Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

BoomTown Visits AOL's NYC HQ on Eve of Spinoff: CEO Tim Armstrong's Fabulous Cheekbones and More!

BoomTown is in Manhattan today and my No. 1 stop had to be the AOL HQ downtown.

The iconic Internet company–which has gone through more lives than a dozen cats–is poised tomorrow to officially spin off from Time Warner (TWX) in yet another episode of the longest running corporate soap opera on the Web.

Less than a decade ago, AOL was the most powerful Internet property in the world, its dominance culminating in a merger with the media giant that was touted as the next big thing.

Well, it was certainly a thing.

As everyone knows, the union did not turn out well, and now, after years of struggling within Time Warner, AOL is being let free to resume its journey alone.

It will start trading tomorrow on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “AOL.”

I am about to head out to a party for AOL on Wall Street tonight and will also be there when AOL rings the opening bell in the morning, after which investors will cast their vote on its fate. (I’ll post on all that next.)

Until then, here is a video tour I did this afternoon at AOL HQ on Broadway, including an interview with CEO Tim Armstrong–whose Don Draper executive cheekbones are admired by partners and rivals alike–as the former Google (GOOG) exec heads into the big day:

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There was a worry before I started this that I was going to burn every bridge I had. But I realize now that there are some bridges that are worth burning.

— Valleywag editor Sam Biddle