As AllThingsD reported several days ago they would, Yahoo and Alibaba Group have finally reached an agreement for the Silicon Valley Internet giant to sell back half its stake in the Chinese Web company in a $7 billion deal.

The taxable shares sale agreement, which is now being approved by both boards, is part of a larger and more complex arrangement, which will also include a multibillion-dollar stock buyback by Yahoo and an eventual IPO of Alibaba.

And, perhaps most importantly, it will bring to an end what could be the longest running global cat fight in Internet history, in which the long-time partners have bickered over the terms of their relationship for years now.

It has mostly been over how they could get to the transaction they should be announcing later tonight (or morning in Hong Kong, which it is there now). While it could fall apart at the last minute, that is highly unlikely at this point.

(Update: The Yahoo board has approved the deal unanimously, said sources, so it is done done.)

(Update 2: Yahoo and Alibaba both confirmed the deal in a joint press release, which is below.)

Thus, after many failed attempts to strike a tax-free deal — also involving Yahoo’s Japanese partner, SoftBank — collapsed, the pair have finally settled on a taxable deal, which could net Yahoo upwards of $4 billion.

The transaction values Alibaba at $35 billion and is subject to a number of funding issues that could change the value of the deal.

But here is the overall situation, as I previously reported:

Yahoo is set to sell half of its roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba, in a taxable deal. The transaction is likely to value that portion of Yahoo’s holdings at about $7 billion — or 20 percent of Alibaba’s $35 billion enterprise valuation. Alibaba is in the midst of raising capital to fund the sale.

After taxes of upward of 35 percent are paid on the long-term gains — remember that Yahoo bought the now-lucrative Alibaba stake for just $1 billion in 2005 — the company will use the funds to buy back its own shares. That stock has been caught in the mid-teens doldrums for quite a while, so this could help boost shares significantly.

A shareholder dividend is also being considered by the Yahoo board, but it is unlikely. It’s also not clear if some of the cash will be held back for acquisitions by Yahoo, sources added, but it is also unlikely.

As part of the deal, sources said, medium-term incentives have been put in place for Alibaba to move forward with a public offering, which sources stressed is without contractual obligation or a time frame. Alibaba execs have already been publicly indicating such a direction recently, but this will put them more firmly on that path.

Although there are no plans to go public as yet, the IPO incentive revolves around several terms, including the right to buy back half the remaining stake, which expires in December of 2015. As I previously reported, Yahoo will be required to sell back half of the 20 percent remaining stake upon IPO and the other half after that if Alibaba goes public in the time frame agreed to.

Lastly, the Alibaba voting rights for both Yahoo and SoftBank are much diminished in the new deal, according to sources, to under 50 percent.

Translation: Alibaba CEO Jack Ma is now in the driver’s seat completely.

Once close, the pair have been wrangling over the large Yahoo ownership, which Ma has been trying to dislodge in a variety of nice and not-so-nice ways. It has resulted in a number of very public disagreements.

That included a nasty back-and-forth over its Alipay unit with now-fired CEO Carol Bartz, threats of takeover of Yahoo with private equity firms and, more recently, making friendly with its just-ousted CEO, Scott Thompson.

Those talks with him in recent weeks, which included a visit to China by Thompson, led to the new deal, which was negotiated primarily between Yahoo’s CFO Tim Morse and legal head Mike Callahan and Ma and Alibaba’s Joe Tsai.

The talks continued even as Thompson was suddenly engulfed in a controversy over a fake computer science degree on his resume that quickly led to his departure from Yahoo.

Ironically, the error was first discovered by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who is now voting on the deal as a newly named director of Yahoo, after successfully helping to oust Thompson.

He owns almost 6 percent of Yahoo.

The final decision to approve the deal was in the hands of a very new board of Yahoo, which has been drastically reshaped in recent weeks. It met to decide on the deal this weekend.

While the deal with Alibaba is finally nearing an end, Yahoo’s talks to sell its 33 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan is not part of this agreement. That’s due to what Thompson had called a “valuation gap,” which sources said is still an outstanding issue.

New interim CEO Ross Levinsohn has not been involved in the Alibaba deal in any significant way. But he certainly will benefit from its halo effect, if approved, especially given that it will likely boost Yahoo shares.

It also puts Yahoo in a unique situation, in which it must sink or swim more largely based on the value of its troubled core business.

That could mean a lot of things, including the eventual sale of the company, whose most lucrative asset recently — its Alibaba holding — will matter much less.

As soon as I get the press release, I will post it here, but no one is commenting, despite the inevitable happy ending to this long-running story.

And here’s the press release, finally:

Yahoo! and Alibaba Reach Agreement on Comprehensive Plan for Alibaba Stake Agreement Realizes Significant Value, Immediate Liquidity and Path to Future Monetization

Yahoo! Board Increases Share Repurchase Plan by US$5 Billion

May 20, 2012 — Sunnyvale, California and Hangzhou, China – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Alibaba Group Holding Limited today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for a staged and comprehensive value realization plan for Yahoo!’s stake in Alibaba.

The first step is the repurchase by Alibaba of up to one-half of Yahoo!’s stake, or approximately 20% of Alibaba’s fully-diluted shares. The purchase price will be based on a valuation of Alibaba to be established through equity financings that Alibaba intends to undertake to finance the transaction, subject to a floor valuation of approximately US$35 billion. The agreement includes substantial financial incentives for Alibaba to raise the additional equity at a valuation higher than US$35 billion. At the minimum price and assuming the initial repurchase of the full 20% stake, Yahoo! would receive from Alibaba consideration of approximately US$7.1 billion, composed of at least US$6.3 billion in cash proceeds and up to US$800 million in newly-issued Alibaba preferred stock.

The agreement also establishes a framework for Yahoo! to monetize its remaining interest in Alibaba in stages. First, at the time of an initial public offering (IPO) of Alibaba in the future, Alibaba will be required either to repurchase one-quarter of Yahoo!’s current stake at the IPO price or allow Yahoo! to sell those shares in the IPO. Second, following such an IPO, Yahoo! has registration rights and rights to marketing support from Alibaba to enable Yahoo! to dispose of its remaining shares, at times of Yahoo!’s choosing following a customary lock-up period.

This agreement is a result of extensive discussions between the two parties and a comprehensive review of both taxable and tax-efficient alternatives. Yahoo! and Alibaba believe this agreement to be the best path to align incentives and maximize value for shareholders of both companies and it paves the way for Alibaba to achieve future public market liquidity for all of Alibaba’s shareholders. For Yahoo!, the agreement provides for a staged exit over time, balancing near-term liquidity and return of cash to shareholders with the opportunity to participate in future value appreciation of Alibaba.

“Today’s agreement provides clarity for our shareholders on a substantial component of Yahoo!’s value and reaffirms the significance of our relationship with Alibaba,” said Ross Levinsohn, Interim CEO of Yahoo!. “We look forward to continued collaboration with the Alibaba team on business initiatives as we explore joint opportunities for growth and benefit from Alibaba’s future. I want to thank Jack Ma, Joe Tsai and the Alibaba team, as well as Tim Morse, Michael Callahan and our Yahoo! team for their dedication in achieving this successful outcome.”

“This transaction opens a new chapter in our relationship with Yahoo!,” said Jack Ma, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. “I look forward to working with Ross Levinsohn and the Yahoo! team as Alibaba builds China’s leading e-commerce company. Yahoo!’s global audience reach will provide attractive partnership opportunities for Alibaba to explore markets outside of China. The transaction will establish a balanced ownership structure that enables Alibaba to take our business to the next level as a public company in the future.”

“We look forward to delivering the proceeds of the near-term transaction to our shareholders, and to the further enhancement of value and the additional monetization in the future that this agreement enables,” said Timothy R. Morse, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Yahoo!.

In addition to the share repurchase, the companies have also agreed to amend their existing technology and intellectual property licensing agreement. Among other things, this amendment will result in Yahoo! granting Alibaba a transitional license to continue to operate Yahoo! China under the Yahoo! brand for up to four years, while restrictions on Yahoo!’s ability to make other investments in China will be terminated. Alibaba will make an upfront lump sum royalty payment of US$550 million to Yahoo! and continuing royalty payments for up to four years. In addition, Alibaba will license certain patents to Yahoo!. Upon closing of the repurchase transaction, the Alibaba shareholders’ agreement will be amended so that the parties’ respective rights will be commensurate with the parties’ post-closing level of ownership in Alibaba. Yahoo! will continue to be represented on Alibaba’s board of directors with the right to appoint one of four existing directors.

Yahoo! intends to return substantially all of the after-tax cash proceeds to shareholders following the closing of the transaction. While the form of the return of capital to shareholders has not yet been finalized, Yahoo!’s board has increased Yahoo!’s share buyback authorization by US $5 billion concurrently with this transaction.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Alibaba will be required to close the repurchase with respect to at least one-quarter of Yahoo!’s current stake in Alibaba regardless of the amount of financing raised, and up to one-half of Yahoo!’s current stake if it obtains the requisite financing. Alibaba intends to finance the repurchase through a combination of its own cash resources, debt, equity and equity-linked financing. The transaction is expected to close within approximately six months.

UBS Investment Bank acted as lead financial advisor to Yahoo! and Allen & Company LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. also served as financial advisors. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP acted as lead legal counsel to Yahoo! and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP also acted as legal counsel. Munger, Tolles, & Olson LLP acted as legal counsel to the Yahoo! Board of Directors. Credit Suisse acted as lead financial advisor to Alibaba and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as lead legal counsel to Alibaba. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP acted as counsel to Alibaba on certain financing and Hong Kong legal matters and Fenwick & West LLP acted as counsel to Alibaba on intellectual property matters.

Here you go, on what I reported earlier today on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson stepping down, being replaced by current global media head Ross Levinsohn on an interim basis, the naming of board member Fred Amoroso as chairman and director changes related to the settling of its proxy fight with Third Point’s Daniel Loeb. The company is confirming the whole thing in an official press release.

The news brings to a close Yahoo’s latest controversy, involving a fake computer science degree that somehow was on Thompson’s bio and also in official filings of the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

As you can see, the statements have almost zero to say about Thompson. Sources said that the board reached a settlement with him — I am trying to find out more, natch — after more and more problematic issues cropped up in recent days.

But for now, I am going to buy myself some Mother’s Day chocolates and find my kids:

YAHOO! NAMES FRED AMOROSO CHAIRMAN AND APPOINTS ROSS LEVINSOHN INTERIM CEO

BOARD ANNOUNCES SETTLEMENT WITH THIRD POINT LLC

Sunnyvale, Calif. — May 13, 2011 – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced that the Board of Directors has named Fred Amoroso as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Ross Levinsohn as interim Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. The Company also announced that its Board has reached an agreement with Third Point LLC (“Third Point”) to settle its pending proxy contest related to the Company’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders.

Mr. Amoroso replaces Roy Bostock, who has stepped down from his role as Non-Executive Chairman in order to accelerate the leadership transition for the new Board. Mr. Levinsohn replaces Scott Thompson, former Chief Executive Officer, who has left the Company.

Under the Board’s settlement agreement with Third Point, three Third Point nominees — Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson, and Michael J. Wolf — will join the Yahoo! Board, effective May 16, 2012. Mr. Bostock, along with Patti Hart, VJ Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson, all of whom previously disclosed their intentions not to stand for re-election, as well as Mr. Thompson, have decided to step down from the Board immediately.

As a part of the settlement agreement, Third Point, which owns an aggregate of 70,545,400 shares, or 5.8% of Yahoo! common stock, has agreed to withdraw its previous Board nominations for consideration at the annual meeting and vote its shares in support of Yahoo!’s nominees. Yahoo!’s slate of director nominees for election or re-election at the 2012 annual meeting of stockholders will now include Fred Amoroso, John Hayes, Peter Liguori, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Sue James, David Kenny, Brad Smith, Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson and Michael J. Wolf.

As interim CEO, Mr. Levinsohn will manage the Company’s day-to-day operations with assistance from Yahoo!’s existing senior leadership team.

“The Board is pleased to announce these changes and the settlement with Third Point, and is confident that they will serve the best interests of our shareholders and further accelerate the substantial advances the Company has made operationally and organizationally since last August. The Board believes in the strength of the Company’s business and assets, and in the opportunities before us, and I am honored to work closely with my fellow directors and Ross to continue to drive Yahoo! forward,” said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Yahoo! Board of Directors.

Mr. Amoroso continued, “On behalf of the entire Board, I would also like to thank Patti, VJ, Arthur, Gary and, in particular, Roy, for their dedicated long-term service and contributions to the Board and Yahoo!.”

Third Point Chief Executive Officer Daniel S. Loeb stated: “Harry, Michael and I are delighted to join the Yahoo! Board and work collaboratively with our fellow directors to foster a culture of leadership dedicated to innovation, excellence in corporate governance, and responsiveness to users, advertisers and partners. We are confident this Board will benefit from shareholder representation, and we are committed to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo!’s significant potential and value.”

Third Point Director Nominee Jeff Zucker stated: “I have been supportive of Third Point’s efforts since Daniel asked me to join the slate. When I became aware of Yahoo!’s offer of three board seats to Third Point, I approached Daniel and let him know that I would be happy to step aside to quickly facilitate a settlement. I believe that it is in Yahoo!’s best interests to avoid a prolonged proxy fight and have new board members immediately to help move the company forward. While there is clearly much work to be done, this is the right combination of talented executives to do just that.”

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

Botched CEO bio. Activist shareholder. Screwy board of directors. Mix it all together and what do you get?

More legal filings, natch!

This — as I reported this weekend would happen today — from Dan Loeb of Third Point, which is waging a proxy fight against Yahoo.

The aggressive hedge-fund investor — who owns close to 6 percent of Yahoo — recently scored a direct hit by revealing that new CEO Scott Thompson had added a faux degree in computer science to his bio, which somehow made its way into regulatory filings of the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

This, despite a supposed thorough vetting by Yahoo’s board of the former president of eBay’s PayPal payments unit.

Not so much, as it turns out — which is why Loeb is asking for all the information about Thompson’s hiring process and more.

Third Point said it was making a demand “under Section 220(b) of the Delaware General Corporation Law to inspect books and records relating to the hiring of CEO Scott Thompson, the appointment of Patti Hart to the Yahoo! Board, and the selection of Board Members Peter Liguori, John Hayes, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Jr., and Fred Amoroso.”

And its press release added:

“Third Point believes that Yahoo! shareholders and employees will be best served if the Board accepts responsibility quickly for this latest debacle … We believe that this internal investigation by this Board must not be conducted behind a veil of secrecy and shareholders deserve total transparency.”

Well, it looks like it will eventually be all out in the open, what with all the legal motions flying.

Expect a Yahoo response soon, which sources said will focus on a board investigation — using an outside law firm, and headed by independent director Amoroso.

Here you go on Loeb’s shot today:

Third Point May 7 Demand Letter Release

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

Code Advisors is getting a $25 million investment from financial services giant JPMorgan Chase for a minority stake in the Silicon Valley-based boutique investment bank and advisory firm.

The influx of cash will allow Code to grow quicker, said Quincy Smith, one of the firm’s founders, which also include Michael Marquez and Fred Davis.

The non-exclusive deal, the two firms said, is the natural extension of a longer-term relationship that has been developing for a while.

“To the extent that the money means we are getting even closer together, that’s great,” said Smith in an interview earlier today. “This solidifies a partnership that has existed for some time.”

Plus, it presumably also gives each what the other cannot offer clients. Usually a big bank might try to kill or buy a firm like Code, so this move is unique.

“We are growing our business and getting access to next-generation entrepreneurs that Code knows well,” added Kurt Simon, co-head of Technology, Media and Telecom Banking at J.P. Morgan. “And it’s a sign of continued investment in our important West Coast businesses.”

Indeed, J.P. Morgan has been competing with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for a higher profile in Silicon Valley. It recently was selected with the pair as one of the lead bankers in the upcoming Facebook IPO. It has also worked recently with LinkedIn, Skype and Pandora.

Code has taken on smaller deals with a range of hot start-ups and entrepreneurs, which was one of the attractions for J.P. Morgan. That includes representing Spotify and LivingSocial, and making investments in Path and Flipboard.

“For J.P. Morgan, it’s like making an limited partner investment in another venture firm,” said Smith. “And for us, we can offer a lot more services to our clients as they grow.”

As part of the deal, Jes Staley, CEO of J.P. Morgan’s investment bank and a member of the firm’s operating committee, will become a non-voting observer on Code’s board.

Here’s the full press release on the deal:

CODE ADVISORS ANNOUNCES A $25 MILLION INVESTMENT FROM JPMORGAN CHASE

San Francisco May 3, 2012 — Code Advisors announced today that JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) has agreed to make a $25 million minority investment. Jes Staley, CEO of J.P. Morgan’s Investment Bank and a member of the firm’s Operating Committee, will also act as a non-voting observer at Code’s Advisory and Investor Board meetings.

“We are thrilled that JPMorgan Chase has decided to invest in Code Advisors,” said co-founder Quincy Smith. “This transaction demonstrates how together we might energetically adjust to serve the new needs of entrepreneurs and companies. The chance to work more closely with Jes and his team gives us awesome global and experienced perspective.”

J.P. Morgan’s investment and relationship will allow Code to accelerate its growth opportunities and allow each team to offer complementary services to their respective and shared clients.

“Identifying and supporting great ideas early in their development is particularly important in the technology space,” said Staley. “Code continues to uniquely identify next generation companies, and together we are excited to help those entrepreneurs grow and expand their businesses.”

Large private equity firm Silver Lake is buying a large stake in powerful Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, which is being described as a way to turbocharge its digital efforts.

While the pair would not disclose any financial details of the deal, which they are calling a “strategic partnership,” sources said Silver Lake is acquiring 31 percent of WME.

“Over the years, we have been brick-building, as we have been doing more and more digitally,” said Patrick Whitesell, co-CEO of WME with Ari Emanuel, in an interview today. “But the opportunities are so vast, there is a need for more capital to do more.”

Whitesell and Emanuel said they had been considering a range of investors, especially among media entities, but that they wanted to work with Silver Lake since it had more digital experience as an active investor in technology.

Skype, for example, was the driver of the sale of Internet telephony giant Skype to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, while WME reps stars such as Matt Damon and Hugh Jackman, among others.

“In addition to capital, we really wanted a partner that to help us build it out that had more technology expertise,” said Emanuel. “We are good with brands and creative and talent, but there are many more Silicon Valley opportunities.”

In fact, WME has long tried to up its digital portfolio to respond to the needs of its clients and the changing nature of entertainment distribution as consumer Internet use has exploded. That’s included a digital advertising effort, as well as one in online gaming.

Silver Lake, which has most recently looked at investing in Yahoo, it was a chance to get closer to a trove of premium entertainment content.

“You have two forces at play, ubiquitous distribution and four billion people connected,” said Silver Lake’s Egon Durban. “As that distribution has been commoditized, the only way to differentiate is through A-plus content.”

Along with the core investment, WME and Silver Lake said they will also be considering other possible deals together as they move forward.

“There is nothing we like more than handing our best partners more money,” said Durban, who will join WME executive committee and also help create a technology advisory counsel at the firm.

Calling Marc Andreessen! Actually, in an interesting factoid, it was the well-known tech investor and entrepreneur who introduced Durban to Emanuel.

But this movie has been shown before and is not the first Hollywood-tech hookup to happen. A variety of efforts have waxed and waned over the years — most of which have largely been underwhelming.

Last year, for example, Accel Partners invested $40 million in Legendary Pictures and, back in 2008, Accel, the then William Morris Agency and AT&T formed an investment consortium to focus on Southern California start-ups.

Most closely related was the 2010 deal, in which TPG Capital took a 35 percent stake in Creative Artists Agency.

Here is the official press release on the Silver Lake-WME deal:

WME Press Release_5 02 12_FINAL

Spencer Platt | Getty Images News

According to sources close to the situation, Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz and Accel Partners’ Kevin Efrusy will be stepping down from the board of Groupon.

Schultz’s departure will be effective today, but Efrusy — who was critical to the initial funding around the Chicago-based daily deals site — will not be standing for re-election at the company’s annual meeting in June.

The departures are voluntary, but sources said the pair will be replaced by two new directors with significantly more fiscal oversight experience, whom one source characterized as “accounting types.”

(Update: Groupon just posted a press release noting the board departures, with the names of the new board pencil pushers: Daniel Henry, CFO of American Express, and Deloitte Vice Chairman Robert Bass. Henry joins immediately in Schultz’s place. Full press release below.)

It is a move that is critical, given Groupon’s recent series of missteps around its financial reporting that have hurt both its reputation and, more importantly, its stock.

Interestingly, several sources noted that Schultz almost left the board right before Groupon’s public offering last fall, after several ongoing disputes with its management, but stayed on so as not to scuttle its IPO.

The board of the company has not involved itself as prominently in the accounting messes at the company, but it appears as if they will begin to now.

It must, given Groupon shares have been trading at a low of $11. Its stock has dipped to $10.98 today.

As Tricia Duryee wrote recently about the fall:

At that price, it is now worth just over $7 billion, down 57 percent since the company went public last November and well off the more than $10 billion it was valued at as tech’s hottest start-up of 2011.

Ironically, Groupon’s current market valuation is actually not much more than the $6 billion offered for it by search giant Google in late 2010.

The fall of Groupon has been swift, from the honorific of being the fastest-growing company ever to one that cannot keep control of that runaway growth.

That’s perhaps no surprise.

Perhaps most significantly, Groupon went public in just four years, delivering the biggest tech IPO since Google.

The quicksilver move was typical for it. In just two years’ time, the company ballooned from 37 employees to 9,625 and from serving five markets in the U.S. to 175 in North America alone. And that’s leaving out massive expansion abroad. In the past year, Groupon has acquired roughly 17 companies, including many international copycats.

The company also has entered many new segments, expanding from selling lower-priced and simpler deals on restaurants and spas to more complex and pricey arenas, including travel, physical goods and luxury items.

But Groupon is now learning that its original business does not work across just any segment, especially to more discerning customers of its higher-level and more expensive offerings.

In fact, it was those newer and potentially more lucrative markets that forced the company recently to revise the company’s fourth-quarter report after returns skyrocketed on luxury items, such as Lasik eye surgery.

The problems forced Groupon to lower revenue in the period by $14.3 million and net income by $22.6 million. It is now reporting a wider net loss of $64.9 million on revenue of $492 million, pushing it further away from its goal of profitability.

The company also disclosed at the time that independent auditors had noted “material weakness” in its financial controls. In addition, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was examining Groupon’s revision. 

With many companies, investors might have shrugged off such accounting issues, but the impact on the stock has been greater since they are only the latest in a string of similar mistakes at Groupon.

In its pre-IPO period, for example, Groupon was forced to restate revenues after counting both its portion of the revenue and the revenue that goes to the merchant together. It also had to dump a controversial accounting metric that made the company look more profitable than it was, because it did not include important costs, such as critical online marketing expenses to attract new customers.

Those came after the company retracted a statement by Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon’s co-founder and executive chairman, who told Bloomberg in an interview that Groupon would be “wildly profitable.”

At least the wild part was accurate.

Much of the blame for these missteps by Wall Street is being aimed at CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason, the iconoclastic 31-year-old entrepreneur who is largely responsible for defining the company’s culture, as well as Jason Child and Joe Del Preto, the chief financial and accounting officers, respectively.

Child joined the company in December 2010, coming from Amazon, where he held several roles over a 10-year period — including VP of finance, international, and director of investors relations. Prior to joining Amazon, he worked at Arthur Andersen as a certified public accountant.

Del Preto has been Groupon’s chief accounting officer for the past year and, before that, he was the company’s global controller for three months. Before Groupon, he was controller and VP of finance at Echo Global Logistics and also served as controller at InnerWorkings, the same company where Mason was a computer programmer in his early career.

Mason, of course, is the best known and the person most responsible for establishing the company’s whimsical culture and managing — or mismanaging, depending on how you look at it — Groupon’s hard-charging growth.

It will also be up to him to turn it all around, as the company sinks in both value and investor regard. Since the restatement, Mason has said little about how he intends to do that. In February, when Mason concluded Groupon’s first-ever earnings call, he said: “Thanks, guys, this was a lot of fun, and I look forward to many more of these.”

It’s not clear fun will be on the agenda at his next outing on Groupon’s first-quarter call in mid-May.

Here is the official press release from Groupon on the board changes:

Groupon Appoints Two Directors to Board Daniel Henry, CFO of American Express, and Robert Bass, Vice Chair of Deloitte

CHICAGO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Groupon, Inc (http://www.groupon.com) (NASDAQ:GRPN) today announced that Daniel Henry, the chief financial officer of American Express Company and Robert Bass, a vice chairman of Deloitte LLP will join its Board of Directors. Both will serve on the Audit Committee with Audit Chair, Ted Leonsis. Daniel Henry was appointed to the Board on April 26, replacing Howard Schultz, who has stepped down from the Board. Robert Bass will stand for election at the annual stockholder meeting to be held on June 19 following his retirement from Deloitte, replacing Kevin Efrusy, who will not stand for reelection at that time. “With their deep financial, accounting and operational experience, Dan and Bob will provide invaluable expertise to the Board going forward,” said Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon Chairman.

Daniel Henry, 62, has been the Chief Financial Officer of American Express Company since October 2007. Henry is responsible for leading American Express Company’s finance organization and representing American Express to investors, lenders and rating agencies. He has also served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of U.S. Consumer, Small Business and Merchant Services and joined American Express as Comptroller in 1990. Prior to joining American Express, Henry was a partner with Ernst & Young.

Robert Bass, 62, has been a vice chairman of Deloitte LLP since 2006, and a partner in Deloitte since 1982. He will retire from Deloitte on June 2, 2012. Bass has specialized in e-commerce, mergers and acquisitions and SEC filings. At Deloitte, Bass is responsible for all services provided to Forstmann Little and its portfolio companies and is the advisory partner for Blackstone, DIRECTV, McKesson, IMG and CSC. He has also previously been the advisory partner for priceline.com, RR Donnelley, Automatic Data Processing, Community Health Systems and Avis Budget. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York and Connecticut State Societies of Certified Public Accountants.

“I’m thrilled to have been a part of Groupon’s development,” said Kevin Efrusy. “The Company is well on its way to becoming the operating system for all local commerce.”

“Howard and Kevin helped guide us on our journey to becoming a public company and I want to thank them and acknowledge their contributions,” said Groupon CEO Andrew Mason.

“During my tenure on the Board, I was impressed by the game-changing opportunities that Groupon has delivered for both merchants and customers on a global scale,” said Howard Schultz. “Groupon has a strong sense of mission and purpose, and as I move on to focus on my other time commitments, I wish them the very best.”

Yahoo beat Wall Street estimates in its first-quarter earnings report today, with revenue of $1.08 billion and earnings of 23 cents. That’s a gain of 28 percent from a year ago in net earnings and 38 percent per diluted share.

Analysts had been expecting Yahoo to report revenue of $1.06 billion and earnings of 17 cents a share. But, as I reported earlier today, sources had indicated that the results would be on the upside.

Still, revenue was only up year over year by 1 percent — not exactly a great achievement, given exploding growth across the Internet industry. The real drag was the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions, whose revenue was down 9 percent — which Yahoo attributed to the weak economy there — with its “contribution” down 27 percent. That region has been run by Rich Riley, who is now Yahoo’s sales lead in the U.S.

One interesting note: While display revenue was down, search revenue was up. And unique visitors to Yahoo were up 7 percent, which was lower growth than in previous quarters. The reason was declines in search and communications, with media up strongly.

Now, investors are hoping to get more clarity from new CEO Scott Thompson in a call at 2 pm PT about the overall strategy for the troubled Silicon Valley Internet giant, which just restructured its management again and also had layoffs of 2,000 employees.

Thompson has yet to articulate a specific plan beyond the broad strokes of media, commerce and data/platforms as Yahoo’s aim.

But there is a lot more to deal with and in detail, including figuring out its troubled advertising search partnership with Microsoft, the talks around selling off parts of the company’s lucrative Asian assets, Yahoo’s patent lawsuit against Facebook, how Yahoo is going to deal with activist shareholder Third Point’s possible proxy challenge and whether more layoffs beyond recent firings will be needed.

“In the first quarter, Yahoo!’s results came in at the high end of our guidance range and beat consensus on revenue and profits,” Thompson said in a statement. “We also made changes to resize the organization and establish a new leadership structure to quickly deliver the best user and advertiser experiences at scale.”

Until Thompson gives more deets on the earnings call, which I will be liveblogging, here’s Yahoo’s official press release and cool charts on the subject:

YHOO News 2012-4-17 General

YHOO_Q112EarningsPresentation

Wittlebee, a monthly kids’ clothing club that was incubated at Los Angeles area “technology studio” Science, has gotten $2.5 million in funding.

Much like another Science start-up, Dollar Shave Club, Wittlebee ships a custom box of high-quality kids’ clothes to members.

The seed round of funding was led by Rincon, with participation from SoftTech, Google Ventures, Matt Coffin, Crosslink, and Morado.

Wittlebee’s CEO and founder Sean Percival said the money would be used to create a private-label clothing line.

Wittlebee uses stay-at-home parents, who have used the site, as customer service reps. The start-up sends a new order of children’s apparel each month, including onesies, t-shirts, leggings, socks and pants, upping the sizes as the kid grows.

In other words, kind of like a never-ending online Gap.

Here’s the official press release on Wittlebee’s funding:

Wittlebee Raises $2.5 Million Seed Funding Lead By Rincon

Children’s clothing membership service to begin manufacturing private label designs to keep up with growing customer demand

Los Angeles, CA. April 4, 2012 — Wittlebee (www.Wittlebee.com), the affordable children’s clothing monthly membership service backed by technology studio Science Inc., today announces the company raised $2.5 million in seed funding leady by Rincon, with participation from SoftTech, Google Ventures, Matt Coffin, CrossLink, and Morado. Jim Andelman, co-founder and General Partner at Rincon, joins Wittlebee’s board alongside Michael Jones, founder and CEO of Science, and Sean Percival, Wittlebee’s founder and CEO.

Since launching less than two months ago, Wittlebee has experienced accelerated growth, in part because of Science’s track record of quickly scaling ecommerce businesses. The company will use the new investment to build out its executive team and user acquisitions.

Upon joining Wittlebee, customers are connected to a team of mom stylists who work with families to compose boxes of high-quality children’s clothing to meet individual children’s needs. Active kids in warm climates like Miami may receive appropriate t-shirts, shorts and socks whereas infants in Albany receive long-sleeve onesies and cozy pajamas.

“Wittlebee’s recent growth has been tremendous,” said Percival. “Our customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive; we are speaking to an audience of 20,000 highly engaged moms across social media who tell us they’re delighted we’re saving them time and money for all their children’s clothing needs. We plan to use Rincon’s investment to create Wittlebee’s private label clothing line that will truly showcase our commitment to high-quality practical children’s apparel.”

In the coming months, customers will receive a selection of parents’ favorite well-known brands in addition to Wittlebee’s private label. Manufactured both locally in Los Angeles and abroad, the new line represents customers’ wish-list of kids’ must-haves, from high-quality soft fabrics, to a wide color palate, to unique graphic designs. After months of research and testing apparel options through Wittlebee’s social networks, the resulting Wittlebee bespoke label will be a timeless array of apparel basics to carry kids through seasons, activities and all their lifestyle needs.

“For every investment decision we make, we care most about customer value proposition, team, and business model,” said Jim Andelman, Managing Partner at Rincon. “We’ve been tremendously impressed by parents’ positive response to Wittlebee’s offering: they love the selections, they save money and you can’t beat the convenience of clothes showing up right to your door. The e-commerce space is exploding in LA, and we’re very excited to be at the forefront with Wittlebee.”

For more on Wittlebee, please visit www.Wittlebee.com.

And the winner is … Jason Harper for “In this Shop.”

The winner, that is, of Getty Images’ innovative Mishmash creative challenge, in which anyone can submit a film from one to three minutes long, as long as it was created using Getty Images’ video, music and imagery content.

Harper’s video, which depicts a classic city barbershop, won the Global Grand Prix title, out of 300 entries worldwide. Winners were also selected for three other global regions.

Here is Harper’s winning video, set to a poem by Mark Anthony Thomas, which he called “an ode to a place I grew up.”

Lovely:

And here’s the official press release listing the other winners:

Getty Images announces the winners of 2012 Mishmash challenge

London, UK — 21 March, 2012: Getty Images has today announced the winners of its annual Mishmash creative challenge. The competition, which launched in January, received 300 entries from around the world, with winners being divided between three regions: EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), the Americas and Asia Pacific, with one global overall winner also selected.

Jason Harper’s entry, In This Shop, which explores the place of a local business in modern day America, was awarded the Global Grand Prix title, which chairman of the jury and R/GA, Chief Creative Officer, Nick Law described as “beautifully modulated, intimate and simple.” Other winners include:

Global Grand Prix and Americas: Jason Harper from the US for In This Shop
APAC: Marcia Hawira from New Zealand for Natalia
EMEA: Blake Dixon from the United Kingdom for The Newton N. Minow Experience
Public vote prize: Bartolome Barrero from Spain for Mother Nature

Each of the winning entries cleverly blurred the lines between imagery and video to create works which both impressed and challenged the judges with their creativity, story-telling techniques, slick editing and innovative subject matter.

Andrew Saunders, Senior Vice President, Creative Content, Getty Images said: “Once again we have had an overwhelmingly positive response to Mishmash, which never fails to produce work that both inspires and surprises us. The high calibre of films really showcases our creative and engaging content and we feel that the shortlisted entries demonstrate the evolution of video and media as a growing and highly engaging communication platform. A huge congratulations to all of our winners.”

Getty Images received over 300 submissions from creatives in over 50 countries — an increase of 37 per cent compared with the 2010 competition.

New for 2012, Mishmash entrants could choose to enter one of three categories: short story, music video or video art. Each film, which needed to be between one and three minutes long, was created using Getty Images video, music and imagery content.

The competition, which ran for two months, was judged by 29 of the world’s leading music, technology and film production professionals and was chaired by R/GA’s, Global Chief Creative Officer, Nick Law. Other judges included:

· Ignacio Oreamuno, President, I have an idea
· Nate Lanxon, Online Editor, Wired
· Leading Bollywood film producer Aashish Singh from Yash Raj Films

For more information on the Mishmash competition, or to view the award-winning entries, visit www.gettyimages.com/mishmash

In an interesting twist on the accelerator and incubator model for entrepreneurs, StartUp Health Academy announced its first class of “healthcare transformers” today at SXSW in Austin.

StartUp Health, which is chaired by former Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin and is backed by AT&T and the California HealthCare Foundation, is backing 10 entrepreneurs who are focused on “fixing a broken healthcare system in ways that significantly reduce costs and dramatically improve care.”

Unlike programs that support start-ups, some of these companies are well on their way in terms of funding and staff. What has been missing, according to StartUp Health, are the other support functions aimed specifically at companies in the still-nascent digital health care field.

Most of all, it’s a nice break from similar groups that back companies designing apps to help people stalk each other at SXSW bars.

Here’s the press release about the 10 that were picked, who were selected from nearly 400 applications and will be part of a three-year curriculum:

StartUp Health Announces Its Inaugural Class Celebrating “Healthcare Transformers”

AT&T and the California HealthCare Foundation Provide Scholarships to the First Class of the Academy for Health and Wellness Entrepreneurship

Austin, TX — SXSW — Monday, March 12, 2012 –Today StartUp Health announced the ten “Healthcare Transformers” that will make up the inaugural class of the StartUp Health Academy for Health and Wellness Entrepreneurship. These extraordinary and passionate entrepreneurs and innovators are on a mission to solve one of the great challenges of our time: fixing a broken healthcare system in ways that significantly reduce costs and dramatically improve care. StartUp Health also announced that both AT&T and the California HealthCare Foundation will be generously providing full-tuition scholarships for the first class of Healthcare Transformers accepted into the program.

“StartUp Health represents a new model for helping innovation succeed in the health sector and is based on a simple premise,” said Jerry Levin, Chairman of StartUp Health. “The best way to transform healthcare is to support and promote entrepreneurs with ongoing inspiration, education, and access to customers, capital, and other critical resources so that innovation and growth can occur more quickly.”

“StartUp Health Academy is the first program of its kind and is based on our unique methodology and platform for supporting Healthcare Transformers,” said Steven Krein, co-founder and CEO of StartUp Health. “The Academy is structured as a 3-year curriculum with strategic thinking tools and collaborative peer groups designed to help innovators navigate the many challenges of building a sustainable growth business in the health sector. We believe there is great power in these networks and in the access we provide to the community of customers, investors, and partners we have organized to transform healthcare.”

The first class of Healthcare Transformers in StartUp Health Academy are all highly accomplished and are operating companies at various stages of the growth lifecycle. All of them have already received funding or financial backing for their venture via venture capital, angel investors, grants, or customer revenue. Five of the class are serial entrepreneurs, two are healthcare professionals, and half are located on the East Coast and half on the West Coast.

The group includes:

Sundeep Bhan is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to revolutionize the way physicians and patients leverage lab testing to make better decisions leading to improved health. Sundeep is CEO of Medivo (medivo.com), which he co-founded with Jason Bhan, MD, and Destry Sulkes, MD, and is headquartered in New York City. The company recently raised $7 Million in a Series A from Safeguard Scientifics. Sundeep’s previous company Medsite was acquired by WebMD in 2006.

Veer Gidwaney is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to improve people’s health through daily behavior change. Veer is CEO of DailyFeats (dailyfeats.com), which he co-founded along with Morley Ivers, President & COO, and Vinay Gidwaney, Chief Product Officer, and is headquartered in New York City and Cambridge, MA. DailyFeats is profitable and growing rapidly with numerous partners including Walgreens and Cigna. Veer’s previous company Control-F1 was acquired by Computer Associates in 2005.

Samer Hamadeh is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to make it easier for people to find and book appointments with alternative healthcare and wellness practitioners ranging from acupuncturists and chiropractors to massage therapists, physical therapists, and personal trainers. Samer is the Founder and CEO of Zeel Networks (zeel.com), headquartered in New York City. Zeel has raised over $1.5 million in seed funding from angel investors including Esther Dyson, Ravi Mhatre, Tim Kendall, and Matt Ocko. Samer was recently EIR at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Samer’s last venture, career site Vault.com, was acquired by private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson in 2007.

Nadeem Kassam is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to reinvent how people track and manage their health. Nadeem is the Founder and Chief Alliance Officer at Basis (mybasis.com), which he manages with Jef Holove as the CEO, and is headquartered in San Fransisco. The company has raised $9 Million in a Series A from Norwest Venture Partners & DCM. Jef was previously CEO at wireless photo card maker Eye-fi and spent almost a decade at Logitech.

Hesky Kutscher is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to revolutionize and simplify the way families manage their children’s health. Hesky is Founder and CEO of MotherKnows (motherknows.com), headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. MotherKnows has raised $1.7 Million in a Series A from First Round Capital, Charles River Ventures, Giza Ventures, and Band of Angels. Hesky’s previous company Shoplocal was acquired by Tribune and Gannett in 2004. Hesky is also Chairman and founder of High Gear Media, a leading automotive content network.

Bill Scott is a Board Certified Neurotherapist on a mission to revolutionize therapeutic treatment options by giving clinicians the ability to easily and cost-effectively use neurofeedback to help patients train their brains to be more adaptive and healthy. Bill is CEO of BrainPaint (brainpaint.com), which he co-founded with Cora Scott, President, and is headquartered in Malibu, CA. BrainPaint is profitable and growing rapidly with over a 125 customers including Promises treatment centers and hospitals in 35 states and 7 countries.

Bronwyn Spira is a physical therapist on a mission to deliver mobile applications for physical therapists that transform the delivery of care. Bronwyn is co-founder and President of FORCE Therapeutics (forcetherex.com), which she founded with her husband Mark Lieberman, a serial entrepreneur and technology executive, and is headquartered in New York City. FORCE Therapeutics has raised seed funding from prominent CEO investors including Thomas Layton, John Pleasants, Joseph Varet, and Randall Winn.

David Wong, MD, PhD, is a dermatologist on a mission to make it easy and affordable for anyone to get online access to board-certified dermatologists and get immediate assistance in the diagnosis and management of skin diseases. David is CEO of Direct Dermatology (directdermatology.com), which he co-founded with Rajnish Gupta, MD, PhD, and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. Direct Dermatology has received funding from California HealthCare Foundation and angel investors.

Faheem Zaman is a young entrepreneur who recently left Harvard University to become one of the first Thiel Fellows and pursue his dream of rethinking healthcare by leveraging technology, data, and elegant design to make quality care more accessible. Faheem is founder of a “stealth mobile health company,” which he co-founded with Ilya Vakhutinsky, and is headquartered in New York City. Ilya brings expertise in contextual design and data visualization from his work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Faheem is a recipient of $100,000 from Peter Thiel and the Thiel Foundation’s “20 Under 20″ Thiel Fellowship program.

George Zamanakos, PhD, is an entrepreneur on a mission to make it easier and more affordable for pregnant women to get remote care from anywhere in the world. He is heading up a “stealth mode” initiative backed by some of the biggest visionaries in the ecosystem, and is headquartered in San Diego, CA. George has a PhD in Physics from Caltech, was an associate principal at McKinsey, and previously worked with Johnson & Johnson’s leading strategy and product development in diabetes.

The inaugural group of ten entrepreneurs represents the first of at least four classes StartUp Health will launch in 2012 and marks the beginning of its decade-long mission to help inspire, educate, and provide resources to 1,000 Healthcare Transformers as they build world-class growth companies. The entrepreneurs were selected from nearly 400 applications. The StartUp Health Academy operates on a “rolling admissions” basis and all entrepreneurs who have already applied will also be considered for subsequent classes.

“These entrepreneurs, along with their co-founders, represent a diverse group of Healthcare Transformers focusing on solutions ranging from mobile and digital health services to new diagnostic technologies and devices that will dramatically improve health and wellness and lower the cost of care,” said Unity Stoakes, co-founder and President of StartUp Health. “This group has visionary dreams and are already busy making them come true and pushing the entire ecosystem forward in the process.”

“The California HealthCare Foundation is excited to support StartUp Health on their mission to help Health Transformers grow and innovate more quickly so together we can spark innovations that can reduce the costs of healthcare and expand access to services for the underserved,” said Margaret Laws, Director of the Innovations for the Underserved Program at the California HealthCare Foundation.

“Innovation and collaboration are critical to drive changes in healthcare, and we’re pleased to support this amazing class of healthcare entrepreneurs in the StartUp Health Academy,” said Eleanor Chye, Executive Director, Mobility Healthcare and Pharma, Mobility Product Management, AT&T Business and Home Solutions. “We’re committed to helping the health and wellness ecosystem grow and support new ways that mobile technologies and smart networks can be used to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, and contribute to a healthier world.”

Anyone who wants to support the movement to help innovate in health and wellness can get involved or apply for a future class at startuphealth.com.

In an interesting move, the Weather Channel Companies has added Andy Miller to its board.

While such adds are not usually the biggest of news, the appointment of the high-profile former CEO and co-founder of mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless as a director is an interesting early move by new CEO David Kenny.

The longtime digital and advertising exec just got there himself, and is likely to double down on mobile efforts at the media company interested in many fronts (fronts? weather? get it?!?). (Kenny also serves on the board of Yahoo.)

It makes sense, given that so many more people will be increasingly accessing all kinds of weather info — including video — on their mobile devices rather than the Web. Expertise in mobile advertising, then, will be key.

Miller, as you might recall, sold Quattro to Apple for $275 million in 2010, and became its head of mobile advertising before leaving that post last year. At Apple, he headed up the iAd division, which is the mobile advertising network for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

He is now at the venture firm Highland Capital Partners.

Here’s the official press release:

THE WEATHER CHANNEL COMPANIES APPOINTS ANDY MILLER TO ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ATLANTA — March 8, 2012 – The Weather Channel Companies (TWCC) today announced the appointment of Andy Miller to its board of directors. Miller, a general partner at Highland Capital Partners, is a mobile expert and visionary entrepreneur who led mobile advertising at Apple and was the co-founder and CEO of Quattro Wireless.

“Andy is the ideal choice to be the first outside director on our board, and we will benefit from his vast knowledge of mobile and his perspective gained from years of experience successfully starting and growing companies,” said David Kenny, chairman and CEO, TWCC. “As a leader in mobile with potential for tremendous growth globally, Andy’s contributions will help guide as we grow mobile and our entire digital portfolio.”

“I have watched The Weather Channel’s progress in the digital space for years, both as part of my work and as a consumer and have believed in the strength and potential for this business,” said Miller. “I am certain that the opportunity to work with the company as it builds new products and sets it sights on global expansion will be a rewarding one.”

As a general partner at Highland Capital Partners, Miller is focused on identifying and working with the most promising technology companies in Silicon Valley. He currently represents Highland on the boards of Digg, Game Closure and Impermium. Miller joined Highland from Apple Inc., where he reported directly to Steve Jobs and was vice president, mobile advertising. At Apple, he headed up the iAd division, the mobile advertising network for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad line of mobile devices.

Previously, Miller was the co-founder and CEO of Quattro Wireless, the mobile advertising company that was acquired by Apple in 2009. Prior to that, he had responsibility for business development, sales and strategy for what became North America’s dominant mobile aggregator, mQube, which was acquired by VeriSign in 2006. Miller has also held the position of CEO of WatchPoint Media, an MIT Media Lab interactive TV spinoff, that was sold to Goldpocket/Tandberg Television in 2003.

Miller has a bachelor’s degree from Union College and a J.D. from Boston College Law School. He lives in the Bay area with his wife and two boys. An avid baseball fan, he is a co-owner of the Colorado Rockies Advanced Single A franchise, the Modesto Nuts.

As I reported this morning, an activist fund aiming at AOL took a shot today, by putting up its slate of alternate directors.

In a nutshell, Starboard Value does not like the way CEO Tim Armstrong is running the company and thinks it can do better.

My two cents: The New York-based investment firm might have actually named some directors with some more recent media or Internet operating experience.

Several Internet execs approached by Starboard said they declined because they did not want to engage in a hostile action against AOL, even if they might agree with its assessment of the dicey situation for the company.

Instead, it’s investor guys, advisor guys and even an intellectual property guy. (Oh joy, so the plan is patent lawsuits a la Kodak?)

Yes, it is, according to Starboard’s letter to the AOL board.

It read, in part:

“We appreciate the ongoing dialog we have had with management and certain members of the Board over the past two months. However, we are extremely disappointed that our conversations regarding the issues raised in our letter have stalled. Specifically, we are troubled that the Company remains closed-minded to alternative value creation initiatives, and instead appears solely focused on pursuing the status quo.”

AOL fired back with a statement of its own, essentially saying things are just fine and Starboard’s characterization of the company was inaccurate.

Said AOL in a statement:

“We ended 2011 with our best performance as a company in the past five years, with substantial growth in advertising revenue, improvements in legacy revenue streams, and significant cost reductions. Our stock price has acted in kind, appreciating approximately 80% from our 2011 low and 20% year-­‐to-­‐date.”

Starboard declined to agree apparently.

Nothing like a he-said-he said, which follows a similar proxy fight situation at Yahoo!

Here is Starboard’s official press release with board selections, followed by AOL’s full statement:

Starboard Delivers Letter to AOL Board Nominates a Slate of Highly Qualified Candidates for Election at the 2012 Annual Meeting

NEW YORK, Feb. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Starboard Value LP (together with its affiliates, “Starboard”), one of the largest shareholders of AOL Inc. (“AOL” or the “Company”) AOL -0.95% with current ownership of approximately 5.2% of the outstanding shares, today announced that it has delivered a letter to the Company’s Board of Directors and has nominated a slate of highly qualified candidates for election to the AOL Board at the Company’s 2012 Annual Meeting.

The full text of the letter to the Board follows:

February 24, 2012

AOL Inc.
770 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Attn: Members of the Board of Directors

To the Board of Directors,

Starboard Value LP, together with its affiliates (“Starboard”), currently owns approximately 5.2% of the outstanding shares of AOL Inc. (“AOL” or “the Company”), making us one of the Company’s largest shareholders. As you know, we have strong views regarding the current state and future direction of AOL, which we articulated in our comprehensive letter to the Board of Directors (the “Board”) on December 21, 2011 (the “December Letter”). We appreciate the ongoing dialog we have had with management and certain members of the Board over the past two months. However, we are extremely disappointed that our conversations regarding the issues raised in our letter have stalled. Specifically, we are troubled that the Company remains closed-minded to alternative value creation initiatives, and instead appears solely focused on pursuing the status quo. AOL is a diverse company with tremendous assets in a variety of different businesses that collectively are being undervalued in the marketplace. We continue to believe that significant opportunities exist to unlock value based on actions within the control of management and the Board.

As one specific example, in addition to the valuable assets highlighted in our December Letter, AOL owns a robust portfolio of extremely valuable and foundational intellectual property that has gone unrecognized and underutilized. This portfolio of more than 800 patents broadly covers internet technologies with focus in areas such as secure data transit and e-commerce, travel navigation and turn-by-turn directions, search-related online advertising, real-time shopping, and shopping wish list, among many others.

Since our initial public involvement in AOL, we have been approached by multiple parties specializing in intellectual property valuation and monetization, some of whom believe that (i) a significant number of large internet-related technology companies may be infringing on these patents, and (ii) AOL’s patent portfolio could produce in excess of $1 billion of licensing income if appropriately harvested and monetized. Unfortunately, several of these parties have expressed severe frustration that AOL has been entirely unresponsive to their proposals regarding ways to take advantage of this underutilized asset. The Company’s inaction is alarming given our understanding that many of the key patents have looming expiration dates over the next several years which could render them worthless if not immediately utilized.

As a result of the dynamics highlighted above, we are increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the Company and the leadership of the Board. To this end, and as a result of our inability to arrive at a mutually agreeable resolution on the composition of the Board, we have identified the following highly-qualified candidates who have agreed to be nominated to the AOL Board at the 2012 Annual Meeting. We believe these nominees possess a well-balanced mix of skill sets to ensure that the Company evaluates, with an open mind and a keen sense of urgency, all alternative strategies to determine the best path forward to maximize value for all shareholders.

Starboard’s Director Nominees:

Ronald S. Epstein is the Founder and CEO of Epicenter IP Group LLC, a company dedicated to assisting patent owners in obtaining maximum value for their intellectual property. Previously, Mr. Epstein was Vice President and General Counsel of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., and Director of Licensing at Intel Corporation. Before joining Intel, Mr. Epstein was a member of the Technology Licensing Group at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati. Mr. Epstein has more than 20 years of experience in developing, optimizing, and transacting intellectual property asset portfolios, and has delivered significant value to patent owners from the sale or licensing of patents in over 150 transactions.

Steven B. Fink is currently a private investor with extensive experience building and managing technology companies. Mr. Fink is the former CEO of Lawrence Investments, LLC, a venture with Larry Ellison that owns and manages all of Mr. Ellison’s non-Oracle investments. Lawrence Investments founded and invested in numerous technology, education, medical, and biotechnology companies. Mr. Fink previously served as Chairman and CEO of Anthony Manufacturing Company, Chairman and Managing Director of Knowledge Universe, and Chairman and CEO of Nextera. Mr. Fink currently serves as Vice Chairman of Heron International, and as a member of the Board of Directors of K-12. Previously, Mr. Fink served as the Chairman of the Board of Leapfrog, Inc., and Spring Group until its sale in 2007.

Dennis A. Miller is a strategic advisor to Lionsgate Entertainment and has been focused primarily on investing at the intersection of media and technology. Previously, he was a General Partner at Spark Capital, a venture fund where he invested in companies including Twitter, CNET, and AdMeld. As a Managing Director for Constellation Ventures, he invested in companies such as Capital IQ. Mr. Miller has also served as Executive Vice President of Lionsgate Entertainment, Executive Vice President of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Executive Vice President of Turner Network Television.

Jeffrey C. Smith is co-Founder and CEO of Starboard Value, a New York-based investment firm that is one of the largest shareholders of AOL. Mr. Smith has extensive public company board experience. Currently, he serves on the boards of Regis Corp., and SurModics Inc. Previously, he was the Chairman of the Board of Phoenix Technologies Ltd., and a director of Zoran Corporation, Actel Corporation, S1 Corporation, and Kensey Nash Corp. Mr. Smith also served as a member of the Management Committee for Register.com.

James Warner is the principal of Third Floor Enterprises, an advisory firm specializing in digital marketing and media. Previously, he was Executive Vice President of Avenue A | Razorfish, and served on the executive committee of aQuantive, its parent company. He has also served as President of Primedia Magazine Group, President of the CBS Television Network, President of CBS Enterprises, and Vice President at HBO. Mr. Warner served as a director on the board of MediaMind Technologies Inc until its sale to DG FastChannel, Inc. in July 2011.

It is our understanding that the terms of eight directors currently serving on the Board expire at the 2012 Annual Meeting. We would view any attempt by the Company to expand the size of the Board following the receipt of this letter, and given our previous discussions regarding board composition, as a tactic designed to manipulate the composition of the Board with regard to this year’s Annual Meeting. To preserve our rights, and in the event that the Company expands the Board prior to the 2012 Annual Meeting, we are therefore nominating five director candidates. We do not currently intend to seek to replace a majority of the Board. However, we do believe significant change to the composition of the Board is warranted given the qualifications of our nominees and the long-term underperformance of AOL.

We remain prepared to engage in constructive dialog with the Board to reach a mutually agreeable resolution. However, if an agreement is not reached, we are fully prepared to solicit the support of our fellow shareholders to elect a new slate of directors at the 2012 Annual Meeting who are committed to representing the best interests of all AOL shareholders. Starboard has a long history of working constructively with undervalued public companies to improve board effectiveness and enhance shareholder value. We hope that the Board will begin to recognize that our interests are directly aligned with those of all shareholders and that we only want what is best for AOL and its shareholders.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey C. Smith
Managing Member
Starboard Value LP

AOL ISSUES STATEMENT

NEW YORK, NY — February 24, 2012 – AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) issued the following statement in response to Starboard Value LP’s Letter to the AOL Board

The recent improved earnings results of AOL Inc. (“AOL” or “the Company”) highlight the significant progress we are making in executing our strategy to improve AOL’s growth trajectory and create meaningful shareholder value. We ended 2011 with our best performance as a company in the past five years, with substantial growth in advertising revenue, improvements in legacy revenue streams, and significant cost reductions. Our stock price has acted in kind, appreciating approximately 80% from our 2011 low and 20% year-­‐to-­‐date.

AOL’s Board of Directors and management team consistently review the strategy and performance of the Company and have taken meaningful actions to enhance shareholder return including the divestiture of non-core assets, significant cost reduction, a meaningful buyback of Company equity, and the implementation of an accountable and performance-based culture to operate against our clear strategy.

AOL has held several meetings with Starboard Value LP to address their questions. AOL communicated our continued intent to simplify AOL’s business and our efforts to accelerate shareholder value creation. AOL has offered Starboard Value LP an opportunity to help shape the Company’s Board of Directors composition and size. Unfortunately, Starboard Value LP has a singularly focused agenda and rejected this productive path to address their stated concerns and drive increased shareholder value.

Our Board of Directors and management team remain firmly committed to creating value for all shareholders. We have a valuable patent portfolio and several months ago, prior to Starboard’s first letter, the AOL Board of Directors authorized the start of a process, and hired advisors, to realize the value of these non-strategic assets. AOL has a clear plan to provide our consumers and customers with exceptional value, which we believe will lead to the creation of shareholder value. We will continue to aggressively execute and innovate on our strategy as we continue the turnaround of AOL.

Demand Media, which has suffered from stock weakness and worries about its traffic and costs, beat Wall Street expectations in its fourth quarter earnings report, which was released after the market closed today.

The Santa Monica, Calif., online media company said it earned eight cents per share, up one cent on analysts’ estimates of seven cents. Revenue came in slightly higher too, at $84.4 million compared to an expected $81.95 million.

Still, Demand shares were down almost five percent in after-hours trading on the news, to $5.94.

Demand said that about $50 million of that came from its content businesses, while just over $31 million was due to its registrar business.

Free cash flow was up five-fold from $3.3 million to $18.3 million, which Demand said was due to cost controls and decreased spend on its flagship eHow site, which has seen changes in its content and distribution platform.

Demand also said it is going to buy back more of its stock, upping a $25 million plan to $50 million.

Said the company:

“During the fourth quarter of 2011, Demand Media repurchased 1.9 million shares of common stock for $13.3 million under its Board-authorized $25.0 million share repurchase program. To date, the Company has repurchased 2.8 million shares of common stock for $20.1 million. On February 8, 2012, Demand Media’s Board authorized an increase of $25.0 million to the program, taking its total authorized repurchases to $50.0 million.”

In a conference call with analysts after the reports, CEO Richard Rosenblatt acknowledged it was a “turbulent year,” but noted that Demand would be enhancing its properties for higher page views and more direct traffic.

He also addressed the departure of some of Demand’s founders. “All three were very important members of our team,” he said. “But it’s the natural evolution of a young company.”

If you want more deets, read all about it here in the company’s official press release:

4Q11 Results Release FINAL02.16.12

OpenX, the online digital advertising upstart, announced this morning that it had reached profitability for the first time, as well as “exceeding an annualized revenue run rate of more than $100M” in its fourth quarter.

It’s certainly a milestone for the Los Angeles-based start-up, which competes with a little company called Google. OpenX has raised almost $51 million in funding since 2007, the latest round being $20 million last year.

CEO Tim Cadogan — a former Yahoo ad exec who arrived at OpenX in 2008 — talked about all this, and about where the online display market online is headed, in a video interview with me last week.

Here’s the chat, and the official press release from OpenX, too:

OPENX ANNOUNCES FIRST FULL QUARTER OF PROFITABILITY

Leading provider of digital advertising technology achieves annual run rate exceeding $100M

LOS ANGELES, February 13, 2012 – OpenX Technologies, Inc. (OpenX), one of the world’s leading providers of digital advertising technology, today announced it achieved a profitable fourth quarter as well as exceeding an annualized revenue run rate of more than $100M. The company also announced that it expects to continue its record of profitability during 2012 with continued robust growth across all areas of the company’s business.

2011 was a year of extraordinary success for OpenX during which the company served more than one trillion ad impressions and now handles more than 200 billion ad transactions per month. OpenX Market, the company’s unique ad exchange platform, saw a particularly strong year-over-year rate of growth of nearly 700%. This massive growth in OpenX Market is due to a growing number of publishers and advertisers recognizing the precision and strength of ad exchanges with the quality of both buy-side and sell-side customers that OpenX attracts. The company also continues to operate and manage key global partnerships, including OpenX Market Japan, a partnership with cyber communications inc. (“cci”), a subsidiary of Dentsu Inc.

The company’s advertising technology services, which include OpenX Enterprise, achieved a Q4 year-over-year growth rate of 100% compared with the same period in 2010, due to the acceleration of OpenX Enterprise, the company’s Software as a Service ad serving platform. OpenX has made significant progress over the last year in terms of both product adoption and revenue, proving its paradigm-shifting revenue serving capabilities are not only capable of driving revenue for publishers but can also do so at scale.

“2011 was a breakthrough year for OpenX with huge growth in global adoption of OpenX Enterprise and the phenomenal expansion of OpenX Market,” said Tim Cadogan, chief executive officer, OpenX. “Providing a comprehensive revenue serving solution for publishers to make them more money is the heart of what we are building and we are clearly demonstrating that we are able to do this at massive, global scale. The quality of the OpenX team and the growth levels we’re seeing put us in an incredibly strong position for 2012.”

With the launch in early 2011 of OpenX Enterprise, the Company offered the online advertising market the first true total revenue serving platform to make publishers more money. Since OpenX Enterprise combines an ad server with an ad exchange, it enables publishers to manage exclusive, guaranteed, non-guaranteed and real-time revenue sources all in one unified platform. As a result, for the first time publishers can maximize yield across all their ad revenue channels in real-time in one place.

Adoption of OpenX by major publishers, advertisers and partners has grown rapidly and is now used by thousands of customers across the world, including Groupon, cci, TheStreet.com, Turn, Invite Media, MediaMath, and [x+1].

“Reaching profitability is an important milestone in OpenX’s story,” said Rick Gombos, chief financial officer, OpenX. “What’s even more important is that we have achieved profitability by any measure of financial performance — EBITDA, cash flow and net income.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120213/ceo-tim-cadogan-talks-about-openxs-first-profitable-quarter-and-where-ad-tech-is-going-next-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120131/andresseen-horowitz-raises-1-5-billion/ http://allthingsd.com/20120131/andresseen-horowitz-raises-1-5-billion/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:05:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=169324

How green is Silicon Valley? Very, it seems.

As expected, and as has been widely reported (including here), Andreessen Horowitz finally announced its latest venture fund, raising $1.5 billion for venture investments. The huge amount is the Silicon Valley firm’s third.

Its investments in its previous two funds have included such high-profile start-ups as Airbnb and Pinterest.

Here’s the official press release:

Andreessen Horowitz Announces $1.5 Billion Fund III
Continues Focus on Helping Great Entrepreneurs Build Great Companies

MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan 31, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) – Andreessen Horowitz ( www.a16z.com ) today announced that it has raised $1.5 billion for its Fund III, continuing its mission of helping great entrepreneurs build great companies.

“a16z’s Fund III is all about extending our capabilities to more disruptors and pioneers,” said Co-founder and General Partner Ben Horowitz. “We’re remaking the modern venture capital firm, and entrepreneurs are responding to our unique approach.”

a16z has raised $2.7 billion since its founding in June 2009 and currently has a portfolio of 90 consumer and enterprise technology companies across all stages, including Airbnb, Box, Fab, Facebook, Foursquare, GoodData, Lookout, Lytro, Magnet Systems, Nicira, Pinterest, Silver Tail Systems, Tidemark and Zynga.

“Software is the catalyst that will remake entire industries during the next decade. We are single-mindedly focused on partnering with the best innovators pursuing the biggest markets,” said Co-founder and General Partner Marc Andreessen.

a16z provides entrepreneurs with direct access to six general partners — Jeff Jordan, Peter Levine, John O’Farrell, Scott Weiss, plus Horowitz and Andreessen — all of whom are experienced operators and company builders. a16z also enables entrepreneurs to utilize expertise from operating partners who specialize in business development, technical talent, executive talent, market intelligence, and marketing and brand building, plus the economics expertise of Special Advisor Larry Summers.

Fund III is available to be deployed immediately. Further detail about the firm’s new fund is available on Ben Horowitz’s blog: www.bhorowitz.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120131/andresseen-horowitz-raises-1-5-billion/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120130/columbia-j-school-and-stanford-eng-nab-30m-joint-gift-for-media-innovation/ http://allthingsd.com/20120130/columbia-j-school-and-stanford-eng-nab-30m-joint-gift-for-media-innovation/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:00:41 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=168567

In an unusual gift, Helen Gurley Brown has given Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University’s School of Engineering $30 million to create a bi-coastal Institute of Media Innovation.

Said the schools in a joint press release about the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, “it is designed to encourage and support new endeavors with the potential to inform and entertain in transformative ways. It will recognize the increasingly important connection between journalism and technology, bringing the best from the East and West Coasts.”

Each university will get $12 million, with the additional $6 million to build a “state-of-the-art, high-tech newsroom” at Columbia’s famous J-School in upper Manhattan in New York.

(Full disclosure: I went to graduate school there, but we used typewriters way back then.)

Among the advisors to the project is well-known Silicon Valley exec Bill Campbell.

The move will be interesting as a collaborative venture between the East and West coasts, although it is unclear what it might yield.

Interestingly, last week, Harvard University announced an on-campus venture fund with New Enterprise Associates to better compete with the enticements of California.

Great content needs useable technology. Sharing a language is where the magic happens,” said Gurley Brown in a statement. “It’s time for two great American institutions on the East and West Coasts to build a bridge.”

Here’s the official press release on the Brown gift:

COLUMBIA JOURNALISM SCHOOL AND STANFORD SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNOUNCE JOINT $30 MILLION GIFT FROM DAVID AND HELEN GURLEY BROWN

Gift Establishes First of Its Kind Bi-Coastal Institute for Media Innovation — Bringing Together the Best in West Coast Technology with East Coast Content

NEW YORK and PALO ALTO, Calif., January 30, 2012, 1:00 p.m. ET – Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University’s School of Engineering today announced a $30 million gift from longtime Cosmopolitan magazine editor and author Helen Gurley Brown to establish the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

The Institute and the collaboration between the two schools is groundbreaking in that it is designed to encourage and support new endeavors with the potential to inform and entertain in transformative ways. It will recognize the increasingly important connection between journalism and technology, bringing the best from the East and West Coasts.

The Institute, the first of its kind, is inspired by the memory of Ms. Brown’s late husband, David Brown, a graduate of both Stanford University and the Columbia School of Journalism. Brown, who along with partners Richard Zanuck and Steven Spielberg created such classic American films as Driving Miss Daisy, The Verdict and Jaws, was also a former journalist, publisher and, late in his career, a stage producer whose credits included the musicals Sweet Smell of Success and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Of the total gift, each school will receive $12 million for Institute activities. The gift to Columbia’s Journalism School, the largest in its history, will endow a professorship whose holder will be the Institute’s East Coast director. The gift to Stanford’s Engineering School will similarly endow the position of the West Coast director. An additional $6 million will go to Columbia which will also pay for the construction of a highly visible signature space at the eastern end of the J-School’s landmark building, featuring a state-of-the-art high-tech newsroom.

The funding of the Institute will support graduate and postgraduate fellowships, both at Stanford and Columbia, and competitively awarded “Magic Grants,” intended to seed the most innovative and promising ideas for future development conceived of by Brown Fellows.

Commenting on the announcement, Helen Gurley Brown said, “David and I have long supported and encouraged bright young people to follow their passions and to create original content. Great content needs useable technology. Sharing a language is where the magic happens. It’s time for two great American institutions on the East and West Coasts to build a bridge.”

The east-west collaboration of the two schools will enable students at both institutions to build upon their ideas with professors and innovators at both universities. At both locations there will be a strong emphasis on executing new ideas and demonstrating products and prototypes. The
Institute will establish ongoing links to business leaders and media companies to bring its innovations to market.

“New York City, as the major center for the television, music, print media and advertising, is profoundly affected by rapidly evolving digital technology,” said Stanford engineering professor Bernd Girod, who will serve as the Institute’s founding director until Columbia appoints his East Coast counterpart. “The Brown Institute will bring together creative innovators skilled in production and delivery of news and entertainment with the entrepreneurial researchers at Stanford working in multimedia technology.”

“This gift from David and Helen Gurley Brown is truly transformative for the school,” said Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. “As we enter our Centennial year, the Browns’ generosity will enable us to explore new and exciting realms of leadership in our field. We are thrilled to have this opportunity to collaborate with Stanford Engineering.”

“Stanford brings to this partnership its exceptional research and teaching, a history of transformative technology innovation and a tradition of multidisciplinary collaboration,” said Stanford University President John Hennessy. “We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Columbia University’s truly outstanding School of Journalism, and look forward to combining the expertise of New York and Silicon Valley at a critical point in the evolution of media.”

Stanford Engineering has a storied history of achievement and entrepreneurship. Its faculty and graduates have founded such iconic companies as Google, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems and Yahoo! and contributed to such groundbreaking technologies as lasers, global positioning, magnetic resonance imaging, digital sound synthesis and modern web-search algorithms.

“Under Dean Nick Lemann, Columbia Journalism School is building on its tradition of leadership by developing innovative teaching and research addressing the future of a fast-changing news media,” said Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar who has written extensively about press freedom. “We are deeply appreciative of Helen Gurley Brown’s vision in honoring her late husband by bringing together his two alma maters to develop the next generation of digital journalism. We look forward to working with Stanford in seeking new ways for technology and creativity to enhance a robust free press in our society.”

The Institute will have a distinguished board of advisors including leaders from technology, venture capital and media including, among others, Frank A. Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation; Bill Campbell, Chairman of the Board at Intuit and an Apple Inc. board member; and Eve Burton, Vice President and General Counsel of Hearst Corporation.

Helen Gurley Brown, who turns 90 in February, is one of the world’s most popular and influential editors. She led Cosmopolitan magazine from 1965 to 1996 and authored many books, including the 1962 bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl. Her impact on popular culture and society has reached around the globe, largely due to the three-plus decades when she put her personal stamp on Cosmopolitan in a way that has rarely been replicated. Under her reign, Cosmopolitan became the go-to magazine for women worldwide and remains the best selling young women’s magazine around the world today with 64 editions, in 35 languages and more than 80 countries.

“As both CEO of Hearst Corporation and advisor to the Brown Institute, today marks a very special day for education, journalism and technology,” said Bennack. “I’m very proud of David’s legacy and Helen, who understood the power of community, in particular, and its importance to women, long before social media had a name.”

(Photo credit: Hearst Corp.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120130/columbia-j-school-and-stanford-eng-nab-30m-joint-gift-for-media-innovation/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120127/making-sure-the-next-zuckerberg-or-gates-stays-put-at-harvard/ http://allthingsd.com/20120127/making-sure-the-next-zuckerberg-or-gates-stays-put-at-harvard/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:40:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=168409

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120127/making-sure-the-next-zuckerberg-or-gates-stays-put-at-harvard/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120116/former-cbs-interactive-head-neil-ashe-to-lead-walmarts-global-online-commerce-biz/ http://allthingsd.com/20120116/former-cbs-interactive-head-neil-ashe-to-lead-walmarts-global-online-commerce-biz/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:45:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=164025

Neil Ashe, who left his job running CBS Interactive in late 2010, has taken a job helming Wal-Mart Stores’ global online commerce unit.

The retail behemoth said that Ashe will become president and CEO of its Global eCommerce division, replacing the retiring Eduardo Castro-Wright. He will operate out of Wal-Mart’s Silicon Valley office in San Bruno, Calif., but will likely make a lot of trips to the company’s HQ in Bentonville, Ark. (Ashe does not have the U.S.-based e-commerce business; Walmart.com is run by Joel Anderson, who reports up through the Wal-Mart U.S. stores business.)

In an interview earlier today, Ashe said that he was “impressed by the company’s realization that the consumer is changing … and the commitment to global e-commerce.”

Noting that Wal-Mart stores see 200 million customers a week, he said the goal was to make the online experience as compelling as the offline one.

“There has to be almost an indifference between physical stores and e-commerce,” said Ashe. “The whole company committed to winning on the Internet.”

Since he left CBS, Ashe has been advising a variety of Web start-ups, including LivingSocial. Ashe joined the board of the Washington, D.C.-based social buying company last spring.

The job at Wal-Mart is a big one, especially given its up-and-down history in the online space. That includes the recent decision to stop selling MP3s from its Web site.

It has also stepped up its efforts, including a number of small acquisitions, such as mobile advertising start-up OneRiot and mobile app company Small Society.

But it did pay big bucks — reportedly $300 million — for social media platform Kosmix.

Ashe noted that Wal-Mart is indeed still dwarfed online by online dominator Amazon. “They are very innovative and strategically adept,” he said.

With 59 million monthly visitors to its U.S. Web site and an aim to go global, how Ashe navigates Wal-Mart’s path in the next years will be interesting to watch.

Here’s the official press release:

Walmart Selects Neil Ashe to Lead Global eCommerce

San Bruno, Calif., Jan. 16, 2012 – Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) today announced that Neil Ashe, 44, is the new president and CEO of the company’s Global eCommerce business, beginning today. Ashe was most recently president of CBS Interactive, where he led all online properties and also drove development of new ways to distribute programming produced by the media giant and its subsidiaries. Websites included CBS.com, CNET.com, CBSNews.com, and CBSSports.com, among others.

Ashe is replacing Eduardo Castro-Wright who announced his pending retirement in September and will assist in the transition.

“E-commerce is a great opportunity for us and we have a long-term vision to win,” said Mike Duke, Walmart’s president and CEO. “We are on track to create the next generation of E-commerce, combining the latest in online innovations with physical stores to give our customers a unique and seamless shopping experience.”

“We have an understanding of what these customers want, a trusted brand, 200 million weekly shoppers, more than 10,000 stores around the world, and the ability to make significant investments in talent and technology. We also have successful online businesses, including in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Brazil. With all of this, it is clear that Walmart is the best- positioned retailer to deliver this multi-channel experience to consumers, many of whom are already connected to the world through smart phones and social media.”

Duke continued, “With his strong personal leadership skills, financial background and experience in successfully working within a major corporation to lead its Internet division, Neil is the ideal leader to help us build this business. He has led companies through all stages of growth and maturity. He also has a deep understanding of the interactive space and how to attract and convert online customers. Perhaps most importantly, much of Neil’s professional success has come through close collaboration and shared goals with his peers — a key attribute as we continue to integrate our online businesses across the company and with our physical stores.”

“Walmart is a special company,” said Ashe. “Growing up in East Tennessee, I have seen first-hand the difference it can make in the lives of its customers. E-commerce gives us a huge opportunity to expand and bring savings to many more people around the world. We have great things ahead of us and I am eager to get started and join the talented team already in place.”

As president of CBS Interactive, based in San Francisco, Ashe led the interactive content business with operations in the U.S., Europe and China. After leading the successful integration of CNET Networks with CBS, he and his team leveraged existing company assets to ramp up CBS entertainment content distribution online, including making CBS.com the largest television network site in the industry.

Prior to this, Ashe was CEO of CNET Networks, initially best known for providing technology-related information, product reviews and price comparisons through CNET.com. He also oversaw dramatic development in the company’s China division, taking it from a small magazine and events operator to a highly profitable, fast-growing online business. During his tenure, the company’s value increased from $100 million to $1.8 billion. Ultimately, Ashe led the sale of the company to CBS and became president of CBS Interactive at that time.

Earlier, Ashe founded a company focused on using the Internet to improve K-12 education in the U.S. Prior to this, he was a partner and managing director at private investment firm Crest Communications Holdings and, before that, was an associate at Smith Barney, the investment bank now part of Citigroup.

Ashe has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Business Administration, with a major in Finance, from Georgetown University. He serves on the boards of LivingSocial, AMC Networks and the Georgetown University Board of Regents.

Over the past year, Walmart has made investments in capabilities and talent as it continues to build Global eCommerce. It has also further strengthened its position through the acquisition of small Internet specialty companies and continues to expand in new markets such as China and Brazil, including a minority stake in Chinese Internet retailer Yihaodian.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120116/former-cbs-interactive-head-neil-ashe-to-lead-walmarts-global-online-commerce-biz/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120110/menry-is-back-at-hp-ceo-meg-whitman-hires-longtime-pr-guru-henry-gomez-as-top-flack/ http://allthingsd.com/20120110/menry-is-back-at-hp-ceo-meg-whitman-hires-longtime-pr-guru-henry-gomez-as-top-flack/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:18:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=162537

Through many years of working together, first at eBay and then during the failed California governor’s race, Meg Whitman has relied heavily on Henry Gomez for communications advice.

Their close working relationship even earned them the mash-up nickname among those at eBay and elsewhere: Menry.

So when she got the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard, it was a bit of a surprise that Gomez — who has recently been living on the East Coast (see baseball cap above) — helped out a lot, but was not named to the top PR slot at the tech giant.

No longer, it seems, with Gomez being named EVP and Chief Communications Officer at HP today.

It’s a big job, given the hard work that Whitman faces reviving the iconic tech company, which has been beset by strategic and business challenges of all kinds, shapes and sizes in recent years.

While it might be seen as an adjunct to the business, the forward-facing parts of HP are in need of a powerful public relations initiative, which is presumably why Whitman wanted one of her most trusted and longtime staffers in the post.

According to HP, Gomez will become a member of the company’s executive council and report directly to Whitman.

Said HP in its press release, which you can also read below: “Gomez will be responsible for HP’s media and industry analyst relations, executive communications, employee communications, government affairs and global social innovation.”

As in, the voice of Menry is back!

Here’s the release:

HP Names Henry Gomez Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer

PALO ALTO, CA, Jan 10, 2012 – HP today announced that Henry Gomez will join the company as executive vice president and chief communications officer.

Gomez also will become a member of HP’s executive council, reporting to Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer.

In this newly expanded role, Gomez will be responsible for HP’s media and industry analyst relations, executive communications, employee communications, government affairs and global social innovation.

Gomez, 48, comes to HP with 26 years of communications experience. He spent most of the last decade working at eBay, where he served in a variety of roles including senior vice president for Corporate Communications and president of Skype. Gomez played a crucial role in building eBay’s brand during the critical years following the company’s initial public offering.

Prior to joining eBay, Gomez was vice president of Corporate Affairs at HBO in New York. He started his communications career at Hill and Knowlton and has worked on a wide array of public relations and marketing communications challenges in numerous industries.

Most recently, Gomez ran his own consulting business, providing communications counsel to clients such as H&R Block. He was on the leadership team of Whitman’s 2010 campaign for governor of California and has been involved in government and political affairs throughout his career. In 2011, Gomez was appointed to the board of BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. He is a graduate of Boston College.

“Henry is an excellent manager and communications executive,” said Whitman. “People around the world care deeply about HP, and I believe we have an important obligation to clearly explain where we’re headed and why. Henry will work closely with the entire leadership team to make certain customers, partners, employees, and shareholders fully understand our vision and strategy.”

About HP HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com .

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120110/menry-is-back-at-hp-ceo-meg-whitman-hires-longtime-pr-guru-henry-gomez-as-top-flack/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120104/confirmed-yahoo-names-paypal-head-scott-thompson-as-new-head/ http://allthingsd.com/20120104/confirmed-yahoo-names-paypal-head-scott-thompson-as-new-head/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:08:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=159711

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120104/confirmed-yahoo-names-paypal-head-scott-thompson-as-new-head/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111214/samsung-hires-former-aol-and-google-content-exec-david-eun-to-lead-renewed-media-push/ http://allthingsd.com/20111214/samsung-hires-former-aol-and-google-content-exec-david-eun-to-lead-renewed-media-push/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:20:46 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=153623

South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics has hired former AOL and Google exec David Eun to lead a new push to create more media offerings, the company said.

In a press release, the maker of a wide range of devices — from televisions to tablets to smartphones and more — said Eun would serve as executive vice president of its media-related units.

About Eun’s role, Samsung said: “He will play a key role in developing a global media strategy and driving new business opportunities to take advantage of Samsung’s growing number of digital televisions and displays, mobile phones, tablets and other connected devices.”

It’s not clear what that means, but presumably it could spell more investments and acquisitions in digital media, and even in the social space.

The move is part of a larger reorganization at Samsung Electronics, which it also announced has divided into two parts, digital media and communications and device solutions.

Samsung’s deepening of its media efforts — it has previously launched various smaller content initiatives — is an interesting one, especially in light of the fast-changing market it now competes in, in which partners like Apple and Google have also become intense rivals.

Google bought Motorola recently and has been increasing its media offerings, as has Apple. Samsung and Apple are also engaged in a series of global legal battles over devices.

In turn, companies like Amazon — which recently released the Kindle Fire tablet — have upped their efforts in the consumer electronics area.

In addition, Japan’s Sony — which already owns a major Hollywood studio — now owns all its handset business and has recently added tablets to its lineup.

Eun is an interesting choice, having been part of Google’s earliest efforts to move beyond its core search business into media, such as its acquisition of YouTube.

He left his most recent job at AOL, where he had headed its content unit, earlier this year. Eun has also previously worked at both Time Warner and NBC.

Here’s the official press release about his hiring:

Samsung Electronics Appoints David Eun as Executive Vice President

Eun to Enhance Samsung’s Global Media and Content Efforts

SEOUL, Korea — December 14, 2011 –Samsung Electronics Co., the technology leader and innovator in consumer electronics and telecommunications, proudly announces the appointment of David Eun as Executive Vice President.

Eun joins Samsung after an accomplished career in media and content. He was most recently President of AOL Media and Studios, where he oversaw AOL’s efforts to become a leading provider of premium content, spanning over 100 different websites and production studios in NY and LA. Before that, he formed a global Content Partnerships group at Google with oversight for media strategy, partnerships and strategic alliances spanning over 30 different Google products including Google Books, Maps and YouTube. He also has a deep knowledge of traditional media businesses from working at Time Warner and NBC.

He will play a key role in developing a global media strategy and driving new business opportunities to take advantage of Samsung’s growing number of digital televisions and displays, mobile phones, tablets and other connected devices.

“Samsung Electronics has an unparalleled footprint across multiple devices and platforms that provides a unique experience to consumers around the world. The competition for prominence in the living room has already begun, and Samsung Electronics is ideally situated to extend beyond that to connect the entire home and the lives of consumers,” stated Eun. “I’m looking forward to joining the impressive leadership already in place and to building a new presence in media for Samsung Electronics.”

Eun received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was a Teaching Fellow for the Harvard Negotiation Project, and an A.B., magna cum laude in Government, from Harvard College. He was selected “Digital Power Player of the Year” by the Hollywood Reporter in 2010, is an Advisory Board Member for the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and sits on the Board of the Television Academy of the Arts and Sciences Foundation.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111214/samsung-hires-former-aol-and-google-content-exec-david-eun-to-lead-renewed-media-push/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111209/aol-names-jim-norton-as-new-head-of-sales/ http://allthingsd.com/20111209/aol-names-jim-norton-as-new-head-of-sales/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=152362

AOL, which has had some turmoil in its executive ranks of late, has promoted Jim Norton to be its new head of sales.

The New York Internet company said Norton would be “responsible for sales on all of AOL’s owned & operated properties, including sites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, Stylelist and MapQuest,” as well as a range of other areas.

AOL has rejiggered its advertising execs and strategies several times in recent years, and Norton is not precisely replacing its former advertising head Jeff Levick (who left for Spotify) and is more akin to another top former AOL ad exec Mark Ellis (who left for Yahoo).

That job has now been folded into the portfolio of Chief Revenue Officer Ned Brody, to whom Norton will report.

“We need to become faster in our operations,” said Brody in an interview this morning about the shift. “We brought in Jim to bring in singular focus on selling.”

Brody said that AOL is working on how to increase the “value proposition” of its variety of advertising and marketing offerings and to quicken the process.

Norton came to AOL from Google in 2009 and before that worked in a wide range of ad jobs.

Here’s the official press release on the move:

JIM NORTON NAMED HEAD OF AOL SALES

New York, NY — December 9, 2011 — AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and Ned Brody, Chief Revenue Officer, today announced the promotion of Jim Norton to head of AOL Sales. Effective today, Jim will be responsible for sales on all of AOL’s owned & operated properties, including sites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, Stylelist and MapQuest. Additionally, he will also lead the sales of all cross platform marketing solutions, including display/Project Devil initiative, video and mobile. This announcement is reflective of AOL’s commitment to putting the strongest leaders in place to service clients in the most efficient and effective manner. Jim will continue to report to Brody.

“Jim has proven himself within AOL to be a fantastic leader,” said Brody. “He not only has deep knowledge and incredible expertise in the marketplace, but a real ability to effect change.” Brody added, “Customers want the best products and packaged solutions all in a fast and efficient manner. Consolidation of leadership under Jim will place even more focus on putting our clients front and center and deliver on their goals and needs.”

“It’s a tremendous honor and opportunity to take on this new leadership role,” said Norton. “It allows me to continue to work with some of the best sales professionals in the business. It’s also a privilege to work with some of the world’s biggest brands.” He added, “We want to continue to be the preferred media partner for marketers and agencies.”

Jim joined AOL in 2009 and was SVP, AOL Advertising’s Advance Sales team, which focuses on national and regional advertisers across all categories, as well as new business. He was also VP of Product Sales working with AOL product teams on maximizing their offerings to advertisers, including MapQuest, Patch, AOL Mail, AOL Video and Mobile. He also managed AOL’s Search and Sponsored Listings business, and helped launch and manage AOL’s self service advertising platform, Ad Desk.

Jim has over 20 years of experience in the media business. Prior to joining AOL, he spent 3 years at Google most recently as National Sales Manager for Google’s Agency Activation team. Prior to that role, he was a Senior Account Executive on the National Tech B2B team servicing many of the leading global tech marketers. He’s also held a number of traditional sales and marketing roles, including four years as Sales Manager at Tribune Broadcasting’s WLVI-TV (Boston’s WB), radio ad sales at Kiss 108FM and a variety of brand marketing roles at Miller Brewing Company and GMR Marketing. He’s a life long Bostonian and graduated from Boston College with a BA in Communications and BC’s Carroll Graduate School of Business with an MBA in Marketing and Technology. He’s married with three children and splits his time between Boston and New York City.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111209/aol-names-jim-norton-as-new-head-of-sales/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111201/former-palm-and-twitter-techie-mike-abbott-jumps-from-eir-at-benchmark-to-kleiner-partner/ http://allthingsd.com/20111201/former-palm-and-twitter-techie-mike-abbott-jumps-from-eir-at-benchmark-to-kleiner-partner/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:00:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=149086

Kleiner Perkins has nabbed former Twitter engineering head Mike Abbott, who left the social communications company less than two months ago to be an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital.

(Well, that didn’t last long, Mike, but maybe the food was better at 2750 Sand Hill Road than at 2480 Sand Hill Road.)

In an interview this morning, Abbott said that he hopes to stay a VC for 20 years (yipes!), since it allows him to work closely with a wide range of entrepreneurs and also get a broad view across a spectrum of businesses.

“I am really energized about what’s been happening in a lot of places like software,” he said. “From my experience, I think I bring a lot of differentiation for the companies Kleiner is invested in.”

And tech cred too. “We think engineers will be thrilled to have access to Mike and he’s a magnet for talent,” said Kleiner partner Ted Schlein, who compared him to all the comic-book heroes, The Avengers, in one person. “Mike is multi-faceted.”

Abbott was indeed a high-profile hire for Twitter a little over a year ago from Palm, where he served as head of its software and services, in charge of its webOS mobile platform.

He was brought in to provide a level of discipline and reliability to the Twitter communications platform and service, which had been plagued by persistent outages that made the Fail Whale infamous.

Abbott will focus on social, mobile and cloud investments at the well-known Silicon Valley venture firm while working on a team that includes high-profile players Mary Meeker and Bing Gordon.

Here’s the official press release:

Michael Abbott Joins Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as Partner

Engineering Leader to Help Social, Mobile and Cloud Entrepreneurs Build Teams and Ventures

MENLO PARK, Calif., December 1, 2011 – Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) today announced that Mike Abbott, former vice president of engineering at Twitter, has joined the firm as a partner on its digital team. Abbott led the building of innovative, high-performance applications and services at Twitter, Palm and Microsoft. With a deep background in social and mobile applications and infrastructure, Mike is also an expert in enterprise infrastructure and cloud computing and “big data” businesses, having founded Composite Software, and advised Cloudera and Jawbone.

“I’m excited to join KPCB’s partners to build new ventures faster,” said Abbott. “The partner mix of founders, operators and investors is ideal for entrepreneurs racing to scale at this disruptive time.”

“Mike is an exceptional and well-respected leader with an outstanding track record shipping great products,” said Ted Schlein, partner, KPCB. “Mike’s deep expertise from Palm and Twitter will help social, mobile and cloud entrepreneurs win.”

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, said, “Mike is a huge engineering talent and will be a terrific asset to Kleiner’s technology companies. He was instrumental in helping us scale Twitter’s architecture to support incredible growth ̶ from 100 million daily Tweets in January 2011 to about 250 million daily tweets today.”

In less than a year and a half, Abbott grew the Twitter engineering team from 80 to more than 350 engineers in an intensely competitive recruiting market. Abbott’s team rebuilt and solidified Twitter’s infrastructure. Prior to joining Twitter in 2010, Abbott led the software development team at Palm that created HP/Palm’s next-generation webOS platform. Abbott was previously the general manager at Microsoft for .NET online services, which became Azure. Prior to that, he co-founded Passenger Inc. and founded Composite Software. Abbott has advised and invested in numerous software companies such as Cloudera, Hearsay Labs, Saynow and Jawbone.

Mike Abbott is just the third senior KPCB partner added in three years, joining Bing Gordon and Mary Meeker, each with exceptional records serving mobile, social and cloud entrepreneurs. KPCB’s digital team also bolstered its infrastructure expertise with the recent addition of Ray Bradford from Amazon Web Services, where he helped grow the company’s cloud database business.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111201/former-palm-and-twitter-techie-mike-abbott-jumps-from-eir-at-benchmark-to-kleiner-partner/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111201/wealthfront-finally-lauches-aimed-at-silicon-valleys-newbie-richie-richs/ http://allthingsd.com/20111201/wealthfront-finally-lauches-aimed-at-silicon-valleys-newbie-richie-richs/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:30:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=149082

Wealthfront, the Silicon Valley start-up with more than $10 million in its own kitty, finally officially launched its long-planned Online Financial Advisor product today, with a focus on attracting techies interested in more easily managing their money.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, which started off as a social investing site called kaChing, shifted over to the new plan just over a year ago. Its aim now is to try to solve the thorny problem of delivering actionable and easy-to-use tools for making investments online, for those who have some money but little time or expertise.

A lot of companies offer similar tools, of course, including big ones such as Fidelity and Schwab, as well as bigger money-management firms. But Wealthfront’s CEO Andy Rachleff and founder Dan Carroll are promising lower fees and more accurate determination of risk via all kinds of online bells and whistles (see below).

Wealthfront is not charging advisory fees on a customer’s first $25,000 under management, with a fee of 0.25% on assets exceeding that.

Wealthfront is backed by DAG Ventures and well-known investors, including Marc Andreessen and Jeff Jordan.

Here’s a video Wealthfront posted about the service, as well as its official press release:

Wealthfront Unveils Automated Online Financial Advisor Service for Silicon Valley and High-Tech Hubs

Highly Sophisticated Investing Advice Finally Made Available through Simple and Low Cost Web Service

PALO ALTO, Calif., December 1, 2011 – The ability for the savvy tech community to easily access high quality, affordable financial advice is now available with the launch of the Wealthfront Online Financial Advisor. Before Wealthfront, sophisticated investment advice was available only to the wealthy, by expensive financial advisors who often can’t relate to today’s tech-savvy generation who want sound financial advice, made easy and convenient. Wealthfront’s Online Financial Advisor appeals to investors from booming tech communities who favor doing everything online, and are looking for ways to have their new wealth managed for far lower fees.

At the core of Wealthfront’s web service is the industry-standard Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). Until now, the widely adopted investing model has been kept out of consumers’ reach, and was only accessible via expensive financial advisors. Wealthfront automates the application of this intricate investment model, putting the power of MPT directly into the hands of investors online. Moreover, Wealthfront’s pricing structure trumps all traditional financial advisor models. The online service makes it possible to receive a sophisticated, meticulously managed investment plan at a price that is 75% lower than traditional financial advisors. There are no advisory fees on a customer’s first $25,000 under management, and only a fee of 0.25% on assets exceeding $25,000.

“This is exactly what most people in the technology industry need. It’s the kind of advice you’d get if you had Goldman Sachs manage your money and it does away with the hidden fees we in tech despise,” said Piaw Na, a long time, former employee of Google and popular blogger on the topic of investing. “What’s more, the recommendation on the investment mix is provided with a full explanation of what was picked and why, making the whole experience a massive and much needed shift that is especially appealing now.”

Wealthfront’s high quality investing advice is powered by its Precision-Investing Platform™, the breakthrough software behind the service. The Platform uniquely assesses a customer’s true risk tolerance, recommends an optimized portfolio of carefully selected Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) spanning six asset classes, and monitors and periodically rebalances the investment mix to maintain a customer’s desired risk tolerance.

Wealthfront is backed by Silicon Valley luminaries including DAG Ventures and individual investors including Marc Andreessen, Jeff Jordan, former OpenTable CEO and President of PayPal now at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, and partners from Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

“The financial advisor world has long recognized that one day the Internet and software would pose a credible threat to their hold on the sub $5 million category of individual investors,” said Paul Pfleiderer, C.O.G. Miller Distinguished Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Wealthfront advisor. “Wealthfront has made accessible what historically had been out of reach or prohibitively costly for a large class of investors. By using a simple, yet powerful engine for accurately assessing risk and return in the MPT context, Wealthfront has established a new standard for quality financial advisement on the web.”

“With the biggest names in venture capital and the brightest minds in software development, we’re ushering in a financial advisor service that’s capable of precisely managing a customer’s investments from $5,000 to tens of millions with a pricing approach unheard of in the financial services industry,” said Andy Rachleff, CEO of Wealthfront. “Wealthfront emerges at a time when many tech companies are enjoying record earnings, initial public offerings, and strong acquisitions. This creates masses of people in tech looking to invest for the first time and who want to manage their finances in the same manner they’ve organized every other aspect of their lives, online.”

“The promise of the Internet is to disrupt incumbent providers, enabling new companies to provide high quality services at substantial savings through the innovative use of software,” said Jeff Jordan, Wealthfront board member, former CEO OpenTable and President of PayPal and now General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “Wealthfront embodies this promise, democratizing access to high quality financial advice. I believe this will appeal strongly to a generation that has grown up with the Net and use it to manage all facets of their life.”

For more information on Wealthfront Online Financial Advisor, or to create a free account, visit www.wealthfront.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111201/wealthfront-finally-lauches-aimed-at-silicon-valleys-newbie-richie-richs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111121/former-color-co-founder-peter-pham-heads-to-former-myspace-ceos-l-a-tech-studio/ http://allthingsd.com/20111121/former-color-co-founder-peter-pham-heads-to-former-myspace-ceos-l-a-tech-studio/#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:00:54 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=146141

Well-known tech entrepreneur Peter Pham will be joining the Los Angeles-based start-ups lab that was just launched by former Myspace CEO Mike Jones.

Pham, who was recently helming the high-profile and controversial Color photo-sharing start-up in Silicon Valley, will be moving south again to join Jones at the Santa Monica, Calif.-based “technology studio,” called Science.

As Liz Gannes reported last week, the goal — with $10 million in funding and private equity partners at the ready for more — is to “incubate ideas in-house, invest in other people’s start-ups, advise Silicon Valley companies on breaking into Hollywood, and maybe even look into reworking later-stage Internet companies like Yahoo.”

Pham and Jones will aim at three verticals: The intersection of content and commerce, social systems, and mobile and location.

That’s an area that Pham knows well, with stints at both BillShrink and Photobucket (also a former News Corp. property, as was MySpace), as well as active angel investing.

In an interview yesterday, Pham said he hopes to bridge the Silicon Valley-L.A. delta more, since there is an increasing amount of promising tech taking place there, too.

“There is a lot going on in L.A., and a lot of tech talent that still sometimes get less attention up in Silicon Valley,” said Pham. “I hope to be part of bringing the communities a little closer together.”

In addition, he said that the focus of Science would not necessarily be on online entertainment start-ups, as might be expected, given the proximity to Hollywood.

“We really want to shine a light on the innovation taking place in Los Angeles beyond the obvious,” said Pham.

It’s a good idea, given how navel-gazing Northern California geeks can be.

Also in the L.A. start-up scene of late is a new accelerator called Start Engine, which debuted recently with a focus on mentorship on 120 start-ups per year.

You can see Pham featured in this video that Gannes did about Color:

And here’s the official press release about Pham joining Science:

Peter Pham press release.FINAL11-21-11

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