Now that Caterina Fake has left Yahoo and Stewart Butterfield has tendered his abstract resignation letter, what will the widely beloved Flickr cofounders do? And where will they go? Brendon Wilson, who worked in the Valley himself before returning to his native Canada, pointed us to an effort by a group of geeks to…
Union Square Ventures backs growing startups like Twitter, Tumblr and Etsy and can claim successful exits from Del.icio.us, FeedBurner and Tacoda. All that success could make partner Fred Wilson's career a model for any aspiring VC. It shouldn't. At least, not according to Wilson. "I did it all wrong and got lucky,"…
Last we heard about microblogging service Twitter's latest funding round, Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger told us — and, via Twitter, the world — that he was taking a lunch meeting at Twitter HQ. That was April 25. Despite rumors of an imminent deal, there's been no announcement. So why can't Wenger and…
Yahoo, CNET, and Plaxo are old news, according to VC blogger Fred Wilson. He writes: "I suggest you ignore all of that and focus on what went on last night in San Jose at the annual Churchill Club Dinner," where venture capitalists Roger McNamee, Steve Jurvetson, Josh Kopelman and others predicted ten upcoming…
After reading our take on VC blogger Fred Wilson's advice that entrepreneurs need to learn how to "ask for the order," Persai cofounder Ted Dziuba commented: "Methinks Fred Wilson doth blog too much." We disagree, if only because Wilson is such a fruitful source. But at a venture capital conference in San Francisco…
After reading a long email from a wantrepreneur who never gets around to asking for funding, VC blogger Fred Wilson relays the following advice from a friend on how to close a deal:
A tipster tells us Hype Machine founder Anthony Volodkin has a "$10 million Viacom offer floating around." Hype Machine, a website which aggregates music uploaded to blogs, has grown 125 percent in the last year, with 127,000 monthly visitors, according to Compete.com. Another source familiar with Volodkin's plans…
If scenesters from Brooklyn to San Francisco's Mission District want to have Tumblr cool-kid bragging rights, they'll have to pay, founder David Karp has decided. Why has Karp finally set his unflinching blue eyes on Tumblr's bottom line? His hosting bills must be starting to pinch. He'll begin peddling paid Tumblr…
Microsoft has acquired Xobni, likely for more than its original $20 million offer to buy the company, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports. Xobni — "inbox" spelled backward — adds features to Outlook, Microsoft's desktop email application. As VC blogger Fred Wilson notes, the acquisition is "sort of proof that…
While Yahoo's board dithers over whom to sell the company's soul to, VC blogger Fred Wilson has a different plan in mind. "Yahoo should reject the offer and what they should do instead is break up the company into a series of smaller companies," he told TechTicker in the interview excerpted here. Yahoo's entertainment…
Venture capitalist and blogger Fred Wilson reports that "there is no IPO market right now for venture backed companies to speak of. M&A buyers are wary and while deals are getting done, a lot of deals are blowing up too." Deepak Kamra, a partner at Canaan Partners, suggests the freeze means "Companies that are built…
Vacations are for Middle America. But for some reason, VC blogger Fred Wilson's family still expects him to take them away from time to time. Here's how he copes, in a version you can read while packing your suitcase.
Looking after his investment in online gamemaker Zynga, VC blogger Fred Wilson reports that applications on MySpace's platform "are not taking off in quite the same velocity that Facebook apps did." He blames MySpace's lack of "viral channels" — code for spamming tools.
Here are VC blogger and self-described "professional board member" Fred Wilson's "Thoughts On Choosing Board Members." But take his advice with a shaker of Morton's, founders. VC-selected board members will put you on the street.
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson has lashed out at TechCrunch over its coverage of some startup you've never heard of. TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington responded by accusing Wilson of being biased. I'd summarize the whole spat for you, but Wilson's and Arrington's Twitters have done the job already.
VC blogger Fred Wilson argues that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger will be bad for users and for the Internet as a whole. "If you think about the Internet, it's a huge distributed network of loosely connected services owned and operated by literally millions. We don't need or want consolidation of services on the…
Union Square Ventures VC and blogger Fred Wilson doesn't think Yahoo would survive a Microsoft acquisition. "I suspect that many of Yahoo!'s best services will languish under Microsoft's ownership and that users will leave," Wilson writes on his blog. "It's happening already under Yahoo's ownership to services like…
"Thinking about Jerry taking that call from Ballmer. I think I would have puked." — Union Square Ventures VC and blogger Fred Wilson on Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. [A VC]
"There has been a real 'de-risking' of the market, which will certainly affect the I.P.O. market. That will impact the late-stage venture market, because the IPO market drives the late-stage venture market. And that will slowly impact the early-stage venture market. Valuations will come down. There will be less…
