Earlier today, Harvard University and New Enterprise Associates announced the Experiment Fund, aimed at making sure that future Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates can stay on campus and innovate without having to head West.

The irony of the pair of legendary entrepreneurs dropping out — decades apart — of the even more legendary university to start two of tech most significant companies, Facebook and Microsoft.

No longer, apparently.

The early-stage incubator, which will award funding to four to six start-ups in amounts from $250,000 to $500,000. It will focus on seed ventures in the Cambridge, Mass. area around Harvard, which includes many other schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Experiment Fund came from an idea born Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which involved NEA. Today, SEAS Dean Cherry Murray hosted an event that unveiled the initiative.

But, while faculty members will advise for the fund, Harvard has no financial stake.

In an interview NEA’s Patrick Chung said the intent was to enable talented students to “build a company here in Boston rather than have to go elsewhere.”

NEA will have full-time staffers working on the fund, investing in a wide range of companies. It has already backed a health app company, as well as a live Internet television offering.

“There has been an envy of the left coast, certainly,” said Chung. “Now, these talented engineers don’t have to leave when they reach the boundaries of the university where the ideas are formed.”

Added Chung: “They can walk right out of class and into a place that can make those start-ups real.”

In other words, let’s hope the third time’s a charm.

Here’s the map of exactly where the Experiment Fund is and official press release:

XFund press release

As I reported late last night, Yahoo said it had named PayPal President Scott Thompson as its new CEO. The exec is currently in charge of the large eBay online payments unit.

He’ll start next week, but there are staff conference calls today and also an all-hands meeting on Yahoo’s main Silicon Valley campus (meet at URLs, troops!) tomorrow.

Yahoo shares are down almost three percent on the news so far, as Wall Street has been hoping for a big sale of some sort and not another turnaround.

Yahoo will be holding a 7 am PT press conference about the move and presumably to swan around Thompson.

(Welcome, Scott! I hope you were informed — please do not listen to what co-founder Jerry Yang says on this important issue — that you are supposed to send all internal memos to me! Also, as one of my Twitter followers, Mike Dudas of Google just tweeted: “If Thompson leads companies as well as he grows a moustache, Yahoo made a great CEO choice!!” I concur.)

A Yahoo PR person confirmed the hire very cordially in a phone call early this morning and the Internet giant also put out a press release.

So did I, of a sort, last night. Given I am too tired to rewrite myself, here is what I had reported:

The company fired its last CEO, Carol Bartz, in September, and Yahoo has been run by the board and also by interim CEO Tim Morse, who had previously been its CFO.

After Bartz’s ouster, Yahoo said it was looking at a range of strategic options, including the possible sale of all or part of the company.

That was the focus at first, although Yahoo had simultaneously hired Heidrick & Struggles to look for a new CEO.

The company attracted two partial investment bids from private equity firms, Silver Lake and TPG Capital, but shareholders were unhappy with the low prices of these so-called PIPE — Private Investment in Public Equity — arrangements.

Yahoo then moved to try to strike a tax-advantaged deal with its long disgruntled Asian partners, China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s SoftBank, to sell back parts of the large stakes it has long owned in Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan.

Those complex negotiations are still ongoing and look promising, which could yield Yahoo billions of dollars in capital to be given to investors, for stock buybacks or to invest in new initiatives.

Since then, the board — long considered one of the more cloddish in tech — has turned its attention to hiring a new CEO, in the hopes of trying once again to revive its flagging fortunes.

Thus, it began looking to hire someone with deep tech experience at a large public consumer Internet company in Silicon Valley.

That narrowed the field, with Yahoo looking at a range of choices with expertise in advertising, technology platforms and more.

There is a lot of that on the deep bench that eBay CEO John Donahoe has assembled at the online commerce giant, including Thompson.

Plus, he is a genuine Internet geek.

According to his eBay bio, Thompson became president of PayPal in early 2008, after serving as its CTO in charge of information technology, product development and architecture.

Before eBay, he worked at Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa formed to oversee global technology for the organization. He was also CIO of Barclays Global Investors and has worked at Coopers and Lybrand on information technology.

And here’s a tasty new wrinkle: Thompson recently “liked” Yahoo on his Facebook page, along with the decidedly more interesting Kickstarter and Splunk.

Again, Scott, thanks for the Facebook tip — I knew the social networking site could come in handy!

(Also, here is an interview I did with him post-announcement.)

And here is Yahoo’s official press release where Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock says nice stuff about Thompson:

YHOO_News_2012_1_4_General

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo is poised to name a CEO, an announcement that could come as early as tomorrow.

Sources said the leading candidate likely to get the nod is a dark horse and someone who has not been named in previous reports (and not on my suggested lists!): PayPal President Scott Thompson, who runs eBay’s massive online payments unit.

While the situation could certainly change, the Yahoo board has definitely been moving aggressively of late to try to find a new leader for the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

The company fired its last CEO, Carol Bartz, in September; Yahoo has been run by the board and also by interim CEO Tim Morse, who had previously been its CFO.

After Bartz’s ouster, Yahoo said it was looking at a range of strategic options, including the possible sale of all or part of the company.

That was the focus at first, although Yahoo had simultaneously hired Heidrick & Struggles to look for a new CEO.

The company attracted two partial investment bids from private equity firms, Silver Lake and TPG Capital, but shareholders were unhappy with the low prices of these so-called PIPE — Private Investment in Public Equity — arrangements.

Yahoo then moved to try to strike a tax-advantaged deal with its long-disgruntled Asian partners, China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s SoftBank, to sell back parts of the large stakes it has long owned in Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan.

Those complex negotiations are still ongoing and look promising, which could yield Yahoo billions of dollars in capital to be given to investors, for stock buybacks or to invest in new initiatives.

Since then, the board — long considered one of the more cloddish in tech — has turned its attention to hiring a new CEO, in the hopes of trying once again to revive its flagging fortunes.

Thus, it began looking to hire someone with deep tech experience at a large public consumer Internet company in Silicon Valley.

That narrowed the field, with Yahoo looking at a range of choices with expertise in advertising, technology platforms and more.

There is a lot of that on the deep bench that eBay CEO John Donahoe has assembled at the online commerce giant, including Thompson.

Plus, he is a genuine Internet geek.

According to his eBay bio, Thompson became president of PayPal in early 2008, after serving as its CTO in charge of information technology, product development and architecture.

Before eBay, he worked at Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa formed to oversee global technology for the organization. He was also CIO of Barclays Global Investors and has worked at Coopers and Lybrand on information technology.

And here’s a tasty new wrinkle: Thompson recently “liked” Yahoo on his Facebook page, along with the decidedly more interesting Kickstarter and Splunk.

(Dear Scott, Nice to meet you. And thanks for the tip! FYI, it’s a juicy giveaway like that which feeds my insatiable quest to find out All Things Yahoo!)

More to come soon, I expect.

Yahoo, as usual, never got back to me on my query, although the much more cordial people at eBay politely declined to comment.

According to Mashable, Google is close to launching “Google Offers,” a service that will compete with Groupon, LivingSocial and their hundreds of clones.

In a fact sheet sent to Mashable, it says users will receive a daily email offering a local deal, and as with other sites, the discount will be activated once enough people have made the purchase. The deal will be promoted throughout Google’s ad networks.

Google confirmed the service at a very high level: “Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways.”

To be sure, early providers have proven that the business can scale.

For instance, just yesterday LivingSocial sold 1.3 million $20 Amazon gift cards for $10 each to ring up a one-day sales total of $13 million. Groupon’s run rate is close to $2 billion, although about half of that is passed on to merchants.

It’s not surprising that Google is kicking off the service without acquiring a company in the space. Groupon would rather seek an IPO than sell, and LivingSocial has already teamed up with Amazon–and after those two, it’s slim pickings.

Google’s challenge won’t be in attracting a large audience but in executing the business.

Traditionally, Google has focused on a self-service advertising model, where merchants can go online to buy an ad without having to interact with a salesperson. But Groupon and LivingSocial have approached the business differently and have put hundreds of feet on the street. Groupon has roughly 3,000 employees, while LivingSocial has about 600–and both are growing extremely fast.

Google could try the approach it knows best, by automating the process and putting at least some of it online. After all, one of the reasons it was reportedly willing to pay so much for Groupon was for its local sales force.

So far, Google’s local track record has been spotty. Getting mom-and-pops interested in buying keywords online has been notoriously hard, as they have continued to prefer working with other mediums like newspapers and yellow pages (which do have local sales forces).

But if it is successful at automating any part of the process, Google could take a smaller cut of the deal than others do today, which could push down margins for everyone.

Photo Credit: Mashable.

However, while the company is set to discuss the effort at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show, there is still a lot that must be done before such products can hit the market.

Among the steps needed is for hardware makers to create ARM-compatible drivers, a time-consuming effort that explains in part why Microsoft is talking about the initiative well ahead of any products being ready.

It took Microsoft years, for instance, to move mainstream Windows users from 32-bit versions of the operating system to 64-bit versions, in large part because it took that long to get all of the necessary hardware drivers to enable the shift.

Microsoft has scheduled a press briefing for 1 pm PT on Jan. 5, ahead of Steve Ballmer’s keynote later that night. The event is expected to be the forum where Microsoft will discuss the ARM effort. A Microsoft representative declined to comment on the reported ARM move.

However, speculation about such a move has been increasing since the two companies signed an expanded licensing agreement back in July. Microsoft was deliberately vague at the time regarding the impact of the new agreement, making reference to then-existing efforts such as Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile.

“ARM is an important partner for Microsoft and we deliver multiple operating systems on the company’s architecture,” Microsoft general manager KD Hallman said in a July statement. “With closer access to the ARM technology we will be able to enhance our research and development activities for ARM-based products.”

Moving to ARM processors as an option for full-fledged Windows could pave the way for machines with significantly longer battery life–an issue that has become more important as competing mobile devices, especially tablets and smartphones, have been able to best the PC in that regard.

While much of the speculation regarding ARM-based Windows machines has centered on the impact this could have on tablets, the move is said to be as much about netbooks and low-power notebooks as it is about slates.

Though the Windows tie to Intel-architecture chips is legendary, it’s not the first time that Windows has run on chips other than the standard fare from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Windows once ran on chips from Digital Equipment, and Microsoft has also done server versions that supported Intel’s Itanium chip. However, such efforts are expensive and time-consuming. The fact that Microsoft is going ahead with the undertaking highlights the size of the threat posed by devices running on the lower-power-consuming ARM chips.

Although CES is an unusual venue to reach PC hardware makers, it does provide a big stage for Microsoft to reconfirm that it is serious about playing in the ultramobile device category.

Bloomberg first reported Microsoft’s plans to bring Windows to ARM earlier on Tuesday.

As part of a six-month pilot program, J.P. Morgan is outfitting its staff with iPads. Every associate in the company’s global investment banking division will have one to use until the program ends on May 1, according to internal messages obtained by Bloomberg.

“We believe there are real benefits in our working environment that can be realized using this device–as well as the personal productivity and enjoyment that come as part of the package,” one email reads. “There are a variety of ways to leverage the iPad. Some work off-the-shelf whilst others rely on JPMorgan software/security tools.”

And what will happen once the trial ends? That’s not yet clear. J.P. Morgan describes it as a “one-time initiative,” but notes as well that it may repeat or expand it if it proves successful.
 
So, as I said, a small win for Apple, remarkable only because the bank chose the iPad and not RIM’s forthcoming and purportedly more enterprise-friendly PlayBook tablet.

Ignoring for a moment the irony of a company that’s laid off 4,600 employees in the past few months professing to invest in its people, Palmisano’s remarks are quite interesting. Certainly, they’re anomalous to much of what we’ve been hearing lately. No gloom and doom from ol’ Sam, only contrarian bluster. Perhaps just enough to justify that 14 percent pay increase he accepted in 2008….

Ignoring for a moment the irony of a company that’s laid off 4,600 employees in the past few months professing to invest in its people, Palmisano’s remarks are quite interesting. Certainly, they’re anomalous to much of what we’ve been hearing lately. No gloom and doom from ol’ Sam, only contrarian bluster. Perhaps just enough to justify that 14 percent pay increase he accepted in 2008….

But that’s apparently what just happened to Hyundai and Initiative, the agency that handles its digital marketing campaigns.

Here’s the text of an email sent out last week with the subject line “Hyundai–Recent Campaign Scams–PLEASE BE AWARE,” from one Tiffany Nguyen, an assistant planner in Initiative’s Los Angeles office:

Dear Partners,

It has been brought to our attention by a couple of our partners that someone allegedly working for Hyundai, or working at other agencies, has contacted various sites requesting proposals, and have even run a short campaign. As you all know, Initiative is the Agency of Record and ALL digital requests should come from our team. These campaigns and RFPs were not approved by anyone working at Hyundai, Initiative or WMG.

Please be aware of anyone contacting you from an e-mail domain address of ‘Hyundai-inc.com’. If you do happen to receive a request, please notify us immediately.

Thank you!

The Initiative Hyundai Digital team”

Confused? Me too. I’ve asked reps from Initiative–owned by ad conglomerate Interpublic (IPG)–and Hyundai for details, but haven’t heard back. I checked with Tiffany Nguyen as well, but she told me that her “higher ups” were the ones who should be talking to me, and I have yet to hear from them either.

So, wise MediaMemo readers, you tell me: What’s the point in actually purchasing bogus ads for companies you don’t represent? I’ve got some ideas, but would love your input. (Ditto if you’ve got any idea about who the buyer is or where the bogus ads actually ran.) Sound off in comments below, or contact me at peter@allthingsd.com or via the blind tip box here.

In the meantime, I’ve been looking for iconic Hyundai ads and have come up empty. But YouTube tells me that his ad was banned in France.

Today, a panoply of prominent tech and Internet leaders is taking a very public stand against a controversial initiative before California voters, which would eliminate the current legal right of same-sex couples to marry.

Forming a group and taking out a full-page ad in the San Jose Mercury News tomorrow, the execs hope to convince voters to reject Proposition 8, which is titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”

Silicon Valley has had a long history of supporting gay rights. And recently, Google (GOOG) Co-Founder Sergey Brin has made a strong statement opposing Proposition 8, while Apple (AAPL) gave $100,000 to help defeat it.

The honorary co-chairs of “Silicon Valley Leaders Say NO on Proposition 8″ include: Brin; Bill Campbell, Chairman, Intuit; David Filo, Founder, Yahoo; Chuck Geschke, Founder and Chairman, Adobe Systems; John Morgridge, Former CEO and Chairman, Cisco Systems; Pierre Omidyar, Founder and Chairman, eBay; Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook; Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google; and Jerry Yang, Founder, Yahoo.

In a statement in a press release set to go out this morning, Yang said: “Silicon Valley has always been an example for the rest of the country of how diversity and openness help to drive innovation and value creation. This divisive measure is the antithesis of those values that make Silicon Valley so unique.”

An ad the group–which also includes star venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital, as well as Palm Founders Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, and many others–is putting out tomorrow in the Mercury News reads:

Silicon Valley Leaders Urge You to Stand for Equality.
Vote No on Proposition 8.

As Silicon Valley leaders, we are committed to equality and fairness. We are opposed to Proposition 8 because it would change our state constitution to take away rights from one group of people. It would set our state, and our country, back in the fight for fundamental fairness and equal rights.

Please join us by reaching out to friends and neighbors and asking them to stand for fairness: Vote No on Proposition 8 on November 4th.”

(The ad and a longer list of tech leaders opposing Proposition 8 is below.)

If passed by a majority of voters, the California Constitution would be amended to include a new section stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the state’s constitution.

Former California State Controller and former exec at eBay Steve Westly noted that his own interracial marriage was once illegal, which is one of the reasons he was opposing Propostition 8.

“It really is the civil rights issue of the day … people stood up and fought for people like me and now it is time to stand up for others,” said Westly, who was an early supporter of gay marriage and is said to be eyeing a run for governor of the state. “While this is a polarizing issue, it is mind-boggling to me not to support the right of any two adults who love each other to marry.”

One thing is certain–the issue is indeed polarizing. Currently, the vote on Proposition 8 is very close, and a huge amount of money–more than $60 million–has been spent by both sides in the battle, which is considered one of the most contentious and high-profile in the nation.

Here is the ad (click on the image to make it larger):

LEADERS (partial list):
Deborah Barber, Principal, Jackson Hole Group
John Battelle, Chairman and CEO, Federated Media
Larry Birenbaum, Former Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems
Lorna Borenstein, President, Move
Larry Brilliant, Executive Director, Google.org
Owen Byrd, President, Byrd Development
John Chisholm, Chairman and CEO, CustomerSat
Barry Cinnamon, CEO, Akeena Solar
Tod Cohen, Director of Government Affairs, eBay
LaDoris Cordell, Administrator, Stanford University
Sue Decker, President, Yahoo!
Jack Dorsey, Chairman, Twitter
David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development & Chief Legal Officer, Google
Donna Dubinsky, CEO, Numenta
Alan Eustace, SVP, Engineering and Research, Google
Naomi Fine, President & CEO, Pro-Tec Data
Rachel Glaser COO/CFO, Reunion.com
Carl Guardino, President and CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Andre Haddad, CEO, Shopping.com
Jeff Hawkins, co-Founder Palm, Handspring, and Numenta
David Karnstedt, Investor
Scott Kaspick, Managing Director, Kaspick & Co.
Steve Kirsch, Serial Entrepreneur
John Koza, CEO, Third Millennium
Ross LaJeunesse, Head of State Policy Western US, Google
Gary Lauder, Managing Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
Laura Lauder, General Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
Len Lehman, Investor
John Luongo, Former CEO, Vantive Corporation
Roger McNamee, Managing Director & co-Founder, Elevation Partners
Ken McNeely, President, AT&T California
Michael Moritz, Partner, Sequoia Capital
Susan Packard Orr, CEO, Telosa Software
Randy Pond, Executive Vice President, Cisco Systems
Amy Rao, Founder & CEO, Integrated Archive Systems
Jana Rich, Managing Director, Russell Reynolds
Miriam Rivera, Former Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Google
Dan Rosensweig, Investor
Dan Rubin, Partner, Alloy Ventures
Hilary Schneider, Executive Vice President US Region, Yahoo
Len Shustek, Chairman, Computer History Museum
Jeff Skoll, Former President, eBay Inc.
Stephanie Tilenius, SVP, eBay North America
Joy Weiss, President and CEO, Dust Networks
Steve Westly, former California State Controller & former SVP eBay
Evan Williams, CEO, Twitter

[UPDATED on 11/05/08] In the interest of full disclosure, I am obviously not a supporter of Proposition 8. And, after I wrote this piece and hours before it passed last night, I got married in California under its recent same-sex marriage law, which the initiative has now overturned. It is still legally unclear what that will mean for people like me who married before Proposition 8 was passed, as it is not retroactive; as of now, the marriages remain valid. In any case, please see this disclosure related to me here.