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Lerer Ventures Considers New $50 Million Fund With Hippeau Addition

Kara Swisher in News on February 8, 2011 at 10:17 am PT

One of the more interesting pieces of news that got pushed deep down in stories in the noisy swirl around AOL’s $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post was the move of its CEO Eric Hippeau back to the investor side. He’ll be going to Lerer Ventures, which is run by HuffPo co-founder, chairman and major investor Kenneth Lerer, and is contemplating a big expansion of its efforts. BoomTown talked to both about it today.

Exclusive: HuffPo’s Eric Hippeau Stepping Down From Yahoo Board as Akamai’s David Kenny Steps In

Kara Swisher in News on February 4, 2011 at 4:32 pm PT

Eric Hippeau, longtime Yahoo board member and one of its earliest investors, will be stepping down as a director, according to sources close to the situation. In a related move, sources said Akamai President David Kenny will be joining the board of the Internet giant.

Chegg's Dan Rosensweig Talks About the Next Wave of Online Textbook Rentals and More!

Kara Swisher in News on August 19, 2010 at 12:58 pm PT

Earlier this week, BoomTown went down to Santa Clara, Calif. to the offices of Chegg, the online textbook rental leader, to pay a visit on longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig. Today, in a bid to expand its offerings beyond books, Chegg said it had acquired Courserank, a Mountain View, Calif. start-up that helps students “share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade.” Here’s the video.

Rosensweig to Leave Guitar Hero; Takes Over as CEO of Online Textbook Rental Start-Up Chegg

Kara Swisher in News on February 2, 2010 at 11:00 am PT

Longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig is stepping down as president and CEO of the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard to take a new job as CEO of Chegg, the top online textbook rental start-up. The move is unexpected given that the former Yahoo COO landed the job running the top gaming franchise in March of last year.

Guitar Hero's Dan Rosensweig Speaks!

Kara Swisher in News on September 1, 2009 at 7:25 am PT

Yesterday, BoomTown did a tour of the Mountain View, Calif., HQ of Guitar Hero, which is poised for a series of launches, including the fifth version of Guitar Hero and new music games Band Hero and DJ Hero. While there, I interviewed CEO Dan Rosensweig, the well-known Silicon Valley exec who was once COO of Yahoo and who took over the high-profile division of Activision Blizzard in May in what was a bit of a surprise move into the music gaming industry. Here’s a video of an interview I did with him about it all.

BoomTown Interviews Arianna, Ken and Eric About Huffington Post Exec Changes: BAM!!

Kara Swisher in News on June 15, 2009 at 6:18 pm PT

Apparently, if you want to think about the growth of the Huffington Post as a culinary dish, perhaps today’s replacement of CEO Betsy Morgan with longtime online media powerhouse Eric Hippeau might appear under the Emeril Lagasse cooking cliché: Let’s kick it up a notch! Both co-founders of the online media site, Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, said as much in interviews I did with them–as well as Hippeau–this afternoon. “The deal is that we simply have been growing so fast that we needed more firepower to accelerate in expanding the site and monetizing it,” said Huffington, who is also editor-in-chief of the news site.

Exclusive: Dan Rosensweig Steps Up to Take His Licks as Guitar Hero Frontman

Kara Swisher in News on March 22, 2009 at 6:54 pm PT

Former Yahoo COO and current Quadrangle Group partner Dan Rosensweig will take over as CEO and president of Activision Blizzard’s powerful Guitar Hero franchise, according to sources close to the situation. Rosensweig will run the hot gaming company’s division, located in Silicon Valley, for Activision head Bobby Kotick. The pair know each other well, since Kotick served on Yahoo’s board for many years when Rosensweig was a key exec there. He’s also just the kind of consumer Web exec that Kotick has been looking for to turbocharge the largely retail Guitar Hero business online.