David Kirkpatrick

Facebook Finances Focus of Bloomberg TV Tonight

Liz Gannes in Social on January 5, 2011 at 10:36 am PT

When companies file normal IPOs, they go into quiet periods. But there has been nothing quiet about the latest financing behind Facebook. Tonight, an hour-long special on the topic will air on Bloomberg TV, featuring interview clips from key investor Yuri Milner along with commentary on the controversial Goldman Sachs investment.

Facebook Scribe David Kirkpatrick Talks about Zuckerberg's World (Which We All Just Live in)

Kara Swisher in News on April 26, 2010 at 5:34 am PT

While at the press conference at Facebook’s f8 developers confab last week, BoomTown checked in with David Kirkpatrick, author of the soon-to-be-released book, “The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World.” Pretty good timing for the former Fortune magazine writer, since the social networking site seems to be barreling through on its goal of being at the center of the digital universe, now reaching 500 million users worldwide with a $25 billion private-market valuation. As the author of book about AOL when it was in its ascendancy, we’ll see about that–but this book should be a great read.

Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: AOL CEO and Chairman Tim "The Plumber" Armstrong

Kara Swisher in News on July 23, 2009 at 12:09 pm PT

It did not start out too well for AOL CEO and Chairman Tim Armstrong, with a poll on the screen showing most of the attendees in the ballroom at Fortune Brainstorm Tech voting that the Time Warner online unit was either out of juice or irrelevant. Armstrong did not break any news in the interview with Fortune’s lively interviewer, David Kirkpatrick, relying more on projecting an I’m-in-charge-here attitude and saying confident things like “a challenge is also an opportunity.” In general, Armstrong tried to be upbeat about the prospects for AOL, which has for too long been the Web’s sad sack of an Internet company.

The $125 Million-Sweet DailyCandy Revenge of Bob "Pitchman"

Kara Swisher in News on August 6, 2008 at 6:55 am PT

Oh, there had to be much, much gnashing of teeth in the corporate offices at the Time Warner Center in New York yesterday with news of the sale of DailyCandy to Comcast for $125 million. Why? Maybe because that tasty payment is going right into the hands of Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group Ventures, which bought the fashion and shopping newsletter business for $3 million in 2003. This is certainly different from the situation almost exactly six years ago when Pittman–nicknamed “Pitchman” for his smooth business stylings–was driven out of then-AOL Time Warner on the proverbial rail. If you want a taste of those once-grim times for Pittman, here is an excerpt from my book, “There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future.”

Kara Visits Fortune's Brainstorm: TECH

Kara Swisher in News on July 22, 2008 at 3:09 pm PT

In BoomTown’s ongoing quest to overdose on tech conferences, I traveled south of San Francisco last night for Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm: TECH conference. Run by David Kirkpatrick, it’s well done and a great place to run into a range of techies from Silicon Valley, as well as talk to more creative thinkers on where tech is going.

The Book on Facebook?

Kara Swisher in News on May 9, 2008 at 2:00 am PT

While there have been not-so-nice insider books about Facebook, the first major deal to chronicle the rise of the social-networking phenom has been signed by Fortune magazine’s David Kirkpatrick (pictured here). Titled “The Facebook Effect,” the tome will be (glacially) published in September of 2009 by Simon & Schuster, which noted in a statement that it “will chronicle the amazingly rapid rise of this company as well as the impact it is having on social life, politics, business and even international relations.”