AllThingsD » Yale

Fired Facebook Acquisitions Exec Lands at Twitter

Liz Gannes — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:02:32 +0000

Mike Brown, the former Facebook corporate development executive who was dismissed for buying its stock on secondary markets, has taken a similar job at Twitter.

Brown, who had helped negotiate many of Facebook’s so-called “talent acquisitions” is to be Twitter’s director of corporate development and will report to Kevin Thau, VP of business development. He starts today, Twitter confirmed.

While the issue of insider trading of private companies is a sensitive one, Twitter was apparently able to see Brown’s side of the story.

Brown had purchased Facebook shares on the secondary market last fall out of an apparent desire to take a bigger stake in the company he pitched to many entrepreneurs. Facebook fired him in February based on its policy against insider trading by employees.

Brown stayed out of the spotlight until a report about him surfaced that suggested the stock purchase for which he was fired was based on knowledge of Facebook’s coming $1.5 billion funding round from Goldman Sachs. In a public statement, Brown admitted to the stock purchase but said he had “absolutely no knowledge” of the Goldman Sachs funding.

According to sources, Brown had also been in talks with Google about a role on its corporate development team before accepting the job at Twitter. After Brown was fired, Facebook hired Google corp dev executive Amin Zoufonoun.

That Twitter is hiring Brown presumably means it will step up its efforts to make acquisitions. The company has previously made something like seven start-up purchases, most of them quite small, including Summize, Mixer Labs, Atebits and Smallthought Systems.

It’s also notable that Brown has jumped to Twitter, given it is one of Facebook’s main rivals. (According to LinkedIn, there are 11 former Facebook employees who currently work at Twitter.)

Brown (like many other new Twitter hires, in our experience!) has recently stepped up his tweeting, with eight tweets in the last month or so compared to zero in the year before. He tweets at @mikeisbrown.

Prior to joining Facebook in 2009, Brown had been a venture capitalist with Foundation Capital and Partech International. He is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

National Broadband Plan Guru Blair Levin Speaks! (Plus the Press Release and Exec Summary)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:34:52 +0000

While trolling around Washington, D.C., this week, BoomTown dropped in on Blair Levin, executive director of the National Broadband Plan, the opus just released by the Federal Communications Commission.

Aimed primarily at boosting the proliferation of high-speed access across the United States, the plan has been shepherded by the telecommunications analyst and former FCC staffer.

We talked about the main themes of the plan, which will require action by the FCC, the White House and Congress to be fully effective.

While Levin will move on soon, now that his job is done, he had several observations about the potential bottlenecks and more.

As in: Will broadcasters resist the spectrum suggestions? Will there be money to fund a digital literacy corps? And most of all, how can the cost of broadband be lowered?

The Yale-trained lawyer would know. As chief of staff to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt from late 1993 to late 1997, he oversaw, according to his bio, “the implementation of the historic 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, the first spectrum auctions, the development of digital television standards, and the Commission’s Internet initiative.”

Here’s the video of my interview with Levin, as well as the press release and executive summary of the plan, below (you can find out more here on the FCC site about it):

[ See post to watch video ]

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Boola, Boola!: Yahoo Marketing Head's Cheerleading Memo Post-MicroHoo

Kara Swisher — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:07:13 +0000

BoomTown just got an interesting memo that Yahoo CMO Elisa Steele sent out to her staff immediately in the wake of the deal for Microsoft to take over Yahoo’s search technology business two weeks ago.

I render it unto you, dear readers, since it shows just how intent the top managers of Yahoo (YHOO) are, especially internally, in reassuring those concerned that Yahoo had not just gutted itself and how it can remain as innovative as ever.

Also amusing–for reasons I cannot understand, since it is an internal memo–is the use of the code name for Yahoo, which is called Yale, after the famous university in New Haven, Conn.

(By the way, “Boola, Boola” is one of Yale’s old football fight songs, which you can hear here.)

By the way, Microsoft (MSFT) was known as Cambridge, Mass.-based MIT, as you can see below.

Also some fun facts, showing the give-it-the-old-college-try mentality of Yahoo dealmakers:

In past merger talks, Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL’s moniker has been Amherst College in Amherst, Mass.

And, when Yahoo was considering the Yahoogle deal, the code name for Google (GOOG) was Georgetown, after the Washington, D.C.-based university. That must really rankle at the MIT-stuffed search giant, since–as a graduate of Georgetown–I can tell you, tech is not exactly its forte.

Here’s the Steele memo:

From: Elisa Steele
To: Marketing-all@yahoo-inc.com
Sent: Wed Jul 29 05:11:52 2009
Subject: Announcement today.

Marketing Yahoos,

Yale is already the place where millions go to see what is happening with the people and things that matter to them most, but our aspirations have always been bigger than that. Our vision is to be at the center of people’s online lives, and the deal we announced with MIT earlier today will enable us to focus even more of our efforts on realizing it.

At the same time, our role as marketers has never been more critical. We must focus our energies on engaging our users and our partners, and on making sure that our brand initiatives continue unabated.

Our consumer marketing teams will keep driving more users to our leading audience properties, mobile experiences and applications. Our b2b team will continue communicating to marketers that as the world’s largest media company, Yale offers the most compelling and unique advertising proposition in the industry. The Insights team will continue delivering industry-leading research that helps speed the flow of dollars online. The Global Communications team will be answering lots of important questions from the media and influencer community about this deal (in addition to building buzz around the other amazing stuff we’re doing). The brand team will not stray at all from its mission, as it’s as relevant as ever. And, our regional marketing teams remain in place, partnering with our business leaders to execute our global marketing strategy.

In a nutshell, this is our opportunity to further establish Yale mindshare and preference with all of our audiences through world-class marketing. Our work is more important today than ever before as we communicate our brand position globally.

We are making decisions that we believe set the company up for continued success—and enable us to take back our rightful place in the market.

It’s an exciting new day at Yale, and I couldn’t be more optimistic about our future.

Elisa Steele
Executive Vice President &
Chief Marketing Officer
Yahoo!

And below, I have posted a video of the Yale Glee Club performing all the university’s fight songs in a delightful medley, so Yahoos can start practicing now:

When the Misery Index Is Too Upbeat

Andrew LaVallee — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:32:21 +0000

The Huffington Post has launched a new monthly feature it’s calling the “Real Misery Index,” which it says offers a more accurate snapshot of the economic struggles Americans face today than the original one.

Developed in the 1970s by Arthur Okun, a Yale and Brookings Institution economist, the Misery Index is calculated by adding the unemployment rate and inflation rate.

“Unfortunately, it’s not a very useful statistic,” HuffPo’s Marcus Baram writes, since its unemployment figure excludes part-timers and people who have stopped looking for work.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Facebook's Privacy Chief (And California Attorney General Candidate) Chris Kelly Speaks!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:52:53 +0000

BoomTown tried to get Chris Kelly (pictured here) to give up more during an onstage interview I did with the Facebook chief privacy officer last night at the third “Tech Policy Summit” and was only moderately successful in the endeavor.

He talked about the recent Terms of Service debacle as a snafu that got sensationalized by the media, the Beacon advertising controversy as a snafu that got sensationalized by the media and the Free-the-Scoble-5,000 data-sharing debate as a snafu that got sensationalized by the media.

But Kelly also managed to say that the media were sensational for keeping Facebook–the dominant social-networking site in the whole wide world–honest as it grows into a behemoth grasping a scary amount of personal information on its 200 million users in its claws.

Oh, he is a smoothie all right, as a lawyer and now as a wannabe politician.

Kelly–who is still working at the start-up, where his job it is to make sure consumer data, privacy, the children and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s reputation are all safe and sound–is also running for the job of California’s attorney general.

(Here is his Facebook page about the effort.)

Born in Silicon Valley, with a troika of diplomas from fancy schools (undergraduate from Georgetown in 1991, a master’s from Yale in 1992 and a law degree from Harvard in 1997), Kelly worked as a lawyer and also as a policy adviser for President Bill Clinton’s White House Domestic Policy Council and Department of Education before coming to Facebook four years ago.

For a closer look-see at the candidate for the Golden State’s top cop position, here’s a video interview I did with him after the onstage chat in San Mateo, Calif.:

[ See post to watch video ]

The Yahoo-AOL Jabberfest Continues Ad Infinitum (Plus Some Jerry Yang Chitter-Chatter on Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Last week–in a clear sign that BoomTown has spent way too much face time in front of the idiot box–I compared the endless bickering back-and-forth between Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to the annoying push-me-pull-you antics of Ross and Rachel on the television show, “Friends.”

But the continuing discussions between Yahoo and AOL execs over the merger of their struggling online companies have their own TV comparison–the never-ending roundelay on “The View.”

In other words: Blah, blah, blah. Chitter-chatter. Pointless arguing. Chin-scratching. More blah, blah. More chatter. Blah.

Thus, there were still more discussions going on at Yahoo HQ this past week about the possible deal, in which Yahoo is code-named Yale and AOL Amherst.

Along with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker, the key Yahoo (YHOO) execs involved in pushing forward the effort, are U.S. head Hilary Schneider, and Greg Mrva, a former investment banker and analyst who is in charge of mergers and acquisitions at the company.

As I previously wrote, the main suits involved in repping the Time Warner (TWX) unit are AOL President Ron Grant and Time Warner M&A SVP Jim Burtson.

“More of the same discussions about how it would all integrate,” said one source close to the situation at Yahoo. “Same as always.”

Added an AOL source, in what I consider the understatement of the year: “There has not been a lot of clarity in decision-making at Yahoo.”

Big surprise: Still no deal!

That’s unusual to me, since all the true obstacles–namely, the collapse of the controversial search advertising deal Yahoo tried to strike with Google (GOOG), AOL and Yahoo’s results coming in as weak as expected and, lastly, a definite lack of interest from Microsoft (MSFT) to rebid for Yahoo–are no longer in the way.

And, of course, Yahoo’s share price–the stock has settled into the depressing $11 to $12 range that gives the company a $15.7 billion valuation–is simply not going up any time soon.

So, if the deal is to be done, the price–or percentage, really–will probably have to be based on today’s reality, which is a very bleak outlook in the graphical online advertising business in which Yahoo plays most strongly.

That’s why dithering is a problem for this possible marriage, despite all the obvious complexity.

For one, it takes all the air out of any momentum such a combination could produce for either Yahoo or AOL, which will be much needed in the current economic environment.

In fact, such an econalypse is actually the perfect cover to try to pull this turnaround–and it is exactly that–off, given few investors or media will expect much from the merger for a while and be more forgiving.

In addition, the slash-and-burn integration needed to drastically refocus the new company–hopefully on three things only: advertising, content and communications–will be easier now more than later when the financial outlook improves.

“Things are going to get a lot worse than people think,” said one AOL exec. “So, this is a really good time for a reset and for cleaning things up.”

It is also easier now to bring in fresh ideas and new leadership to a combined Yahoo/AOL, as a new company will surely give many talented outside execs who have avoided both separately a reason to look again.

I could go on as to why this deal should move forward quickly, but here is one piece of great advice I got several years ago, from a well-known Internet entrepreneur whose company had just taken a big gamble by buying a controversial but fast-growing start-up in a key category.

At the time, many decried the move as too risky and too pricey and too thoughtlessly done. When I asked the exec about this, he did not argue, but offered this:

“No one really knows how anything is going to turn out, no matter how long they think it through,” he said. “But, I believe it will all work out if we execute well on the promise, because I did know one thing for sure: It was the right direction.”

And, indeed, while you can puzzle over a map endlessly, knowing the right direction to go in is the only thing one can be sure of in almost any circumstance in life.

Therefore, all Yahoo and AOL have to do is pick a path–whether it be to move on or merge–and just go.

By tomorrow would work for me.

In the meantime, below is a video I did of Yahoo’s Yang onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last week, talking about the travails of the last year.

It includes him saying Microsoft should still buy Yahoo, which felt a little too much like a plea to me. (I happened to be sitting next to some Microsoft execs during the speech and they did not look too moved by the begging.)

But judge for yourself–here’s the video (yes, the Web 2.0 Summit organizers did flash a picture of a jar of Jif peanut butter as a joke–ha, ha, referring to the infamous Yahoo “Peanut Butter Manifesto”):

[ See post to watch video ]