When it comes to discussing the sex lives of one's daughters on the record, however, we draw the line. For the crime of oversharing, Watkins has gone from hero to zero — and become our latest Silicon Valley Tool.

Do you have other nominations? Please send them in.

"If you write something positive, we'll do you later," said Ismail — the implication being that he'd feed Valleywag scoops on Yahoo Brickhouse projects. "If you write something negative, well ..." He trailed off and his hand gestures suggested that we'd be left in the cold, or worse. Next thing I know, the dude is backing my boss into a flat-screen TV. So I guess he meant it. Not that I think we're going to miss anything. The chance of Ismail telling us something about an upcoming Brickhouse product release is about as likely as ... an upcoming Brickhouse product release.

Tom Coates, the London-based Yahoo who's actually running Fire Eagle, had been quietly talking it up among people interested in the project, which aims to make it easier for people to broadcast their locations across various websites. But when Ismail decided to make a big announcement and brief the Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch, Coates's name was nowhere to be seen. What's worse, his engineering team was still working on it and the project, which Ismail said would launch by the end of the month, wasn't ready to go live.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a clever exercise of the classic software-company management trick: Boss preannounces project in order to spur programmers to actually ship code. But Coates was irate enough to force Ismail to backpedal on his blog:

Lots of coverage, mostly good. However, it's important to note that it's just an announcement. The developer launch will happen later this month. Tom Coates and the team have been working tirelessly with some of the world's leading geo-coding experts, and we're almost ready.

Brickhouse, an inspiring idea, is at once an object of envy and ridicule within Yahoo. With few successful projects coming out of the San Francisco incubator, Ismail's boss, Bradley Horowitz, have been trying to extend the brand to efforts housed in Yahoo's R&D labs and its Advanced Products Group. That, of course, will end up drawing more attention to the San Francisco group's failures.

What really makes Ismail a Silicon Valley Tool? Horowitz is using him. Ismail and Brickhouse are being set up to fail. If Brickhouse has another success like Pipes, expect Horowitz to take credit. And if Brickhouse flops for good? Ismail gets the blame. One almost feels sorry for him.

Ismail's plight wouldn't matter, of course, except for this: While the purple people play political games over who should get the most points for innovation, Google and Facebook are actually inventing useful new software. Maybe people at Yahoo are, too — but thanks to bosses who can't even steal credit successfully, you'll never hear about it.

From: Iggy Fanlo To: AdBrite Subject: work hours

I hesitated sending this email for quite some time and had hoped that through your direct managers I would see some improvement. Having said that, I continue to see too few folks here at 9 AM; and too few folks here at 6 PM. I don't care if you are a morning person or a night person; if you want to work 10-8 pm or 8-6 pm, but I fully expect each one of you to put in 9-10 hours per working day. This is still a startup and we need more passion, time and energy from each of our employees than a large company would require. If we succeed, the rewards, both psychic and financial, will be great. But for that, we ask you to give more than the typical 9-5 job.

I respect each and every one of you as professionals, and I would be VERY sad if I/we ever had to keep track of working hours for our employees, but I need each of you to think about your commitment and whether it is strong enough. Again, I want to repeat; for the vast majority of you, this is just an FYI and you should be content in the knowledge that I care about you and don't want you struggling alone long into the night. Those that work hard deserve more from their peers. It's my job to make sure that we fight as a team; we are only as strong as our weakest link.

Ignacio "Iggy" Fanlo
AdBrite
CEO
iggy@adbrite.com

From: Jon Staenberg To: jon@staenberg.com Sent: Sun Oct 21 10:19:49 2007 Subject: in the redwoods this weeekend and not out of the woods in the buenos aires airport

I spent this weekend amongst men, smoking cigars, drinking good wine and having fun, intelligent (mostly) conversations. It was a place called the Family Farm in Woodside, CA. Several people have called this place a less pretentious Bohemian Grove but I have not been there so I cannot say.

"I do this for my soul," one of the guys said to me. By the end of the weekend, I understood that. Something about those trees and the smells and the leisurely pace with the meandering rhythms of the nonschedule.

And the music. Everywhere. Is there anything quite as satisfactory as sitting around singing songs in a group? The simple pleasures are the best. All of this we know but often take for granted.

It is hard to describe this place but it has magic. I believe in the magic of positive human gatherings. Religion was built on it. Burning Man has it. All of it is not guaranteed but when it works, the heart soars.

Off to Oaxaca for Dia De Los Muertos, another magical gathering.

Trying to walk a little more lightly on this Earth.

JRS

10-10-07

24 hours in the Buenos Aires airport is not exactly the best way to end a trip. Because of the baggage handlers strike and some alleged stolen money and maybe a drunk pilot, I missed my board meeting in NY and two Springsteen concerts in Philly. At least I got through, "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves."

A long trip it has been. Many stops. Good travel. New ventures included Colonia and Montevideo in Uruguay. Mostly, I am starting to get to know people with second and third meetings and the streets, smells, and sights are now just that more familiar.

When I arrived on the final (long) day to the airport I found people sitting in the check-in line. They were sitting, not sure what to do. Don't want to lose your place in line. How long? Know one knew. Why? Not sure exactly. This is all part of the great privatization of industries many years ago.

People expect this in Argentina. We do not. What are other things that are questionable? Traveling to South America this time I am struck by things we assume to be. For example, we assume that things pretty much work, that the government is not too corrupt, that hard work is rewarded and that all things are possible. We even believe that if we help others, we will be rewarded. Karma as used by the capitalists.

Argentines believe that you are better off to get now while the getting is good. Things may be ok now but these things are in cycles and that it is only a matter of time before it turns again. The government is tolerated but clearly the best you can hope for is not to be screwed too badly. I prefer to believe in the good, give to charity, help those who want to help themselves, and to remain excited about the road ahead.

The Argentine (and much of Latin America) basic beliefs make it hard to create start-ups, for example. Why trade off salary for ownership if your view of the future is clouded. I was asked to speak in Chile on how to make venture work there. I believe that our Silicon Valley model can be "exported" to some degree but I wonder if it can be truly replicated. There are some many small, symbiotic pieces that make it work. You need many of them or you just wont have it.

In Argentina, one of the most successful startups is Mercado Libre, the ebay of Latin America. They went public this year and have a market cap of almost $2B. When I asked people about it, many didn't know that it was so successful. I realized then how much we celebrate such success in the USA and glorify it so others will strive to emulate it.

It makes me think about what is held up to be celebrated. When the plane took off people clapped. Some of it was relief but some of it was just the basic idea that a plane was taking off. That seems a bit low on the Maslowian hierarchy of celebrations.

We enter the season of celebrations: May we celebrate our good fortune and our belief in what could be and what is not.

Go jump in a bag of leaves.

J

The only thing you can conclude is that it's a crap shoot. You have no idea what is going to succeed.

I have a very low opinion of the blogosphere. I think it is made up of about 250,000 people who are mostly 45-year-old men who live with their mother and have dead cats in their refrigerators.

From Ghostwriter:

Michael Baum is a self-loving a-hole. I first came across him about 8 months ago on a United PS flight from SFO to JFK. He was the row behind me in business class. The guy wouldn't shut the fuck up the entire flight. And he had a splitting loud voice. It was a nightmare. Then the following week I get on the same flight back to SFO, and I have my headphones on. I couldn't concentrate because someone behind me was talking incredibly loudly. I turn around, and sure enough it was him again. He was having full-blast conversations about things that were way too private for half the cabin to be listening to.

About three weeks later I he was on my flight again, thankfully not seated by me. I knew who he was now, considering I'd previously had 10 hours of listening to him self-indulge to some unfortunate subordinate.

The topper came the night after the third flight. I was at the Elite Cafe on Filmore having dinner with my girlfriend. We were seated in a both, next to a table of about 6 guys loudly eating and drinkig. I couldn't see the table, but they were fucking loud and drunk. They kept staring at my girlfriend, who finally made me switch places with her. Of course, I sit down, look over, and it's fucking Michael Baum, and he's now ruining my dinner. WTF. At some point I go to the bathroom, and when I come back, my girlfriend tells me that one of them has just snapped a picture of her with his treo (remember this is like 6 months ago). So I turn and walk over to him "You're Michael Baum right?" "Uhhhh Uhh yeah.."... "Great, why don't you keep your camera in your pocket. And stop taking the 5:30 United flight from JFK on Thursdays..."

He was pretty dumbfounded. The best though was when they spilled a full bottle of red wine and a bunch of glasses all over the table about 15 minutes later... pure class...

From thewriter:

I used to work for the thebaum and you're spot on! So are the comments by the Ghostwriter. Mr. Baum is so full of himself he is widely hated by all who come in contact with him: employees, vendors, customers, and apparently anyone who is stuck on a plane or in a restaurant with him. Thebaum is not a tall man, but clearly thinks he tops 7 feet—the joke is everyone calls him the little jockey.

Embarrassing doesn't even begin to cover his behavior sometimes. Try being at a company dinner with 30+ people while he asks the waitress to ask the other waitress with the big boobs to bring him dessert.

Funny thing is, if you meet his two brothers, you find out he's the decent one! And I'd heard him say on more than one occasion that the only people worth hiring went to ivy-league schools.

Amazingly, the company is great. They have been able to hire a lot of fabulous people who are building an amazing product, but quite a few people interview with thebaum and won't even consider taking a position there.

Stan Oleynick, the smug guy pictured here, wants to

Two years ago, he created this breathless PR release touting milliondollarstate.com, a Million Dollar Homepage copycat. Oleynick, though, charged $100 per "virtual acre" instead of $1 per pixel, in a precursor to today's Weblo scheme. Sounds like Oleynick is the type of guy to sell you a bridge, doesn't it? Fun fact, he's done that, too! (Musical bridges, but still.) Another venture, eNthem, sold custom-made songs to corporations for $499 per song.

So, how are his businesses doing now? Can't quite tell. eNthem is "under construction" and Million Dollar State is suspended. Is there a Guinness record for failed startups? We think Stan's on his way.

Interviewing him for Valleywag, Sarah Meyers, to her credit, got an answer out of McClure: He hopes to consult for the company. Asked if he's considered working there, he fesses up: "I might be helping with some outreach and events they're doing in the future." You're so busted, Dave. I still love ya, man, but for that, I'm handing you an award as Valleywag's latest Silicon Valley Tool.

(Video by Sarah Meyers and Enric for Valleywag)

If the new guys are so great, though, why stop hiring? Here's a radical idea: Keep on adding new employees, but start ripping out some of the dead wood that's accumulated at the world's most adjective-ridden company.

And with that, I present "Toogle Many Googlers!", a series in which I nominate Googlers who need to be given a gentle push out of the Googleplex. Read on for the first batch of names. Got a nomination? Send it in, preferably with a pic of the victim.

Chris Sacca, Google's "head of special initiatives," with an inflated title and an equally inflated ego, specializes in hot-air projects guaranteed never to go anywhere, and hence, never require any real work on his part. If it weren't for the special halo of protection draped on his shoulders by CEO Eric Schmidt, or so we hear, Sacca would have been given the sack long ago. No time like the present! Congratulations, Chris Sacca: You're the first person Valleywag nominates as one Googler toogle many!

He's already said he's got the world's easiest job. So why not just ease David Lawee right on out of it? With no real background in marketing, Lawee just parrots the same palaver as the rest of the Google gang about how its products market themselves. If they market themselves, bud, why do you have a job? And when he's not reciting those tiresome lines, he brags about how Google's so humble — so humble, he needs to tell you how humble it is five times in a single conversation! David Lawee, if you can take a break from eating humble pie in the Google cafeteria, accept our heartfelt congratulations — you're not just a Silicon Valley Tool, you're also one of Toogle Many Googlers!

It's time for Eric Schmidt to declare victory and move on. Google cofounder Larry Page still talks like a giant dork. But we hear that Page hasn't just upgraded his fashion sense — he's also grooming himself to take back his original role as Google's CEO. As Google's founders grow up, Schmidt's role as Google's so-called "adult supervision" grows increasingly pointless — witness last quarter's unsupervised hiring binge. Declaring himself a surplus Googler will let Schmidt cash out in peace and pursue his real passion: spending time with women who aren't his wife.

• The faux humility. Lawee loves talking about Google's humility. Loves loves loves. He keeps returning to the idea that Google is a "humble" company:

  [We] don't actually want to be out trumpeting ourselves and beating our chest. That actually doesn't feel comfortable for us.

  But the entire article is one big chest-thump about how Google's the humblest company in the world. When it comes to humble, Google's ready to rumble. Don't try to out-humble Google, Lawee might as well have said, or a gang of Googlers will come to your home and abase themselves on your front lawn. If Lawee really believed in Google's humility, he wouldn't talk about it so much.
• The preaching without the practice.

  We're a very innovative company, not just in terms of the products that we're creating but the way that we're organized.... You can't say you're innovative. You actually have to be innovative.

  Unless, of course, you're Google's David Lawee, giving an interview to BusinessWeek, in which case it's fine to just say it. Ad nauseam.
• The pointless job. Lawee calls himself a "brand steward." The only on-the-job activity besides meeting that he describes in the interview seems to involve giving people tours of the Googleplex. And any real work that comes his way, Lawee delegates. Google UK's logo? He outsourced that to a bunch of schoolkids. Speechwriting? He relied on a chauffeur's banter. He even admits it:

  I think I have the easiest marketing job in the world. I have unbelievable products and I have a great story to tell. So, yeah. But staying on top of everything is a huge challenge.

• The unfairness of it all. It's bad enough that Lawee has a do-nothing job. But it's not like he even needs the salary, or options on Google shares with a strike price around $300 (Google shares are currently trading around $520). Prior to joining Google in 2005, Lawee sold Xfire, an online-gaming company he cofounded, to Viacom for $110 million. If he wanted to sit around doing nothing, he could have just retired.