Roger McNamee

Partner
Elevation Partners

Roger McNamee co-founded Elevation Partners in 2004, after a long career as an investor. He began his career in 1982 at T. Rowe Price Associates. In 1991, McNamee launched Integral Capital Partners, the first crossover fund, combining later stage venture capital with public market investments, in partnership with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In 1999, he co-founded Silver Lake Partners, the first private equity fund focused on technology businesses. Now with Elevation Partners, an investment partnership focused on the intersection of media and entertainment content and consumer technology, he's done it again, this time with Bono as a partner. He's the guy who decided to fund the revival of Palm, which is making a bet-the-company move to beat Apple, RIM and others in the handheld wars. Most importantly, though, McNamee plays guitar and bass in the band Moonalice.

Posts With Roger McNamee

Opening the Floodgates: Talking Investing with VC Mike Maples (Video)

Ina Fried in News on January 23 at 1:15 pm PT

In a conversation at last week’s Founder Showcase in Mountain View, the venture capitalist offered some good advice, mixed in with surfing metaphors galore.

The State of Social Sharing With Fred Wilson, Roger McNamee and More (Video)

Kara Swisher in Social on November 20, 2011 at 9:51 am PT

Here’s a panel I did last week at the Privacy Identity Innovation conference that took place on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley, called “Social Sharing and the Data-Driven Economy.”

History Repeats Itself at Hewlett-Packard webOS Unit

Arik Hesseldahl in News on September 6, 2011 at 7:00 am PT

Leaked internal memos elucidate Hewlett-Packard’s plans for the future — such as it is — for the different pieces of its webOS business.

Roger and Pre: Those Were the Days, McNamee (He Thought Palm Would Always Be)

Kara Swisher in Mobile on August 19, 2011 at 7:30 pm PT

It’s been a bad week for those who were big fans of Palm and its webOS operating system. So, it’s clearly time for a little McNamee.

KatieCam: Talking Apple With Tech Types at D8

Katherine Boehret in D8 on June 1, 2010 at 4:31 pm PT

All Things Digital’s Katherine Boehret walked the lobby at Terranea during registration for D8 and got a few tech types to talk about what they hope Steve Jobs will discuss during tonight’s interview.

Palm CEO Jon "Ruby" Rubinstein Talks About the HP Deal–He's Staying, Will Always Love the Pre Mirror and Still Will Not Be Touching Any iPhones

Kara Swisher in News on April 28, 2010 at 4:03 pm PT

After an All Things Digital report last week on Hewlett-Packard being the most likely suitor for Palm, despite multiple reports of intense interest from HTC and Lenovo from China, in an interview with BoomTown this afternoon after the $1.2 billion acquisition was announced, CEO Jon Rubinstein jokingly asked how we knew about the deal. We didn’t! It was a complete guess, Ruby! Actually it was a very informed one by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, but his cogent analysis of the synergies between Palm and HP is pretty much what Rubinstein said drove the action.

Palm: Those Were the Videos, My Friend, I Thought Roger McNamee Would Never End (Up Selling)

Kara Swisher in News on April 12, 2010 at 5:27 am PT

With rumors flying hither and yon about the sale of Palm–likely to an Asian company, such as HTC or Lenovo–BoomTown is getting all misty for those days of hope that the little innovative smartphone pioneer might actually prevail against the giants. Not for the creepy lady in the advertising for the Pre, mind you, but everything else. Thus, here are three videos in which the dream was still alive at Palm.

NPR's Honchos Talk Digital at "Think In" in San Francisco (Also, Scoble!)

Kara Swisher in News on October 12, 2009 at 6:14 pm PT

Last Friday, National Public Radio top execs came to San Francisco for a “Digital Think In” to pick the brains of some Silicon Valley types about where the public radio icon should go, digitally speaking. While NPR actually has been pretty fast-forward with podcasts and a robust Web site, it still has to think about what social networking means to it and whether a day is coming when broadcasting online will be bigger than offline. Also, what’s up with Twitter?

Teeny-Tiny Pixi Phone From Palm Tries Killing Giant Hype for Apple Event Today

Kara Swisher in News on September 9, 2009 at 1:53 am PT

Oh, BoomTown fears this is not going to end well for the weensy little smart phone Palm is debuting today on–what an amazing coincidence!–the very same day Apple is throwing its big product bash in San Francisco, at which Mac fanboys fervently hope that Supreme Leader Steve Jobs might even appear. You don’t step on Superman of Silicon Valley’s cape, of course, but the device with the aggressively cute name of Pixi is apparently attempting just that. Thus, this fairytale might have a not-so-happy ending.

McNamee’s Elevation Partners Henceforth Known as Exaggeration Partners

John Paczkowski in News on July 30, 2009 at 9:17 am PT

Good thing Palm withdrew investor Roger McNamee’s your-next-iPhone-will-be-a-Pre claim because there obviously wasn’t much truth to it. If there was, well, there would have been a massive rush on Pres nationwide this past month. And that clearly didn’t happen.