM on Mon Oct 13 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    1,391 views, 11 comments

    Most discussed skycut: Talked to Le Meur for about 5 minutes. That dude is a prick. more »

  • online video

    Seesmic's newest feature: layoffs

    Seesmic, an online-video startup, is laying off some employees working to create original clips for the short-form video site. The official explanation, from newly unemployed video host Rachael Joy: "Seesmic's not a content site, never has been. It's a conversation tool." Joy was host of the startup's daily news and views "Seesmic du Jour." Talk of layoffs is not the conversation founder Loïc Le Meur wanted to start about Seesmic, which lets users pretend they're talking to each other through the medium of short, recorded webcam clips. Joy delivered the news with a wagging finger, in a spot-on parody of the bombastic Le Meur. More »

    11:40 AM on Tue Sep 16 2008
    By Jackson West
    2,760 views, 10 comments

    Most discussed michaellamb: damn, not even tech crunch pandering could save them..... more »

  • online advertising

    TechCrunch advertiser AmateurMatch offers "real" sex

    Nothing like cheap run-of-network ads to get the blood pumping in the morning — a tipster from Blighty spotted this ad for AmateurMatch offering "Real members, real sex" to TechCrunch readers yesterday. (Yes, I know, it could be a fake, but where's the fun in that?) By "real" I assume they mean as opposed to the cam chats you might enjoy on fellow advertiser Seesmic. Personally, I wonder how Siemens feels about all this.

    9:40 AM on Tue Sep 16 2008
    By Jackson West
    1,025 views, 5 comments

    Latest by AllanJames: Look, I wasn't going to say anything but it looks Siemen's has leaked on the other ad. more »

  • party report

    Wellington Partners happy to spend our worthless American currency

    At the brand new Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco last night, the team at European VC firm Wellington Partners celebrated the addition of an outpost in Palo Alto to their existing offices in London and Munich with a swell mixer. The hors d'oeuvres? Cheese gougères, tiny lamb chops, mushroom napoleons, Kobe beef sliders, croutons with creme fraiche, smoked salmon and caviar and a bite-sized tuna tartar, all washed down with French wine which topped $300 a bottle — which, as the joke went, "Is like, what, 20 euros?" Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis explained that for European private equity investors, the American market offers a double-dip: More »

    9:20 AM on Thu Jul 10 2008
    By Jackson West
    932 views, 3 comments

    Latest by Shadowlayer: So the french are literally throwing the house through the window... Whos the capitalist pig now? more »

  • Valleyspeak

    Seesmic launch illustrates how Metcalfe's Law and Dunbar's Number correlate

    Some of the most pervasive buzzwords in the Valley are terms to classify product or idea adoption, such as "early adopter," which serves to define a behavior profile of a customer or user who's always trying the newest new thing. As a product's appeal widens, it begins to attract the "early mainstream," or the network of acquaintances inspired by the early adopter to try the not newest but still new thing. Now that Seesmic has launched publicly and gotten a vag-tastic kickoff, the early mainstream has started to participate, as exemplified by the drunk cry for help (or a mockery thereof) above, which is much more typical of YouTube than the community fostered on Seesmic while the site was still only adding users by invitation — this earnest response is more typical of Seesmic's early adopters. Which means we need to update another hoary Valley cliche, Metcalfe's Law. More »

    Feature

    5:00 PM on Wed Jun 18 2008
    By Jackson West
    565 views, 8 comments

    Latest by Shadowlayer: So according to Metcalfe FB is now worth $3600000000000000? Riiiiiight... more »