3 posts and columns on Yucaipa

Van Natta Takes Playlist CEO Job, With New Investment by Pittman

in News on November 10, 2008 at 9:00 pm PT

Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta will take the CEO job at a music discovery site called Playlist, a move that had been speculated last week, after he did not end up taking another position as head of MySpace Music. Van Natta’s arrival at Playlist was not the only news for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up–former AOL exec Bob Pittman’s Pilot Investment Group is also investing an undisclosed amount of money in Playlist, and Pittman will join its board. The site, which has been called Project Playlist, had previously raised several million dollars. The new round of funding super-sized that, sources said, hovering at about $18 million. “Discovery around music is exploding on the Internet,” said Van Natta to BoomTown, in an interview this afternoon, giving it as his main reason for joining Playlist.

The Entire D6 Interview With the Gates Foundation's Melinda Gates (3 of 4)

in News on July 30, 2008 at 7:28 am PT

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May. Here’s Part 3 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with the Gates Foundation’s Melinda Gates. In this video, Melinda Gates talks about the best ways to fix the broken parts of the public high school educational system in the U.S.

Yahoo Players Burkle, Icahn, Crawford and Also the Web Make Some News (Some, Not So Good)

in News on June 4, 2008 at 6:06 am PT

You would have to have been under a rock not to have heard about the controversial piece in Vanity Fair magazine this month about the troubling personal and professional escapades of former President Bill Clinton since he left office. And the reason for these disturbing developments, besides Clinton himself? The piece actually placed a good bit of the blame on Clinton’s close friend, grocery magnate and billionaire Ron Burkle, who also has been one of the key directors at Yahoo in its takeover fight with Microsoft.
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