AllThingsD » NDA

Ex-Yahoos Getting Downloaded by PE Firms and Others on Possible Deals

Kara Swisher — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 22:53:54 +0000

One of Yahoo’s biggest problems — brain drain — has turned out to be an asset for private equity firms and other players interested in figuring out their best moves related to the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

A plethora of ex-Yahoos, including many former top execs, are getting buttonholed by those who want to know more about the inner workings of the company that might not be obvious from its copious financial data available publicly.

That includes former Americas head Hilary Schneider, who has a longer-term consulting gig with TPG Capital, one of the several PE firms that has recently signed a non-disclosure agreement with Yahoo; former COO and President Sue Decker, who has had a longtime informal relationship with Blackstone, which has not signed the NDA and has been in talks with Yahoo’s Asian partners, China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s SoftBank; and even former CEO Carol Bartz, who sources say has also been contacted to get her insights.

She is one of many in that regard, in a large pool of former Yahoos, such as: LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who had run Yahoo’s media efforts; Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, former Yahoo COO; SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg, who ran swathes of Yahoo’s entertainment properties; Criteo CEO Greg Coleman, former Yahoo sales head; former CEO Terry Semel, who is now an investor; former communications exec Brad Garlinghouse, who is now at AOL; and Demand Media Chief Revenue Officer Joanne Bradford, who also was a top Yahoo advertising exec.

Not all are cooperating with the requests for a chitchat about Yahoo, but there is much incoming interest in ex-Yahoos and what they might know.

There’s lots more where that came from, from all parts and all levels of Yahoo, given the breadth of the exes now doing very well — thank you very much — throughout the tech and media industries.

Thus, calls from PE firms, from Silver Lake to Bain Capital to Providence Equity Partners, as well as interest from major and majorly irritated shareholders, such as activist hedge fund investor Dan Loeb.

It’s a smart idea to tap this rich vein of information, as all contemplate possible multi-billion-dollar investments.

While some of these execs have not worked at Yahoo in many years, all have significant knowledge about the challenges and also the culture that cannot be gleaned from spreadsheets.

They also know a lot about the internal politics and personalities of the existing inside players, too. More importantly, several were involved in similar previous major business decisions at Yahoo.

Decker, for example, was a key exec in the Yahoo takeover attempt by Microsoft several years ago; Schneider and Bartz were deeply involved in striking the advertising and search partnership with Microsoft.

“Between everyone, it’s a good way to figure out where all the bodies are buried,” said one person close to the situation. “And there are a lot of bodies.”

Exclusive: Silver Lake Finally Signs Yahoo NDA, as Talks Proceed With Bidders

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:08:27 +0000

Score one for Yahoo, it seems, getting some key private equity firms to sign its restrictive non-disclosure agreement to allow them a special peek at its business.

And now that includes Silver Lake, which has already had several discussions with Yahoo management and its board members, including co-founder Jerry Yang.

Silver Lake, which has perhaps been among the more aggressive of the possible bidders for Yahoo, had been a significant holdout over the NDA, because of provisions it felt were too onerous.

That included restricting “cross-talk” among the variety of suitors interested. Sources said Silver Lake had been discussing various scenarios related to Yahoo that might take a consortium of players to realize.

It seems it will agree to none of that, for now at least, joining several others who have also signed on the dotted line of secrecy. While Yahoo could have agreed to changes in the NDA, sources said the one Silver Lake agreed to was the same as others previously signed.

Those NDA-ready PE firms include TPG Capital and KKR. As of today, other bidders — such as Providence Equity Partners, Bain Capital, Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman — have not yet signed the document.

Yahoo had extended a deadline for doing to into this week, but firms can also get involved in later rounds of talks.

In addition, signing the NDA is not the end of the road for those who do not — Yahoo is a prominent public company and there are plenty of sources to talk to about its prospects.

But getting cooperation of Yahoo management could be critical, unless a bidder is contemplating making an unsolicited offer.

And that would be a tough road — just ask Microsoft.

Most of all, getting everyone to sign is important for Yahoo, which wants to control any sales or investment process and wants to avoid bidders taking control of its fate.

Thus, Silver Lake accepting the NDA is a big deal, since it had been considering hooking up with China’s Alibaba Group in a possible bid for all or part of Yahoo.

In addition, it has had success in a smaller but similar scenario around Internet telephony giant Skype, which it eventually sold to Microsoft for a lucrative upside.

As with Skype, Silver Lake is still working with Andreessen Horowitz, as I had previously reported. In fact, principal Marc Andreessen was present in a recent informational meeting Silver Lake had with Yahoo’s Yang.

I asked Silver Lake for comment about the NDA, bur it, um, deflected my swooping inquiry (inside joke alert!).

Early Adopter: Autograph a Book or Sign a Permission Slip–All Electronically at the DocuSign Hackathon

Drake Martinet — Sun, 22 May 2011 23:02:07 +0000

It’s a little surprising that even in today’s world of decoded genomes, retina scanning and 128-bit encryption that the doddering old signature continues to plod along as the primary method of identity verification.

But the concept of signing is about as ingrained in our culture as the handshake. We sign on the dotted line. We sign here. We sign there. We sign our life away.

And even DocuSign made its name porting that oldest of identity verification methods over to the digital world.

But last weekend, the software-as a-service provider did something it had never done before.

The company filled coolers with beer, rented a nacho machine and opened its doors to a bunch of hackers who would vie for $25,000 in prize money to build new uses for an old service.

That’s because the world has changed in the eight years since DocuSign started, and business services aren’t the only way forward now, at least according to Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Tom Gonser.

“From a strategic perspective, we are going to put a lot more effort on the consumer side of this business than we have in the past,” he said.

But according to it’s not really a problem of ink.

It’s one of paper.

Gonser explained: “In replacing paper, you have to integrate with any system that paper interacted with.”

And taking the paper out of the equation isn’t easy.

Paper is interoperable. And it’s the most readable file format–at least by humans.

So, to get its hands on more consumers makes sense for DocuSign, considering a good portion of them now carry touchscreens around in their pockets and a little white fob allows anyone to accept credit card payments, complete with signature.

The hackathon is DocuSign’s way to get a bunch of coders–who haven’t spent their lives thinking about enterprise software–together to solve the problems that modern living has with the decidedly unmodern signature.

When I stopped by, groups were picking away at projects that seemed like a pretty good cross section of all the places signatures enter our lives.

There was a plug-in for Google’s Gmail, a budding solution for signing NDA’s on the fly, a developer who wanted to end the paper permission slip for school activities and even someone trying to enable authors to digitally sign individual copies of e-books.

While the overall winner turned out to be the developer who worked on a solution for signing petitions, every one of the ideas seemed like a better alternative to what goes on today.

Here’s a quick video with Evan Jacobs, a former developer for Amazon, whose hackathon entry–Kindlegraph–allows authors to send a personal message and verifiable signature to an individual Amazon Kindle e-book reader.

[ See post to watch video ]

Exclusive: Kno Student Tablet Start-Up in Talks to Sell Off Tablet Part of Its Business

Kara Swisher — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:16:00 +0000

Kno–the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–is considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business and is in talks with two major consumer electronics manufacturers to do so, according to sources close to the situation.

Sources said Kno execs have recently decided that the quicker-than-expected uptake in tablet production by a multitude of powerful device makers had made its efforts to package a seamless offering less critical.

Instead, the company will focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

BoomTown could not determine which two companies Kno was in serious discussions with about unloading its hardware business, but the company has signed an NDA with one of them.

But, if a deal is struck, the move would be a dramatic shift for the company, which has yet to ship significant numbers of the student-focused touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so recently.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Kno recently raised another $46 million in funding to add to a $10 million round, and sources said that the Santa Clara, Calif., company was considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

A Kno spokeswoman declined comment.

But sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno Co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

You can see Rashid here, along with the Kno tablet prototype in the full demo video that the company did last year at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Want to see it bigger? Click here.)

The Complete Works of Bing Gordon: Odes to the iPhone and iPad

John Paczkowski — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:23:25 +0000

At a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers event this morning to announce the doubling of its $100 million iFund, KPCB team member Bing Gordon read two poems–the first, a 2008 paean to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, the second an ode to its forthcoming iPad. Below is the full text of both: “Welcome to the World, iPhone” and “Welcome to the World, iPad.”

Welcome to the World, iPhone
(Summer 2008)

Welcome to the world, my new friend and pocket master.
Your 3-G-ness makes my world so much better and lots faster.
Your App Store is the killer app of mobile D-to-C,
Although you are surprised that 90 percent of apps are Free.

100 Million is a frighteningly awesome number,
And threatens to eclipse Nintendo, put PSP in your penumbra.
Who’d have expected games like Rolando would have put you on the map,
Or that a virtual beer mug would become a killer app.

Your baby brother iPod Touch is rustling, restless in the wings,
With tens of millions multi-touchers browsing iTunes for new things.
With so much excitement already, your future’s hardly hazy;
Christmas Season in the Apple Stores this year will be, like, crazy.

Thanks, iPhone, for giving us a White to go with Black.
Thanks, iPhone, for making Leopard mobile, and connecting to my Mac.
iPhone, you’ve launched into the world, like a Cupertino rocket!
Steve envisioned computers on each desk; now it’s iPhone in every pocket!

Welcome to the World, iPad
(April 2010)

Welcome to the world, iPad, we’ve been awaiting you for months.
You give my hands an article of lust they both can touch at once.
3 Billion downloads in two years from 150,000 titles in App Store,
We’ve seen previews under NDA that will drive many billions more.

You’ve inspired new computer scientists on every college campus,
Who invented killer apps for toddlers, texting teens and check-in grampas.
Entrepreneurs without previous experience are creating jobs and wealth,
If they skip class to finish their new app, do they have to keep in stealth?

Thanks, iPad, for giving us a Cinerama screen.
Thanks, iPad, putting soul into your new machine.
iPad, you are the next chapter in the Apple Computer lore,
But we have to take our tent and leave now, the line is forming at the store.

Headed straight for The Norton Anthology Of Poetry, I imagine …

Spring Design: Here's How Barnes & Noble Turned Our Reader Into the Nook

Peter Kafka — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:00:18 +0000

Puzzled by the weird story of the “Alex,” the would-be e-reader that looks something like the “Nook,” the e-reader Barnes & Noble introduced last month? Then this won’t clear anything up: Spring Design’s court case against the bookseller, which it says broke an “implicit promise” and stole its idea for a two-screen device.

Spring sued Barnes & Noble yesterday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., accusing the bookseller of turning its “Alex” design into the Nook. I have embedded a copy of the complaint below, but here’s the short version:

The Nook, which is on sale now and is supposed to ship this month, runs on Google’s Android (GOOG) platform and sports a large monochrome screen and a smaller color screen. The Alex, which doesn’t appear to be in production yet, is also supposed to run on Android and will feature two screens.
Spring signed an NDA with Barnes & Noble (BKS) on Feb. 12 this year and says it first met with the company to show off its design for a dual-screen e-reader shortly after that.
By May, Spring was showing the design to B&N.com president William Lynch. Spring says Lynch warned it not to work with Amazon (AMZN) because that company would “steal Spring’s unique idea.”
The two companies talked a few more times during the summer.
Spring says that “up until B&N’s Nook announcement on October 20…it believed that it was disclosing the confidential features of its Alex device in exchange for B&N’s implicit promise that it would seriously consider acquiring Spring’s product.”

Happy to hear from experts who know consumer electronics and/or trade-secret law, but I can’t say I’m convinced by Spring’s argument.

For one thing, Barnes & Noble would have had to work very fast to copy Spring’s design and get it to market in less than a year. Another problem with Spring’s case: As far as I can tell–based on its own complaint–Spring only showed Barnes & Noble some PowerPoint slides, which means there wasn’t much for it to copy.

Eric Kmiec, Spring’s VP of sales and marketing, told me last month that he and CEO Priscilla Lu were brought in this summer to “focus” the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm, which had previously been “playing around in R&D” and had “no real market focus.” It’s hard to believe that the bookseller had made a promise–even an “implicit” one–to buy something that didn’t exist.

Anyone have a different take? Please let me know via email or in comments, below.

nook suit –

Phone SDK NDA DOA

John Paczkowski — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:21:34 +0000

Apple has finally realized that blocking open collaboration among iPhone developers may not be the best approach to iPhone application development. And so this morning, the company dropped the nondisclosure agreement with which it had hamstrung developers by prohibiting them from discussing iPhone programming and caused no end of consternation in the iPhone dev community.

“We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work,” Apple (AAPL) explained in a statement posted to its Developer Program site. “It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others. However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software.”