AllThingsD » Southern California

L.A. Stories: Mike Jones and Peter Pham Talk About the Science of Tech Studios (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:27:00 +0000

While swanning about Los Angeles last week, I paid a visit to a number of interesting techies, including Mike Jones and Peter Pham, who recently founded Science.

While there are a lot of incubators and accelerators out there fiddling with start-ups, the pair of well-known entrepreneurs are calling this venture a “technology studio.”

By that, they mean that Science will do a lot more, from coming up with in-house ideas to investing some of their $10 million in backing to advising on how Silicon Valley should look at investments in Southern California to even taking on restructuring of larger entities.

Science investors include Rustic Canyon, White Star Capital, the Social+Capital Partnership and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, and it also has relationships with private equity firms for the bigger stuff.

The focus of Science, as the pair discusses below in a video interview, will be in three arenas: The intersection of content and commerce, social and mobile, and location.

As longtime entrepreneurs and Internet execs, Jones and Pham know those arenas, both the pluses and the minuses.

Jones tried his best (and, like others, failed) with the Myspace revival and also founded and sold Specific Media, Userplane and Tsavo Media.

Pham was recently helming the high-profile and controversial Color photo-sharing start-up in Silicon Valley and did stints at both BillShrink and Photobucket (a former News Corp. property, as was Myspace. News Corp. owns this Web site.).

Here’s my chat with them about their sun-dappled dreams of SoCal tech hegemony via their Santa Monica, Calif., HQ:

[ See post to watch video ]

Yahoo's Bartz Also Gets Fired From Fortune's Powerful Women List, While HP's Whitman Gets Hired

Kara Swisher — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:48:47 +0000

Today, Fortune magazine released its annual “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” and, as usual, it had its share of tech execs on the list.

And off it, too — first and foremost being ousted Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who was jacked completely from her 2010 No. 10 rank. She was No. 8 in 2009.

In her place: Newly designated Hewlett-Packard CEO and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman grabbed the No. 9 spot.

Also on the list: fast-rising IBM sales, marketing and strategy exec Ginni Rometty at No. 7; Xerox CEO Ursula Burns at No. 8; Oracle President and CFO Safra Catz at No. 11; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at No. 12; Google execs Susan Wojcicki and Marissa Mayer at No. 28 and No. 38, respectively; IBM North America GM Bridget Van Kralingen at No. 39; and Best Buy Americas President Shari Ballard.

Catz was the highest paid of the group, with $42.1 million in total 2010 compensation.

And also taken off this year: 2010 No. 14, HP’s Ann Livermore, who left her top job there, but still is on the tech giant’s board; 2010 No. 28 Cathie Lesjak, CFO of HP; 2010 No. 44 Lorrie Norrington, a former president at eBay; and Apple’s communications head Katie Cotton (she was robbed!), who was No. 50 in 2010.

The new list will be in the magazine on Monday, which is when a related conference will take place in Southern California. (I will also be in attendance there, along with other less powerful ladies.)

Whitman is scheduled to speak at the conference in the afternoon on Tuesday, October 4.

UPDATE: AOL Won't Deny It Has Sold Bebo

Peter Kafka — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:15:58 +0000

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal identifies Bebo’s mystery buyer as Criterion Capital. TechCrunch pegs the price at less than $10 million. Both of those answers sound plausible to me.

—————–

Mashable says AOL has sold Bebo, but doesn’t know who bought it or the price paid for the social network. PE Hub’s Dan Primack (via Business Insider) thinks the buyer is in Southern California.

What does AOL say?

No comment. Or more precisely: “We haven’t announced anything,” says PR boss Tricia Primrose.

Okey-dokey! More info if and when it surfaces.

But if Tim Armstrong can get anyone to pay anything for Bebo, it will be a small victory for AOL (AOL).

The previous AOL regime bought the social network for $850 million at the height of the last Web bubble, and the portal has since had to write the whole thing off. For some reason, Time Warner (TWX) boss Jeff Bewkes, who signed off on the purchase, never gets tarred for that one, but I digress…

Armstrong has already announced that if he can’t find a buyer for Bebo, he’ll shut the whole thing down. Which makes it pretty hard to drive a hard bargain. Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Los Angeles Times Staff: Fake News Story "Embarrassing and Demoralizing"

Peter Kafka — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:56:46 +0000

I was pretty blasé about the stunt that NBC and the Los Angeles Times pulled this morning: The paper ran an ad for a TV show in the guise of a fake news story on the front page.

But then again, I don’t work there.

Here’s the text of a petition that started circulating around the LAT newsroom this morning. I’m told that 100 members of the paper’s staff have signed it so far.

We the journalists of the newsroom strenuously object to the decision to sell an ad, in the form of a phony news story, on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.
The NBC ad may have provided some quick cash, but it has caused incalculable damage to this institution. This action violates a 128-year pact with our readers that the front page is reserved for the most meaningful stories of the day. Placing a fake news article on A-1 makes a mockery of our integrity and our journalistic standards.
The Los Angeles Times stands apart from other sources of news and information in Southern California because of our willingness to report the truth, even when it angers powerful interests or puts us in peril. Our willingness to sell our most precious real estate to an advertiser is embarrassing and demoralizing.

UPDATE: I’m told publisher Eddy Hartenstein is supposed to be addressing the staff this afternoon.