It's hard to say what's more pathetic: That the social networks at the center of Silicon Valley's growth derive so much money from online scams, or the way one venture capitalist excuses the whole sad scene.
Today Show weatherman Al Roker turns 55 today. Actress Amy Adams is turning 35. Fred Wilson, New York's best-known venture capitalist, is 48. Connie Chung is turning 63. Local TV anchor Maurice DuBois is 44. Fred Durst is turning 39. Former presidential candidate Ron Paul is 74. Tony-winning actress Joan Allen is…
The High Line, the elevated railway turned public promenade, opened last night to a select group of donors and supporters. Before the gala kicked off, Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller issued a challenge grant, promising to donate $10 million to the walkway if someone else came along and matched it. Hedge fund…
Will anyone miss GeoCities, the antiquated homepage service Yahoo bought for $3.5 billion in 1999, and then left to rot? Venture capitalist Fred Wilson will — he hasn't seen that kind of payday in ages.
Twitter CEO Ev Williams is teasing his followers: "Tomorrow just became a very big day." Just? At Twitter, tomorrow is always a very big day.
There's gold in them thar tweets! Twitter gives away its broadcast service for free, but it has attracted all kinds of moneymaking schemes. Now the startup wants in on the action.
The good news: Jack Dorsey, the handsome programmer ousted as Twitter's CEO yesterday, can put his nose ring back in and stop seeing that CEO coach he hired. The bad news: His cofounder, Ev Williams, who's replacing him as CEO, is sugarcoating Dorsey's exit. Dorsey is not going to be working in Twitter's office, and…
"This is not some coordinated cynical attempt by VCs to talk down valuations or put entrepreneurs on the defensive. We are not spreading the contagion of gloom and doom. It's all about acting responsibly and making sure we all survive to fight another day. Because in the end, survival is what darwinian capitalism is…
Fred Wilson's venture-capital firm, the paper of record tells us, "has built its portfolio making small bets on young companies." That is an excellent definition of early-stage venture capital. But is Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, to be congratulated with a glowing New York Times profile merely for doing his job?…
Tech mogul Fred Wilson would appreciate if you never, ever use the word "Silicon Alley" again. [Observer]
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures carrying his own lunch order from Shake Shack in Manhattan's Madison Square to a group of tables where he was entertaining wantrepreneurs in New York for the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo. Not pictured: Lane Becker, president of online customer-service startup Get Satisfaction, who kept…
Buy low, sell high, as they say on Wall Street. And right now, there's a flow tide of technical talent from shuttered financial firms flooding the New York Area available at rock-bottom prices. Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures says why not take a pay cut and work longer hours at a Web startup? The "quant jocks"…
Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson has given European startup Zemanta another $750,000, raising the young company's total to $2.25 million in early funding. What does Zemanta do? They've created a set of browser and blogging software plugins that automagically suggest and quickly adds "relevant" links to your…
New York venture capitalist Fred Wilson is sick of answering questions about how his firm's most notable investment, Twitter, will ever make money. "The No. 1 question I get about Twitter is, how do you monetize it?" Wilson told the Deal's Alain Sherter. He continued:
Doing nothing to turn the tide back in favor of all those kooky startup incubator kids, Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson offers this on why funding young wantrepreneurs is just good sense to him:
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson turns 47 today, but he beat us to it and already announced the news on his blog. Other people celebrating today: Today's Al Roker is turning 54. Connie Chung is 62. CBS 2 morning anchor Maurice DuBois is 43. Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst is 38. Former presidential candidate (and Texas…
Why do so many people in tech deliver singing telegrams? Because they're so painful. My colleague Jackson West ventured this explanation: "Tech people are uncomfortable enough in the real world — raising the discomfort level and then blogging it for laffs provides a tail-eating narcissistic kick." Plus, it's a…
Fred Wilson needs you! New York's most prominent venture capitalist is giving a keynote speech at the Web 2.0 Expo at the Javits Center in a few weeks. But instead of finding time in his busy schedule to write the thing—or using the sack loads of cash he has accumulated to hire a professional—he plans to creating…
Egobloggers Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble as well as startup PR clearinghouse Michael Arrington all want to know: How amazing is it that after two years of using Twitter, they've each already got nearly half as many "followers" on FriendFeed after just a few months? Asking the question, each offer hypothetical…
