CES? DGAF! Bill Clinton Turns Samsung Speech Into Cry for Gun Control
Source: Reddit's Angel Round Comes with 'Outrageous' Terms
Rumor Roundup: Sexism at CES? It Ain’t Me, Babe
#RealTalk Dave McClure, our favorite giver of zero fucks, went on a bit of a Twitter tear the other day. It started with the admission that he’d “just had really hard tough love talk w/ startup founder. fucking sucks, but better harsh truth than bullshit ‘you’ll make it work’ lies.” He didn’t stop there, adding that ”what really sucks is none of other investors (incl big lead VC) have the balls 2 tell them its not going 2 fucking work & shut it down.”
He concluded: “the Silicon Valley story is indeed the 1% story of Instagram $1B win, but also 99% broken dreams, shattered hopes & try, try again. sigh.” Read More
Welcome to Tech World Stardom, Jimmy Iovine
It’s no wonder that Jimmy Iovine has been the beau of the ball called CES—what would you rather write about, more dumb gadget shit or the smack-talking, paisley-loving head of a major record label? Read More
Betaworks and Fictive Kin Team Up To Help with the Fun Part of Your To-Do List
Do you have a Google Doc or an iPhone note where you keep a running list of books, movies and other things you’ve been meaning to check out? Well, today partners Betaworks and Fictive Kin announced a new service meant to help out. Done Not Done, at its simplest level, is a new and Read More
Cops Now Pinning Mugshots to Pinterest Because the Police Can Be Aspirational Too
Few social networks are as adroit at triggering man’s aspirational impulse as Pinterest. Of course, different people covet different things. In the case of police departments in fourteen cities–including Pottstown, Penn., Kansas City, Mo. and now Philadelphia–Buzzfeed reports that cops are using Pinterest to advertise what want to catch: criminals. Read More
Sorry, Microsoft, Google Has an Enemy, and You’re Not It
As most any elder child will tell you, there’s no better way to aggravate a younger sibling than to ignore his juvenile attempts to get your attention. Read More
Tweet the Market: Hedge Fund That Traded Twitter Sentiment Relaunches for Mass Use
Remember the so-called Twitter hedge fund, Derwent Capital Markets, which parlayed research indicating that tweeted sentiments tracked well with the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fashion a social-media based trading algorithm?
Derwent closed its doors in May, not because an investment strategy based on the mood of the hive mind was a bad idea, Read More
Let’s Play a Game: Everyone Look Up Your Startup on Glassdoor!
While browsing our Google Reader this morning, we came across this list of wacky interview questions compiled by Glassdoor.com. You know the drill: “How many cows are in Canada?” (Correct answer: Who cares?) However, we were reminded of our favorite party game, which we haven’t played in quite some time, wherein we investigate God-only-knows-how-reliable Glassdoor reviews of our favorite startups.
Let’s just say there are some very unhappy underlings running around Silicon Alley. Read More
Flybridge’s David Aronoff Explains Why He Led a $5 M. Series A in NYC Enterprise Standout BetterCloud
In a recent blog post about the Series A crunch for consumer Internet startups, Fred Wilson wrote, “now that the momentum/late stage wants enterprise, we should expect the layers below to give them enterprise.”
Flybridge Capital Partners, an early-stage VC firm with a focus on enterprise startups and companies that support infrastructure for consumer-facing startups (like 10Gen), is well positioned to capitalize on that trend. In September, the Boston-based firm opened an office in New York City, moving principal Matt Witheiler out to join the team. And today Flybridge leading a $5.05 million Series A round in BetterCloud, an enterprise startup that provides cloud management tools for Google Apps. Read More
Messaging Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook Founder Charges $100 to Stay Out of His ‘Other’ Box
Oh, Zuck. We know you have a busy schedule, especially now that you’re running a public company, and we imagine that if you were to ever hang up your CEO boots, you’d have no shortage of speaking engagements that paid you princely sums for a little of your time. Still, the idea that there’s a Facebook fan out there who’d pay the company $100 for the privilege of sending you a message fairly boggles the mind. Read More
Booting Up: Get Ready to be Publicly Embarrassed By Your Netflix Habits
Obama just signed into law a bill that makes it legal for Netflix to share what you watch on your Facebook page (provided you give them the okay, of course). [Gizmodo]
Yikes: CNET was forced to withdraw a “Best of CES” award by its parent company, CBS, which is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Dish, the company that makes the product in question. [Buzzfeed]
Hey, Groupon stock is trading at double its all-time low! Before anyone breaks out the champagne, that’s around $5.20. [TNW]
GM is hiring a thousand high-tech workers–software developers, database experts, etc.–for a new “innovation center” in a suburb of Atlanta. [Wall Street Journal]
“We’re fucked. These guys don’t want to take over our land—they want to come over and take our water and go back. They like where they are.” [AllThingsD]
