Valleywag
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meltdowns
Pud was so much better at this
Eight years ago Philip Kaplan, aka Pud, turned his anonymous rumor site FuckedCompany into a modest advertising business. Today, Kaplan is chief something-or-other at AdBrite, a Sequoia-backed startup whose CEO has dutifully slashed its payroll down to profitability. By contrast, sloppy typist "FS Crew" at FuckedStartups has already thrown in the towel. "We have incredible pipeline of rumors and tips," promises the For Sale post atop the site. "We have other projects and don’t have the time to focused (sic) our 100% attention on this project." What FS Crew really means is: "Fuck, this is hard. Someone please pay me to quit." Sorry, but on Web 2.0, it's the other way around: Your customers quit you, for free. -
layoffs
AdBrite cuts 40 of 100 employees
Cue the schadenfreude brigade: AdBrite, the online-advertising network funded by Sequoia Capital, has laid off 40 of 100 employees. Why will some view this with glee? Because, a decade ago, AdBrite founder Philip Kaplan ran a site called FuckedCompany, which chronicled layoffs and cutbacks in the bursting of the bubble. AdBrite actually grew out of Kaplan's ad-sales efforts on the site. Two vice presidents are leaving, including Paul Levine, the former Yahoo executive AdBrite hired to run marketing last year. Anyone want to bet Levine will land at Zvents, a startup whose board of directors he recently joined? -
online advertising
AdBrite fires top sales guy, considers cutting lunches
FuckedCompany creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan's ad network, AdBrite, just fired its VP of Sales Jim Benton. In mid-August, a tipster told us it would happen. Now the same source tells us "free lunches are next on the chop." Engineering VP Mike Reaves and HR chief Melissa Vernon left the company earlier this year. Why's AdBrite in so much trouble? Because there are too many ad networks — about 300 — and not enough business to go around. More » -
online advertising
Execs flee AdBrite
AdBrite, the online-ad network best known for its quirky founder, FuckedCompany creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan, is hiring an in-house lawyer. This is odd only in that last we heard, the online ad network already had one. Current general counsel Rebecca Eisenberg is just one of several vice presidents leaving the company, according to a tipster. Engineering VP Mike Reaves left in February, a month after HR chief Melissa Vernon. We'd also heard that cofounder Gidon Wise is out the door. More » -
nowpublic
Robert Scoble, other Valley bon vivants subject of latest ego-stroking linkbait
Vancouver-based NowPublic is ostensibly all about citizen journalism. But since Guy Kawasaki sold Truemors to it and signed up as an advisor, it's becoming better known for publishing flattering lists of "influencers," supposedly ranking them according to various social media metrics. The first "Most Public" list focused on New York, but a new list for the Valley and San Francisco is "coming soon." And by virtue of being included in the latest edition, we received an early copy as a press release. Who comes out on top? Ubiquitous attention slut Robert Scoble, naturally. Full list after the jump. More » -
online advertising
AdBrite's big numbers gets smaller and smaller
From the beginning, Philip Kaplan has touted AdBrite's ad stats on the ad network's homepage. Today, it proclaims "470 million impressions a day on 54,328 sites." Which sounds impressive enough. Until one consults the Internet Archive and sees that more than two years ago, AdBrite was "serving 321,628,843 daily pageviews on 8,660 sites. AdBrite's pageviews have grown by less than 50 percent, while its customer base has expanded sevenfold. More customers, more costs; even on the Internet, catering to small fry gets expensive. If ad networks are a scale business, AdBrite has been growing the wrong number. -
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rock star
Philip Kaplan releases "greatest and best song in the world"
Why did FuckedCompany creator Philip "Pud" Kaplan record a profane song, "Fuck," in August under the name "Farty McPoopants"? The pseudonym is easy enough to explain: His current venture is AdBrite, an online-advertising network. And selling ads is a business that's all about keeping up appearances. Given his past, you'd think Kaplan wouldn't be so sensitive. But even Kaplan knew he couldn't blow his cool. His company, an online-advertising network, was in the midst of a tense negotiation with porn-ads partner AVN, and trying to raise a new round of financing.
More »
5:15 PM on Sat Dec 15 2007
By Owen Thomas
1,462 views, 4 commentsLatest by SandHillSnobbery: pud is the biggest tool i've ever met. he's an attention starved loser who is fighting for last place with more »
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online advertising
AdBrite makes clean break with porn-ad partner
How eager is AdBrite founder Philip Kaplan to get into the porn-ads business? So eager that he's counting the seconds. On AVNAds.com, the relaunch site for AdBrite's partnership with porn-trade publisher AVN, there's a splash page announcing the move to Black Label Ads, a new website wholly owned and operated by AdBrite, in less than two days. We hear that making a clean break with AVN — without the acrimony of past attempts to split up — was a requirement before Sequoia Capital and other investors put in their latest investment, a $23 million financing round for the online ad network. Not that investors have entirely quelled their concerns about AdBrite being in the porn business. The new site, Black Label Ads, attempts to disguise the AdBrite connection — except in its legal agreements. -
mysteries
Philip Kaplan knows who runs TheFunded.com
The so-far anonymous creator of TheFunded.com, a message board which lets entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists, is going to unveil himself tonight at an event. New rumors continue to bubble up about who "Ted" might be, as the site's founder is known. One tipster suggested Philip "Pud" Kaplan, the founder of FuckedCompany and AdBrite. Nah — that's not Kaplan's style. When he does something, he signs his name to it. He's transparent, much like his shirt in the above picture. But we do hear that Kaplan knows the secretive entrepreneur's true identity. -
silicon valley tool
AdBrite CEO wants employees to work 10 hours a day
Philip Kaplan once ran the website InternalMemos.com, a compendium of leaked company missives. Now Valleywag has obtained one from AdBrite, the online-ad network Kaplan founded. AdBrite is now run by CEO Iggy Fanlo, who earns our Silicon Valley Tool award for railing at his employees about their work hours: "I continue to see too few folks here at 9 AM; and too few folks here at 6 PM." Let's leave aside the issue of whether Fanlo is violating California overtime laws; long hours are part of the startup culture. We just want to know if Fanlo has considered that employees might be avoiding the office in order to minimize contact with the company's erratic founder. The full memo, as Kaplan himself would have run it: More »
philip kaplan
San Francisco, 7:42 PM
Thu Dec 4
6 posts in the last 24 hours
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