FiLife, a personal-finance site backed by IAC and the Wall Street Journal, is struggling, according to one ex-employee we eavesdropped on at the City Bakery, a coffeehouse in Manhattan's Flatiron neighborhood, as she interviewed for a new job. "The business model completely changed," she said. "It used to be…
eBay has hired Deutsche Bank to help it sell procrastination tool StumbleUpon after buying it only a little more than a year ago in May 2007. The news follows an analyst's report earlier this week that the company needs to lay off 10 percent of its employees as well as an update from employee-written company reviews…
It’s refreshing, really. He’s the first guy I’ve dated who doesn’t have funding.
NEW YORK — Apple's iTunes store, required for activating the new iPhone 3G is failing, causing massive chaos from coast to coast. Even Apple employees are — when they don't realize a reporter is in earshot — acknowledging this. "I can't believe there's just so much stuff going wrong," says one employee at the Fifth…
The Standing Room reports that the lady pictured at left "is having a secret affair with a coworker." While they sat, stranded, waiting in vain on a delayed flight, she "made a series of calls to various girl friends to discuss the situation. All her friends are 'the best.'" Ha ha ha. Let this be a lesson to everyone:…
"My BlackBerry just died and we need more Polaroid film at the protest." — a San Francisco police officer, overheard by photographer Steve Rhodes.
"I'd never work for a company that didn't offer options over and above salary." — Redheaded twentysomething to friends on a 45-Union Muni bus from the Marina to North Beach.
Microsoft's $200 million is not all going to buy servers, as Mark Zuckerberg would like you to think. He splashed out $50,000 to rent Pangaea, an Austin nightclub, for the week, or so a doorman said as he turned away a local the other night. Pangaea is part-owned by Ken Howery of the Founders Fund, a Facebook…
Last night, 11:50 pm, one paparazzo to another outside Waverly Inn: "There's nothing in there except Tinsley Mortimer."
"[Facebook] must be looking to acquire someone. I've thrown together dozens of parties for them over the past few months. Its staff is something like 400 people. A few weeks ago they ordered [a party] for 1,400; the next one will be for 2,000." — overheard on Chairlift No. 4 at Kirkwood.
One of our Fashion Week informants reveals the hidden purpose of the industry's New York extravaganza: enabling creative homosexuals to gush, bitch, hook up, and then bitch again.
This strike must be devastating, says a writer's empathetic friend. "Not at all," responds the writer. "Now I can just tell people I'm striking rather than simply unemployed."
In the CES 2008 Press Lounge:
Me: The lunch line is out of food. They're going to revolt.
Peter Shankman: Yeah, right. Let's see all these fat, out of shape, wannabe reporters start a revolt. That would be great.
Some guy: So, you gonna hit the tables while you're here?
VC: Gambling is my job. When I come to Vegas, I hit the spa.
So I'm standing next to RoboScoble at last night's Stirr mixer. Another partygoer brings up some big argument the blogosphere is having with itself over photo copyrights. Scoble gives his standard line: "Go ahead, steal my stuff. Do whatever you want with it!" Guy No. 1 responds, "Yeah you say that, but if everyone…
At the NewTeeVee conference: "See you later, we're getting the Google guy drunk so he buys our company."
"Once every hundred years, a Harvard man gets his facts right." — An MIT student's take on Zuckerberg's Law, as proclaimed by the Facebook founder this week.
When Hollywood meets Silicon Valley, language barriers appear. Twitter founder Evan Williams reports hearing the following angry exchange: "Programming! Writing *programs*. For their website!" [Twitter]
