kleiner perkins

Valleywag

• real estate

  Bill Joy sells $40 million condo to Hugh Jackman at half off

  Dreamily inventive billionaire Bill Joy, the cofounder of Sun Microsystems, has predicted doom for the human race in the pages of Wired. He has a new reason for pessimism: A Manhattan condo he put on the market for $40 million has reportedly sold to Australian actor Hugh Jackman for $21 million — down from a previously rumored sale price of $25 million. The five-bedroom, three-floor condominium has a view of the Hudson River. We have a theory on why Joy sold, even at such a discounted price. More »

  12:20 PM on Fri Nov 14 2008
  By Owen Thomas
  11,723 views, 11 comments

  Most discussed Smitros: Thad headline begs for a punchline. more »

• bad advice

  John Doerr to startup CEOs: Be more like Scoble

  Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr is the guy everyone vaguely remembers as being important a decade ago but can't recall anything he's funded recently besides Friendster. Even so, he's full of advice for entrepreneurs — so full of advice that his 10 tips for startups spilled over to 11. The 11th tip: "Overcommunicate with everyone -– employees, investors, partners and particularly customers. Don’t sugar coat things, communicate your resolve." Where have we heard that before? More »

  12:40 PM on Thu Oct 30 2008
  By Owen Thomas
  805 views, 4 comments

  Most discussed macbeach: Pathetic. Anyone just getting out of school should be THRILLED that the housing bubble has ended. I think the REAL more »

• real estate

  Legendary VC Tom Perkins putting $20.5 million house on the market

  7,535 sq. ft. 7 bd/6.5 ba. 3-car gar. Wet bar. Wine cellar. MUST SELL NOW. Okay, that last bit isn't part of the listing for Tom Perkins's palatial home in Belvedere, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. But the fact that Perkins wants to sell his house, in this real-estate market, is disturbing. He is one of the founders of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and is fabulously wealthy. He has already started hawking his $187 million megayacht, the Maltese Falcon. What this looks like: Perkins is liquidating his worldly possessions. Let's assume he's not doing this because of financial straits. The only alternative conclusion: Perkins thinks he should sell now, before things get much, much worse.

  12:20 PM on Wed Oct 29 2008
  By Owen Thomas
  4,403 views, 16 comments

  Most discussed CulverDexamenus: Obviously he thinks Obama is going to win the election and capital gains taxes are going to go through the more »

• 100-word version

  Why Kleiner Perkins thinks green is the new black

  The company that funded Netscape, Google and Genentech is now focusing on electric cars, solar power and biofuels. New York Times contributor Jon Gertner has been meeting with Kleiner partners since last year. His 8,000-word feature in Sunday's paper goes deep on details of a few KPCB investments such as Ausra. But it spends a lot of time framing the story for non-techies outside the Valley. Here's the Sand Hill Road edit: More »

  5:00 PM on Mon Oct 6 2008
  By Paul Boutin
  1,450 views, 8 comments

  Most discussed sample032: Outside of the Bay Area, people don't care how green a product makes them look as much as they care more »

• caption contest

  Eric Schmidt and wife Wendy seen in Valleywag Green #61b335

  Last week's opening gala for the new Renzo Piano-designed California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park was graced by Google CEO Eric Schmidt actually with wife Wendy Schmidt and Shawn Byers with Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers VC hubby Brook Byers. The Byers even had accessories crafted from the San Francisco Chronicle's funny pages. Care to craft a better headline? Leave it in the comments and we'll judge the entries harshly, promise. Yesterday "BoothRank == 0" from Athletic Supporter v0.42beta evaluated to true. (Photo by Catherine Bigelow/7x7)

  4:00 PM on Tue Sep 30 2008
  By Jackson West
  2,088 views, 13 comments

  Most discussed Alaska Miller: is the guy on the right wearing a c4 belt and tnt bowtie? wtf? more »

• great moments in pr

  Al Gore's Twitter account still a secret

  So Al Gore, who cofounded Current TV, promised to have a Twitter account by Saturday. It's Monday, and the algore and albertgore account don't look anything like they're being maintained by the former American vice president and current free marketeer. If you find him under shouldawon00 or some other catchy handle, do let us know. I couldn't find anything from his wife Tipper, either — tipper is a Twitter bot for calculating tips, and tippergore doesn't exist. And it's for shame. Because how fun would it be if they really embraced the medium, instead of just showing up to press the flesh at staged events? Below, pure speculation as to what we all have to look forward to. More »

  7:00 AM on Mon Sep 29 2008
  By Jackson West
  532 views, 1 comment

  Latest by giania: The day Gore actually uses "lulz" is the day I will have officially seen everything. more »

• venture capital

  iPhone app fund rejects 99.8 percent of applicants

  "In 6 months, we’ve received over 2,700 plans. That’s about 20x what we received in a similar period last year. Out of that group, we’ve funded five companies." Honestly, I have no idea why Kleiner Perkins partner Matt Murphy has decided to blog about the firm's iFund venture with Apple. KPCB is notorious for doing all its deals through insider connections, not by trolling for ideas on the Internet. (Apple board member Al Gore is also a partner at Kleiner Perkins, so it's not like the firm needs an in.) Murphy concludes, "Stay tuned for a future conversation on mobile monetization and navigating the tradeoffs of free versus paid applications." How about a conversation on navigating Apple's imperious rule of its App Store?

  1:40 PM on Mon Sep 15 2008
  By Paul Boutin
  514 views, 1 comment

  Latest by ResearchZilla: btw, here's an updated version of the same podcaster story from cnet: [news.cnet.com] more »

• digital chocolate

  Ray Lane badmouths Kleiner investment

  Clubby VC partnerships usually invest by consensus. So did Kleiner Perkins's Ray Lane, the former president of Oracle who joined the firm eight years ago, abstain from the company's decision to invest in Digital Chocolate in 2006? I ask only because when the Wall Street Journal chatted Lane up about the software business, he cited cell-phone games, in particular, as code that ought never have been compiled. “You can argue that a lot of these applications should never have existed,” Lane said of "some cell-phone games," according to the Journal More »

  1:20 PM on Thu Aug 21 2008
  By Owen Thomas
  755 views, 1 comment

  Latest by Passerby: Yeah those cell phone games in Japan on entirely mobile social networks pulling down 50m a year, for a company more »

• Agami

  Storage startup burns through $45 million in 6 months, shuts down

  Sunnyvale-based storage startup Agami called an all hands at 11 AM, Monday, August 4. "I thought we were getting bought out,'' one sales rep told the Mercury News. Instead, CEO David Stiles told his employees that the company was shutting down and that everyone had to clear out by 1 PM. "Basically we all felt betrayed,'' another employee told the Mercury News. They had reason to be surprised. Agami only closed its third round of funding in February, after raising $45 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins. More »

  9:00 AM on Wed Aug 20 2008
  By Nicholas Carlson
  2,968 views, 17 comments

  Latest by httpcolon: That's a lot of f'in cheeseburgers. more »

• valley spawn

  John Doerr's daughter is greener than thou

  Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, ever the indulgent father, has stopped showering tears on his 17-year-old daughter Mary, and switched to cash instead. Mary Doerr's nonprofit, Inconvienient Youth, is a Ning-based social network that's supposed to make Al Gore's global warming presentation more "teen-friendly," according to VentureBeat. More »

  10:00 AM on Tue Aug 19 2008
  By Nicholas Carlson
  1,013 views, 13 comments

  Latest by ViperBorg: Not everyone has a clothesline you selfish bit.... I held up... honest, I did. more »