Considering the ongoing skirmishes going on right now between Amazon and Google over digital book publishing, it’s more than ironic that Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos was one of only a few initial investors in the search giant.

But–in one of the many interesting details in New Yorker author Ken Auletta’s new book, “Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It”–it was indeed Bezos who invested $250,000 in the start-up in 1998 at four cents a share.

(Some previous reports have had it at six cents a share and at a $100,000 level.)

Three of the others, according to Auletta, all of whom ponied up the same amount, were Stanford University computer science professor David Cheriton, entrepreneur Ram Shriram and Sun Microsystems (JAVA) co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim.

Later, more angels invested in Google (GOOG), followed by the big $25 million venture round by Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital in mid-1999.

While it was known back when Google went public in 2004 that Bezos held about three million shares in the IPO (Auletta said it was precisely 3.3 million shares), the book has a lot of the details about the meeting between him and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in the Menlo Park, Calif., garage of current Google exec Susan Wojcicki.

He had been brought there, according to the book, by Shriram, who had sold his company, Junglee, to Amazon (AMZN) in 1998.

“I just fell in love with Larry and Sergey,” Bezos told Auletta in an interview–not that there’s anything wrong with that considering the flip-flop relationships of Silicon Valley.

He’d presumably be more in love–and less inclined to be fighting Google, first in search with A9 and now in online publishing–if he had held onto those shares.

That stock would be worth $1.6 billion today.

But a spokesman for Amazon declined to comment on what Bezos did with his Google stake, noting it was a personal investment.

Interestingly, Bezos is also an early investor in the current hotsy-totsy microblogging start-up, Twitter.

A part of Auletta’s book, which is slated to come out Nov. 3, is in this week’s New Yorker in an excerpt called “Searching for Trouble.” It is, oddly, not available online.

In any case, the piece is mostly about the various ways Brin and Page dissed big media moguls, figuratively (destroying old media advertising business models) and literally (showing up at meetings sweaty and wearing skates and gym shorts).

Good thing they never did that to Bezos.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Last week, StumbleUpon announced it was buying itself out of its much-vaunted previous corporate buyout, by being born again as an “investor-baked start-up.”

The Canadian-born social-bookmarking company, which was launched earlier, had come to the Bay area in 2006 and got some fancy angel investors, who ponied up a couple of million dollars. It soon became a traffic-generating hit.

Then, StumbleUpon was bought by eBay (EBAY) two years ago for $75 million in one of Web 2.0′s high points.

End of a fairy tale? Um, nope.

Soon enough, due to both buyers’ and sellers’ remorse, rumors of the San Francisco-based company being sold by its new owners swirled around it, although there was no sale.

Instead, last week, StumbleUpon announced that a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital, would return it to its roots.

Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith were included, with Camp as CEO.

In a video interview he did with BoomTown, here’s Camp talking all about the latest shift for his start-up, including discussing some more changes on the site, such as an even more personalized Webification of the content discovery service.

Here’s the video:

The content-discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago.

It announced today that it was returning to being an “investor-backed startup” by a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital.

Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith are also back, with Camp now in place as CEO.

“We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp, stating the very obvious.

That’s quite a boomerang since it was acquired by the auction giant in 2007 for $75 million.

Before that event, which was at the height of the Web 2.0 fervor, the Canadian-born social-bookmarking start-up, which launched several years ago, came to the Bay area in 2006 and got some fancy venture investors (Mitch Kapor, Ron Conway, Shriram and others) who ponied up a couple of million dollars. It soon became a traffic-generating hit.

But rumors of the San Francisco-based company being sold by eBay (EBAY) have swirled around it almost since it was bought, although there was no sale.

The same has been true for eBay’s other purchase, of voice-over-IP service Skype. A recent report in the New York Times said its founders were also considering buying Skype back from eBay.

Under eBay, the site has floundered a little bit, but made some changes, such as unveiling a new Web-centric look and feel and a new partnering program last fall that represented a major shift for the online discovery service.

In that change, users no longer had to register for the service or download its toolbar to “stumble” the Web.

Terms of the deal were not released, but we’re digging! Um, stumbling!

More to come, but here’s the full press release from the company, as well as a video I did at the party StumbleUpon threw after getting acquired by eBay, including an interview with then-thrilled Camp:

StumbleUpon Goes Independent; Backed by Founders and New Investors

April 13, 2009 – StumbleUpon, the best way to discover new content on the Internet, today announced that after nearly 2 years as a subsidiary of eBay Inc., it has returned to the ranks of an investor-backed startup. StumbleUpon is now backed by the original company founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, as well as a number of well-known investors including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners, and August Capital. Camp takes on the role of CEO of StumbleUpon.

“We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp. “This change makes it possible for StumbleUpon to continue to innovate and focus on becoming the Web’s largest recommendation service.”

“StumbleUpon helps users discover the best of the web–it’s a way to find interesting content you wouldn’t think to search for,” said Shriram. “StumbleUpon’s personalized recommendation engine brings serendipity back to websurfing, and lets users sift through socially-endorsed content with a single click.”

StumbleUpon will remain focused on helping people discover interesting content by increasing the accessibility of the StumbleUpon service and the quality of recommendations. In addition, StumbleUpon has plans for several new products and features to be released in the upcoming months.

Earlier today, BoomTown posted a video of star venture capitalist John Doerr’s 10 tips to start-ups for surviving the econalypse that he ticked off at a roundtable in Silicon Valley on Wednesday.

Beside the words of wisdom from the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner, I also trolled for advice from the panel of well-known entrepreneurs I moderated at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” event.

Thus, here is the i-will-survive take from Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that makes the WordPress blogging software, Nirav Tolia of Web 1.0′s Epinions and Max Levchin of Slide.

As an added bonus, Ram Shriram, one of Google’s first investors, also weighs in. And, of course, the inevitable blogger Robert Scoble gives his two cents (and also freaks me out once again!).

Here’s the video of the entrepreneurs, and below it, for your viewing pleasure, two versions of “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor (the classic) and Cake (the weirdly good one):

Here’s a video of star VC John Doerr reciting his 10 tips for start-ups to follow in the economic downturn.

Doerr gave out the advice at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” roundtable event, which took place at the Stanford Park Hotel in Palo Alto yesterday morning.

The Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers VC got a lot of attention for his list, which he culled from a survey of 18 of the companies his firm has invested in.

Doerr didn’t need a massive, noisy PowerPoint like Sequoia Capital to make his quick and clear points, which he delivered in four minutes flat.

Doerr was on an investors panel with Ram Shriram, one of Google’s first investors, Ron Conway, Kittu Kolluri of New Enterprise Associates and Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital.

I moderated the second panel of entrepreneurs, including: Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that makes the WordPress blogging software; Max Levchin of Slide, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo; and Nirav Tolia of Web 1.0′s Epinions. Video of interviews with them and also Shriram to come later today!

But here’s Doerr reciting his 10 tips:

It will take place at the Stanford Park Hotel in Palo Alto from 8 a.m. to noon.

Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic (the company that makes the WordPress blogging software) will join Max Levchin of Slide, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, O’Melveny & Myers’ Sam Zucker, and Nirav Tolia of Web 1.0′s Epinions.

Along with my group, for whom I am planning all sorts of verbal tortures (“Exactly how much do you make?”), there is also a panel of investors, moderated by VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, which features: John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Ram Shriram, one of Google’s first investors, Ron Conway, Kittu Kolluri of New Enterprise Associates and Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital.

Oh, it is sure to be a festival of Web 2.0 pondering.

Said Marshall in a post about the gathering:

One goal of this event is to provide context and advice for start-up CEOs and founders facing the recession. We’ve handpicked the speakers for their remarkable records and experiences in the previous downturn. …

While the Sequoia [Capital] ‘RIP Good Times’ presentation gave a broad overview of the economic problems facing the tech world, it provided mostly a macro analysis, and a general prescription for companies.

Now is the time to take the analysis one step further, and discuss the variety of situations we see among valley investors and their start-ups: How cleantech companies are different from Internet start-ups, and how under certain conditions, a profitable company may actually be poised for aggressive growth, hiring and M&A–and not necessarily ideal for cost cutting. We intend to explore all of this and more.

Given the fairly predictable ‘Silicon Valley is in circle-the-wagons mode’ story line we’ve been seeing so far in the media, this event is also the Valley’s opportunity to help dispel this myth and explain how the area’s start-ups are actually quite diverse and that there are a mix of strategies at play.”

The event is sold out, but it will be streamed live.

And, as usual, look for a shaky video report of the roundtable from me later!

They include a stop at angel investor Ron Conway’s Pacific Heights (San Francisco) apartment, where we talked to Ron, entertainer and entrepreneur MC Hammer, blogger Om Malik and The Wall Street Journal’s Kevin Delaney.

Then, a visit to investor Ram Shriram’s home in Woodside, Calif., where VC James Joaquin and YouTube’s Chad Hurley are harangued by our Flip camera.

And also, a sojourn at the downtown San Francisco abode of Google’s Marissa Mayer, where we interfaced with her, as well as Google’s Sergey Brin, WSJ’s Rob Guth and, yes, someone we can only call Hot Santa.

No surprise, but BoomTown just could not resist that one.

Here’s the video:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.