Valleywag
Near the end of a Stirr mixer in San Francisco on Tuesday, I ran into Salim Ismail, the head of Yahoo Brickhouse and our newest Silicon Valley Tool, though he'd yet to get the prize for being one of the Bay Area's most annoying executives when we met. I noticed he had the name of his startup, Confabb, on his nametag instead of Yahoo. When asked why he wasn't representing Yahoo, he responded he wanted to "get the $10 fee" — the price Stirr charges for startup founders, instead of paying the $20 general admission fee. (Okay, he's cheap, but you'd be cheap, too, if you'd started seven companies without a single successful exit.) We chatted for a bit about Brickhouse. Then, when I started jotting down notes and he realized I might quote him about dodging the event's full fee, the conversation with the wantrepreneur turned downright silly.
"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.
Comments
Dear Nick Denton,
I emailed you on your Gawker account but maybe you'll see this sooner:
For my Behind the Money blog, I'm writing a post speculating on who "Ted", the founder of TheFunded.com, might be? Some say it's you, some say Kevin Rose, Jason Calacanis, or Evan Williams.
Ted has promised to reveal himself at an event tonight. In the meantime, will you please confirm or deny it's you?
If it's not you, who is it?
Thanks for playing,
Mary Kathleen Flynn
Senior Editor
The Deal & Tech Confidential
[www.techconfidential.com]
ouch, 4 all things D posts in a row, not what I wanted to wake up on my birthday morning to read... (below)
what IS brickhouse anyway? i'm too lazy to go digging for it
Yeah, I don't know what brickhouse is either. I think I must've gotten too busy lately to keep up with all the dying giant's shitty new products
I really dont know anything about this guy or his projects and from his responses, I really dont care....
Agreed. Why are we reading about him at all? If I had a dollar for every time some non-achiever tried to whet my interest for oooooh inside info about their boring business ... oh wait, I do have a dollar for every time. Off to Starbucks.
@marykathleenflynn: You'll probably mistake the silence here for proof, proof that Denton is blogging anonymously at some site no one reads, hiding his identity by pretending he can't write and has nothing interesting to say. But no, the silence is because none of us care. I only bothered to post this because you probably have some manager breathing down your neck to break this non-story before tonight, and I feel kind of sorry for you. Here's a helpful hint: "Ted" is none of those people. He's someone far less interesting. You read it here first.
Is Brickhouse relevant anymore? Was it ever?
@marykathleenflynn: it's ted from uncov.
Denton is smart and evil - an excellent combination of traits for a blogger.
You can see the 12-minute gap above where Boutin got his coffee. He's right though. No way would Denton or Calacanis bother to blog anonymously.
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