RH: Comcast Mixes It Up and Buys Plaxo

"Plaxo, the hot Mountain View social-networking startup plans to help Comcast build social-networking through the cable giant's SmartZone communications center. The details of the terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to close within the next two months.

The Plaxo plan is to bring social networking to Comcast cable subscribers TV sets so that people will be able to interface with SmartZone which is expected to be available to by the end of the year.

Comcast currently has about 25 million cable subscribers and 14 million internet subscribers. Plaxo's 50 employees will be absorbed into Comcast, which is good news, I'm sure for them.

Topics: Comcast, Social Networking, Plaxo, Cabletv, Smartzone"

SPI: Venture Capital: OVP, at 25, broadens its vision

"CELEBRATING ITS 25th anniversary this year, OVP Venture Partners is the granddaddy of the Seattle venture capital industry. "

"But this elder statesman is not slowing down as it enters the golden years.
In fact, based on conversations I had with several partners this week at the firm's annual Technology Summit, things have heated up in the past nine months. And OVP is moving in some new directions.
Managing partner Chad Waite told me that the firm has five term sheets in various stages of negotiation, an extraordinarily high number, which he said speaks to the quality of the entrepreneurs who are emerging in the Northwest.
Some follow-on financings also are close to being announced.
Interestingly, two of the new deals involve Seattle-area startups in the digital media arena (one deal closed Tuesday), and two others are in the clean tech space. "

Q&A about the $150M Blackberry Partners Fund | The Industry Standard

"VentureBeat earlier broke the news that RIM and other investors, including JLA ventures, have created a $150 million investment fund to back start-ups that work on the Blackberry.
Here’s a Q&A with Rick Segal (left), a partner at JLA Ventures, who will invest the fund. We corresponded today by email. The official announcement comes tomorrow."

Yahoo!: RIM, RBC & Thomson Reuters to Anchor a $150 Million BlackBerry Partners Fund Focused on Investing in Mobile Applications and Services

"Research In Motion (RIM) (TSX: RIM - News; NASDAQ: RIMM - News), RBC (RY: TSX; RY: NYSE) and Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI - News; TSX: TRI - News; LSE: TRIL - News; NASDAQ: TRIN - News), today announced plans to launch the BlackBerry® Partners Fund, a US$150 million venture capital fund, to invest in mobile applications and services for the BlackBerry® platform and other mobile platforms. The Fund is to be co-managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners."
"Agnostic to both stage and balance sheet, the BlackBerry Partners Fund will not restrict the development of mobile applications and services to any single mobile platform or any specific industry segment. The Fund will be designed to advance the industry by fostering development and driving the entrepreneurial spirit to create the most innovative mobile offerings for customers.
"The mobile world has evolved well beyond phone calls and simple messaging to require more empowering and liberating solutions that connect people to everything that matters most to them, wherever and whenever they want," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO, Research In Motion. "RIM, RBC and Thomson Reuters share the common belief that mobile applications and services will propel the industry forward and the BlackBerry Partners Fund is being formed to help fuel innovation and activity in the mobile ecosystem."

Mashable: Top 10 Social Networking Sites for Women

Mark Logic CEO Blog: Moritz Says Watch Out for Hot Air and Arrogance

"I love the useless pontification sound bite. In running Mark Logic, a Sequoia-backed company, I've met Moritz numerous times. In my estimation, he's one of the VCs least guilty of pontification in all of Silicon Valley. He's more like the old EF Hutton commercial: when he talks, (smart) people listen. (And from what I've seen, he's generally a man of few words.) But I get his point; your typical VC can pontificate with the best of them, and probably shouldn't.

On the "working harder" issue, from my perception the guys at our investors (Sequoia and Lehman Brothers) work quite hard -- e.g., I get emails at all hours from our Sequoia partner. Particularly for people who have already been immensely financially successful, I'm often amazed by the work ethic. For your average VC, I think there is a certain lifestyle play, but I think the article does a good job at explaining the mentality at the top:..."

InfoWeek: Tech Entrepreneurs Older, More Educated Than Stereotype -- Tech Startup -- InformationWeek

"Contrary to the popular perception that technology and engineering entrepreneurs are in their teens or 20s, a study spanning from 1995 to 2005 found that just 1% of American founders were teenagers.
Most American technology and engineering business founders were middle-aged degree-holders, according to a study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The study's researchers, from Duke and Harvard universities, found that the average and median age for people founding tech companies was 39."

"While education clearly is an advantage for tech founders in the United States, experience also is a key factor," said Vivek Wadhwa, lead researcher, Harvard Law School Wertheim fellow, and Duke University executive in residence. "That a large number of U.S.-born tech founders have worked in business for many years also is important in understanding the supply of tech entrepreneurs."
The study points to a correlation between founders' education levels and their companies' performance.

Ninety-two percent had bachelor's degrees, 31% had master's degrees, and 10% had Ph.D.s. Almost half of the degrees were in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. A third of the degrees were in business, finance, and accounting.

"Because entrepreneurship is an indicator of economic vitality in regions and across the country, this study raises important policy questions about how to foster greater tech entrepreneurship to boost economic growth," said Robert Litan, the Kauffman Foundation's VP of research and policy.

Forty-five percent of the tech startups were established in the state where American technology entrepreneurs received their education."

Don Dodge:John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Mike Moritz of Sequoia

"History of success - Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia have invested together in 50 companies, and separately in hundreds more. Some of the notable successes include; Google, Yahoo, Amazon, AOL, Apple, Citrix, Netscape, Intel, Intuit, Palm, PayPal, Plaxo, Sybase, Sun, Lotus, Electronic Arts, 3COM, Cisco, Oracle, YouTube, and many more.
Pattern recognition - John Doerr reflected back on the many successful investments in his career and noted a pattern that is perhaps not politically correct, but a pattern none the less. The most successful investments were in founders that were white, male, under 30, nerdy geeks, with no social life. He rattled off a list of founders that included; Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Larry Page, Sergy Brin, Jerry Yang, David Filo, Jeff Bezos, Steve Case, Marc Andreessen, Scott Cook, and Mitch Kapor. He could have gone on...but he made his point. So, he said when Larry Page and Sergy Brin came along the decision was simple. Hmm...I'm sure there was more to it than that, but there is no doubt it worked out well for Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia.
Kleiner Perkins 7 rules - Doerr and Moritz didn't reveal a lot about their investment philosophy so I dug back in my archives for more insight. I was on a "Future Of Software" panel at TiECon East two years ago with Ajit Nazre, a partner at Kleiner Perkins. Ajit said KPCB has 7 rules for startups they invest in. They are;
Instant Value to customers - solve a problem or create value with the first use
Viral adoption - Pull, not push. No direct sales force required
Minimum IT footprint, preferably none. Hosted SaaS is best.
Simple, intuitive user experience - no training required.
Personalized user experience - customizable
Easy configuration based on application or usage templates
Context aware - adjust to location, groups, preferences, devices, etc."

Private Equity HUB: Facebook's Valuation Problem

"The WSJ recently reported that Microsoft is sniffing around Facebook, less than seven months after investing $240 million in the social network at a $15 billion valuation. It was largely discounted as the hopeful fumblings of Steve Ballmer, in his search for a rebound acquisition after being dumped by Yahoo. But it got me to thinking: Microsoft’s initial investment may be one of the worst venture capital deals of all time."

"What this means is that Facebook is going to lose heat upon liquidity, and a loss of heat can lead to a loss of cache. Remember all the buzz when Facebook got the $15 billion? Now imagine it again, but with a negative spin (particularly outside the TechMeme bubble, where most of Facebook’s users actually live)."

Independent Street : Why Venture Capitalists Don't Want You to Have a Sex Life

"No social life. At least in the startup phase.
That’s the message from two of the fiercest competitors in venture capital: John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital. In a story today on VentureWire, Scott Austin reports on a rare Q&A session with the two men yesterday.

"As Mr. Austin reports, Mr. Doerr chatted about several now-legendary entrepreneurs whose companies he invested in—Amazon.com Inc., Netscape, Yahoo Inc., Google Inc.—and he told a story describing what they all shared. He recalled being in Amazon’s shipping area when an order went out that included a book about programming in Java and also a copy of “The Joy of Sex.” He said he knew the customers were male, nerds who had no social or sex lives and were trying to get help by using an online service.
Jackpot.
“That correlates more with any other success factor that I’ve seen in the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. If you look at Bezos, or [Netscape Communications Corp. founder Marc] Andreessen, [Yahoo Inc. co-founder] David Filo, the founders of Google, they all seem to be white, male, nerds who’ve dropped out of Harvard or Stanford and they absolutely have no social life. So when I see that pattern coming in — which was true of Google — it was very easy to decide to invest.”
Readers, is it true — must you have no life, at least early on, to run a successful start-up? Is this one reason why, as recently reported, there aren’t more successful women entrepreneurs?

Times Online: The future of social networking: mobile phones

"Picture this: a young woman goes to a party. She doesn't know anyone but it's fine because she has her mobile with her. A few clicks and she accesses the profiles of a dozen people at the party, including their pictures. She's in luck: two of them turn out to be friends of friends. She messages them and they start to chat.
Or this: an entrepreneur is at a conference. He is on the lookout for a new marketing director. Within minutes he has identified ten people in the hall with the right CV, two of whom are looking to change jobs. His mobile tells him one of them is standing 20ft away. That evening, a record of all the people he has met is automatically displayed with their profiles on his home computer.
This is not science fiction - it is the future of social networking and it is just around the corner. After the explosion in internet-based social networking (MySpace, Facebook) doing the same thing in real life instead of in front of a computer became an obvious next step. Much of it is already happening on a small scale as dozens of companies worms sweek to exploit social networking on the go.
So how does it work? The key is the coming together of internet-connected eating nuts mobile phones and location or proximity technology."

IS: Ibeatyou is off to the races and on to the social networks

"Competition exists in all walks of life. Ibeatyou capitalizes on that idea with a site that allows users to set up competitions across a wide range of fields, everything from dancing to comedy to music to yes, sports (checkout our full coverage here).

As an example, basketball star Steve Nash posted a video challenging users to see who could hit the most free-throws in a minute. Users watch the competiting videos and judge each on a scale of one to five. The video with the highest average score when the competition ends is the winner.

Now the site will find itself in a competition of its own. The Ibeatyou logo will be placed on the Luczo-Dragon Racing car during this year’s Indy 500. Steve Luczo, the chairman of hard drive manufacturer, Seagate, and an Ibeatyou investor, is the owner of the car. The car finished 5th in last year’s Indy 500 and looks to continue that success given the competitivness of Ibeatyou."

MoneyTree Report Findings Establish Cleantech Coming of Age

"Venture capitalists poured $2.2 billion into Cleantech companies in 2007, according to a new study released today from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The report, entitled "Cleantech Comes of Age," discusses the trends in clean technology from the impact of oil prices to the M&A market and includes data from the MoneyTree Report, a quarterly survey that tracks cash-for-equity investments by the professional venture capital community in private emerging companies in the United States. The MoneyTree Report is produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters. "

RussellBeattie.com: The end of Mowser; Startup life is tough

"It's been a year since I launched Mowser at April 2007's Mobile Monday, so it's time for a progress report. Sadly, the news isn't good."

"All this said, Mowser was always meant to be a short term bet against Moore's law, filling a specific near-term need and building a base of traffic to later expand to other cloud and proxy services. Well, the traffic never arrived naturally to allow the site to grow without funding, and I just wasn't able to sell the opportunity or vision to investors which would have given Mowser time to grow and adjust its model to develop those cool cloud services. Mobility as a concept is still amazing - the potential for developing services that take advantage of such a personal and ubiquitous platform is incredible and I'd love to just start again right now and relaunch Mowser focused on new ideas. But I honestly just don't know how to make it work out money-wise, so they'll just have to wait until I can recharge my financial batteries enough so I can try again some day.
Seriously... A salary will be a good thing to have again. I'm *thousands* of dollars in debt to my family and friends, maxed out on every credit card (all of which are in collections), on my last chance for my apartment (if I bounce one more check...), had my car repossessed *twice*, electricity turned off, cellphones switched off, landline canceled outright, and on more than one occasion (this weekend in particular) eaten little more than buttered macaroni as I waited for an overdue PayPal deposit to arrive (3-4 days? Come on!). Having a steady income will be a welcome mental break, believe me.
Don't get me wrong - I've gotten to set my own hours and my own pace and be proud that I was working on my own ideas, that in and of itself is worth it. But it's definitely time for a change.
Definitely ping me if you know of any opportunities out there for me. Thanks!"

Yahoo! Personal Finance: Mo Money, Mo Problems

"Recently, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, two economists at the University of Pennsylvania, reexamined the data, and suggest that economic growth does indeed correlate with happiness, according to a New York Times report. They found that people in countries with higher incomes report higher life satisfaction.
National economic growth and happiness is one thing, personal wealth and happiness is something else entirely. So amid this debate, I think it's worth re-examining what studies say about money and individual well-being. Here are my conclusions:"

1. Money buys moments of pleasure -- but they don't last long.
2. We constantly want more because we're bad at predicting what will make us happy.
3. Money might buy interesting experiences, but researchers say cheap thrills create happiness.
4. People chase money because they think it's something else.
Feel Blessed, Not Happy

Cnet: Yahoo's two largest institutional investors $1 apart from Microsoft's offer

"With Microsoft's withdrawal of its increased Yahoo bid on Saturday, the Internet search pioneer's two largest institutional investors are fuming, according to a source familiar with their thinking.

The two investors were willing to accept an offer of $34 a share, the source noted. Microsoft was offering an increased bid of $33. "

""They'll get a call tomorrow. I'm shocked this deal didn't get done. They're idiots," said a source familiar with the investors thinking. "

Forbes.com: What Microsoft Will Buy Now

"In the course of this three-month business soap opera, a handful of other companies have been suggested as possible acquisition targets or partners for either Microsoft or Yahoo! TimeWarner would love to see a buyer for AOL, of course. Rupert Murdoch probably won't put up much of a fight for MySpace. With a $40 billion budget, Ballmer could make some hefty investments in a wide range of Internet companies.
And there should be plenty who will welcome the investment. Just in the past year, for instance, Microsoft bought search organization FAST, as well as Silicon Valley speech-recognition company TellMe. In both cases, the chief executives of those companies are now senior Microsoft executives. And in the case of TellMe, its co-founder, Mike McCue, feels the deal is giving his company a chance to take its technology to a wide audience.
Yahoo!'s Jerry Yang, by contrast, will have a lot of cleaning up to do. He may spend time Monday fielding calls from grumpy shareholders who were looking forward to the chance to cash in some of their stock holdings. Instead, they will likely see the value of those portfolios sink--Yahoo!'s share price is likely to slide back toward the $20-per-share value it had before Microsoft's bid.
Equally important:Yang will have to pick up where he left off late last year in trying to convince both employees and partners that Yahoo! has a strong plan for the future, and that may be trickier than ever. As part of Yahoo!'s effort to wiggle out of Microsoft's grasp, the company has inched closer to Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), cooperating in a test to see what would happen if Google took over a portion of its keyword-based advertising program."

Microsoft says it withdraws offer for Yahoo: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) withdrew its offer for Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) on Saturday after negotiations fell through because Yahoo wanted more than the $33 a share that Microsoft was willing to offer."

"In a letter to Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company raised its offer by about $5 billion to $33 a share, but Yahoo wanted $37 a share.

"Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer," Ballmer said in a statement.

"After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal," said Ballmer.

Yahoo was not immediately available for comment."

YouTube - Randy Pausch Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really...

VARBusiness: Midsize Enterprise Summit Focuses On Virtualization, SaaS, Security

"Midsize and large businesses are still interested in the latest technology, but the demand for more efficient solutions with quicker return on investment has never been greater.

Next week, hundreds of IT purchasers will attend Everything Channel's Midsize Enterprise Summit in Orlando, Fla., to identify solutions that can help them through lean economic times.

The conference kicks off with Dale Vecchio, a vice president in Gartner Research, hosting a session called titled 'IT Modernization - Closing The Gap Between Yesterday's IT Implementations and Tomorrow's IT Demands,' and many more sessions will focus on helping customers do more with less.

Whether its through blade technology, virtualization or 'ERP on a Budget,' the show hopes to help end users identify the right technology to solve their business needs.

'A lot of times you don't know what can make your life easier. The vendors that attend usually do a really good job explaining what they do. That would really help me,' said Jim Murphy, director of information technology for Quincy, Ill., a 40,000-person city."

paidContent.org: Verisign Sells CDN Service Kontiki To MK Capital

"As has been expected for a while, Verisign has sold off its content delivery service Kontiki to MK Capital, a VC firm which invested in the P2P company prior to its sale we have learned and confirmed through sources. Verisign bought Kontiki in 2006, for around $62 million, but this time around, the sale price is much lower than that.

Verisign announced in November last year that it planned to shed non-core assets, including communications, billing and commerce though the fate of its CDN service remained unclear. Now, after trying to find strategic buyer and failing at it, the current Kontiki management started looking for management-backed buyout options, and that’s how its previous investor MK came into the picture.

The buyer was first reported by Contentinople here yesterday, which also reported that Kontiki is taking with it about 40 employees in the U.S. and the U.K. Eric Armstrong, former VP of sales, media, and entertainment at Verisign, is taking over as president."