Valleywag

Posts Tagged “

chris sacca

”
don't be evil

Why the exit's no longer marked "Google"

The Wall Street Journal's Pepper ... & Salt has never been particularly cutting-edge. But a recent cartoon reads like a time capsule: An entrepreneur at startup WotsHot.com says, "Here's our timetable: launch, grow rapidly, be bought by Google." How quaint! During the lean years earlier in the decade, when Google was the only show in town, startups may have dreamt of getting bought by Google. But more recently, getting bought by Google has proven a nightmare, albeit a lucrative one. The oldtimers at YouTube are resting and vesting, watching the clocks tick. JotSpot's wiki product languished for a year before getting relaunched in barely functional form. Measure Map, a Web-traffic analysis startup, was similarly buried. More »

Feature

8:00 AM on Fri Aug 1 2008
By Owen Thomas
3,515 views, 6 comments

Latest by ThatKid: Chris Sacca was an advisor for Omnisio, Google's most recent acquisition target. more »

exits

Why Googlers go: because they want to control everything

Ionut Alex Chitu compiled a selection of farewell notes from departed Googlers. Nostalgic and longwinded, they're full of remembrances of free food and something called respect for engineers. Here's the good stuff — Googlers on why Googlers go. Four-word version: To be in charge. More »

9:40 AM on Mon May 5 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
7,051 views, 11 comments

Latest by EugeneDelacroix: Ted Dziuba left for the blogging. more »

rumormonger

Bradley Horowitz from Yahoo to Google?

Microsoft's bid for Yahoo has many eyeing the exits. But we hear that Bradley Horowitz, the VP in charge of Yahoo's advanced products group, has been plotting his escape long before Steve Ballmer's bear hug made it trendy. Since late last year, he's been interviewing at Google. It's not clear if he'll actually get the job, though. Google's hiring process is legendarily slow, but Larry and Sergey can get things moving on candidates they're keen on. If Horowitz was really wanted at the Googleplex, wouldn't he be working there by now? Or was Google just waiting to oust Chris Sacca, making room for another voluble professional conference attendee? Update: Bradley, we misunderestimated you. TechCrunch reports Horowitz is working on one of Google's most vaporous projects: its OpenSocial widget platform, alongside Excite founder Joe Kraus.

5:10 PM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,353 views, 3 comments

Latest by xhooter: I thought he did a good job at Yahoo. He was the sponsor of the Hack culture at Yahoo, more »

chris sacca

What are ex-Googlers good for?

At first glance, Miguel Helft's New York Times profile of Chris Sacca, Google's former "head of special initiatives," reads like a puff piece. But then I realized how cutting it was. Scrounging for an actual accomplishment by Sacca, Helft can only point to Google's piddling Wi-Fi network in Mountain View. Sacca, who plans to become an investor in startups, then downplays the one advantage he has: connections to Google. "My actual preference was to not take too much money from Googlers, as it could prevent selling some companies into Google," says Sacca. Right. Like that's ever stopped any Googlers before. More »

8:59 AM on Fri Dec 28 2007
By Owen Thomas
1,441 views, 4 comments

Latest by yarbles: I was checking out Sacca's blog to figure out who this guy is since I have never heard of him, more »

toogle many googlers

Chris Sacca's failed career at Google

A correction on that earlier Chris Sacca item: We're told by a Google insider that Sacca, the blustery big thinker who claims to have led Google's multibillion-dollar blind stampede into wireless spectrum and forced the entire industry to open up, never even made it to the director level at Google. His true title, "head of special initiatives," was a sop to make up for the fact that he never even made it into the lowest ranks of executive management. More »

12:00 PM on Thu Dec 13 2007
By Owen Thomas
3,730 views, 3 comments

Latest by Outthere: It seems that everyone that touched the Mayor's Wi-Fi program at EarthLink and Google is going bye-bye. Heard that EarthLink is more »

toogle many googlers

Chris Sacca leaves Google, continues do-nothing plan

In a long-overdue move, Chris Sacca, Google's "director head of special initiatives," has left the company. Cleverly, though, he's moving into a new career where he can continue to talk a lot and let others do the work: He's becoming an angel investor, working with Evan Williams's Obvious, the company which spun off Twitter, and Paul Graham, whose Y Combinator specializes in funding companies with utterly adorkable names. We figured Sacca's career at Google might be foreshortened when Google listed an opening for a "director of other," since that pretty much sounded like Sacca's job. Doing anything other than work. Congratulations, Chris: In a Valley that unfairly discounts laziness, you're now the ultimate value stock.

9:33 AM on Thu Dec 13 2007
By Owen Thomas
1,989 views, 4 comments

Latest by salingerjt: Sounds to me like some obscure director is jealous that his or her projects are unknown and meaningless and that more »

venture capital

Google goes from sugar daddy to supplicant

How quickly things change. In late 2005, Google's Chris Sacca bragged to Business 2.0 about how the company was buying young startups outright, snatching them out of the hands of venture capitalists. Unsurprisingly for a Sacca-led initiative, that approach has seemingly faltered. Now, BusinessWeek writes, Google is seeking to make venture investments of its own. BusinessWeek spins it as a new rivaly for Google — but it's actually a comedown. Once able to buy a startup in toto, and absorb its engineering talent into its ceaselessly expanding ranks, Google must now settle for a piece of the action. It's also a sign of the expanding pool of venture-capital cash, the increasing ambitions of entrepreneurs, and the inflating value of tech stocks. Why take a Google buyout offer now, when you can entertain dreams of an IPO?

10:13 AM on Wed Sep 5 2007
By Owen Thomas
473 views, 1 comment

Latest by weezle: One look at the financial pages suggests that "dreams of IPO" won't be entertained for very much longer. more »

google

No free Wi-Fi for you dirty San Francisco hippies

Google blunderkind Chris Sacca's plans for world domination are currently on hold. EarthLink, Google's partner in building a citywide Wi-Fi network in San Francisco, has delayed city officials' vote on the project's contract, until September, if ever. EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff is earning his last name by giving San Francisco the silent treatment. Not only has it stonewalled the city's proposal for a shortened contract and improved speed and security settings, but EarthLink now wants San Francisco to foot the bill. "The Wi-Fi business as currently constituted will not provide an acceptable return," Huff told Dow Jones. "We're going to look for municipal governments to step up and become a meaningful anchor tenant." Translation: Pony up! Of course, it has to be said: San Franciscans richly deserve this. The way we're behaving, there's no way we deserve free Wi-Fi. No wonder Chris Sacca and his partners are taking their squishy exercise balls and going home.

4:05 PM on Mon Aug 6 2007
By Mary Jane Irwin
1,421 views, 5 comments

Latest by deliriousnyc: As FSJ would say, Freetards! more »

The good news: The FCC has decided to leave some, but not all, of the wireless spectrum it's auctioning off open to multiple providers. The bad news: This means Chris Sacca can still pretend to have a job for a while longer. [Reuters]

Comment

toogle many googlers

Pick the Googlers who have to go

I've been thinking, obsessively, about the revelation Google CEO Eric Schmidt made in last week's earnings call that his company had overhired. Even more curiously, Schmidt defended the hiring binge, expressing his delight in the quality of the people Google's overeager recruiters had brought on board. More »

Feature

11:17 AM on Fri Jul 27 2007
By Owen Thomas
6,554 views, 17 comments

Latest by Tiger415: @playnice23, You must be a friend of Tracy Lee-Blumberg or a manager in OSO because you seem so adamant about more »