Valleywag: wendi deng

The 15 hottest CEO wives

Paul Boutin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:00:00 PDT

Lucy Southworth made the cut at AOL's Asylum blog, even though hubby Larry Page isn't the CEO of his company. If you don't want to click through Asylum's pop-up interactive preso, I searched our photo databases to find real-world shots — not Photoshopped promo pictures — of Asylum's two other Valley-related picks. Both have a certain something once considered unsightly on a trophy wife: careers.

Romance novelist Melanie Craft has been Mrs. Larry Ellison since December 2003.

Wendi Deng (that's 邓文迪 to you) isn't just Mrs. Rupert Murdoch. She's chief strategist for MySpace China.

(Photos by Patrick McMullen, WENN, Daniel Deme/WENN)

MySpace China CEO quits, with Rupert Murdoch's wife in the wings

Owen Thomas — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:40:00 PDT

Why doesn't News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch just make it official? His wife, Wendi Deng, serves as "chief strategist" for MySpace China, the media conglomerate's Internet outpost in her homeland. MySpace China CEO Luo Chan has just quit. Just promote her already, Rupert! You're not going to have any luck recruiting an outsider to fill the spot, when it's obvious Deng runs the show. And you'll never hear the end of it from her until you do. (If you're not familiar with Deng's colorful history before she married Murdoch, you should read up on it, courtesy of a pre-Murdoch Wall Street Journal article.)

What's Sergey Brin doing with Arianna Huffington in Tahiti?

Owen Thomas — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:50:10 PDT

Google cofounder Sergey Brin is, two days away from his company's first-quarter earnings call, sunning himself in Tahiti. As is Greco-American blog tycoon Arianna Huffington and Wendi Deng, wife of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. Huffington is reportedly there on vacation, but it's a stretch to think Brin and Deng are also there by sheer coincidence. Anyone have a bead on what prompted the South Pacific power summit? Do let us know your theories.

MySpace platform not headed to SF -- but office is

Megan McCarthy — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:55:09 PDT

Rumors are swirling that MySpace will announce a platform for application developers, like Facebook's next week at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. But they're wrong, according to a source close to the company. There is a platform in the works, but it's not ready yet — delayed, like so many other MySpace tech projects. Instead, MySpace's Chris DeWolfe and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will be in town to make some announcement related to MySpace's instant-messaging client — ho-hum news — and, more interestingly, to open up a San Francisco office. Why the need to expand from MySpace's Beverly Hills digs?

Apparently, Web developers, like vampires, shun warmth and sunlight. Unable to find enough talented engineers in L.A., MySpace has decided to open up more fogbound digs to tap San Francisco's pool of snooty, entitled, arrogant Webheads. Welcome to San Francisco, Rupe! You can't really claim to run an Internet company until you've been sneered at by a 23-year-old developer, so enjoy it. To celebrate the move, the company will throw a shindig next week at the Museum of Modern Art, right in time to attract the crowd attending the Web 2.0 Summit.

One lingering question: Will Chris DeWolfe, Rupert Murdoch, and Wendi Deng — wife of Murdoch and, as chairwoman of MySpace China, DeWolfe's colleague — all attend the party together? [Editor's note: Awkwaaarrrd!]

Chris DeWolfe's misplaced affection

Megan McCarthy — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:05:15 PDT

MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe may not be your friend (that's the other co-founder, Tom Anderson), but he does hold a few powerful people near-and-dear. Including, Portfolio reports, Wendi Deng, the wife of News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch. Portfolio surmises that DeWolfe's friendship with Deng might help convince her husband to meet DeWolfe and Anderson's $50M compensation demand to stick around for another year. We think that DeWolfe has the wrong target in mind. While it might be easier for him to spend time with Deng — they're both on the board of MySpace China — we think he should be buttering up News Corp heir apparent Peter Chernin, who recent fillings revealed to be the highest paid person at News Corp.