This week, the HP vice president indicted for leaking trade secrets from IBM, his former employeer, pleaded guilty. Dude, UR DOIN IT RONG. Atul Malhotra allegedly emailed the goods to a coworker, drawing a big red arrow back to his own forehead. Ready to cash in on your inside info? Follow this six-step plan.
In today's Los Angeles Times, reporter Jessica Guynn calls LinkedIn founder, Facebook investor and PayPal veteran Reid Hoffman "Silicon Valley's biggest social networker." Guynn means that just the way you'd think, reporting that Hoffman gains about 10 pounds per year, refuses to see a trainer and "doesn't step on…
Beginning Tuesday morning, California drivers under 18 are forbidden from using a phone while driving. Drivers over 18 must use a hands-free device. I'm sure plenty of Valley wheeler-dealers will risk the $20 first-offense fine as "the cost of doing business." How very entrepreneurial of you. Since using a phone…
Weary of the ad-supported world of Web 2.0? Outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley, there are software developers who write code that won't change the world, but that customers will pay real, five-figure license fees for — enough to sustain a growing, private business. It's all about finding a market that works…
Wantrepreneur Kyle Brady got a call from a recruiter the other day, he writes on his blog. The recruiter wanted Brady to take a job with widgetmaker RockYou. We thought the skeptics among you might appreciate Brady's response:
An old joke about San Francisco's economy is that half the people are in the business of selling t-shirts to the other half. Any Valley denizen quickly accumulates a wide assortment of corporate logos in their laundry. But be careful which company's brand you're sporting around the office.
The problem with "17 mistakes startups make," is that the guy behind them, John Osher didn't make that many. He started Dr. John's SpinBrush and sold it to Proctor & Gamble for $475 million. Jonathan Tang, who writes "Diary of a Failed Startup," not only founded a company, GameClay, he actually failed because of his…
In 1999 John Osher started Dr. John's SpinBrush to sell a $5 electric toothbrush. In 2001, he sold the company to Procter & Gamble for $475 million. Here are his "17 mistakes start-ups make" in 100 words.
In a MadLibs-style web form with simple multiple-choice drop-down menus, the DIY Yahoo Resignation Letter makes it so much easier to let your managers know that you've decided to blow the Sunnyvale popsicle stand. Not sure who's currently in charge? You can simply address your greeting to "whomever is running things…
Tim O'Reilly's annual summer camp out on his Sonoma County estate, Foo Camp, is invite-only and a hot ticket in Valley circles. With a temporary helipad being built on the grounds one year for Larry Page to drop in on a gas-guzzling whirlybird, it gets more posh by the year. And according to Twitter's Alex Payne, …
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,"…
With his post "Destroy Enemies Using Social Media Tools," search-marketing blogger Marty Weintraub worries that a recent rash of posts claiming to teach people how to defend their reputations on the Web could just as well be used as a how-to for trashing people online. Well done, Marty! Bad guys of the Web, place…
Greylock Partners VC David Sze is no doubt thrilled to have been caught endorsing Blackberry via Facebook. Such "social ads" are the very reason his firm invested in the social network. If you're more chary of inflating Facebook's valuation while giving a thumbs-up to its advertisers, here's how to keep Facebook's…
For our post "How a girly girl made serious bank on her startup," Patricia Handschiegel — who did just that with her own startup, StyleDiary — told us that sometimes one has to let the girl's-girl image go. More often, though, a girl just has to make the most of the time she has. Handschiegel posted 573 words on…
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:
The best way to use Twitter is to text "off" to 40404, the service's SMS shortcut number. But failing that, as more and more of us seem to do, here's a list of 10 things Twitter users should not do, inspired by a set of tips at SheGeeks.net. Mostly, since annoying Twitter users are easy to ignore, these rules are…
The traffic boost from Digg-front-page glory only lasts a few hours. Getting an article picked up by eBay's StumbleUpon, however, can drive sweet, sweet traffic for weeks and months. So search-engine optimization expert Dharmesh Shah and social media marketer Lyndon Antcliff's "28 Tips to Make You a StumbleUpon…
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington presents "tactical-level advice on getting press for your startup" in this full-length video from Omnisio of his Stanford speech Saturday. His level of candor (or "transparency" in Valleyspeak) surprised even me. He openly admits to playing quid pro quo with his sources — you…
Mark Zuckerberg dodged a bullet. His mug got featured on TMZ next to a picture of his secret mistress, and luckily she happened to be his actual girlfriend. Michael Arrington kicks Valleywag out of a party, giving our party report far more attention than it probably deserved. And Robert Scoble strikes a Roman…
