During a three-hour talk in Israel, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer insisted the company isn't back at the merger negotiations table with Yahoo. "We are not bidding to buy Yahoo," Ballmer told the crowd. "We are trying to have discussions about deals with Yahoo that might create value but not a whole acquisition of the…

The people who really matter — Yahoo shareholders — are angry about the way Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang handled negotiations with Microsoft. But there are angry Yahoo employees, too. Problem is, top Yahoo management doesn't seem to want to hear from either group. Watch this excerpt from Tech Ticker as Yahoo president Sue…

Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock told reporters that shareholders supported Jerry Yang's decision to refuse Microsoft's bid for the company, even when it reached $33 per share. But yesterday, major shareholders Bill Miller and Gordon Crawford — who combined control about 13 percent of the company — said they did not agree…

In today's Tech Ticker episode, venture capitalists Sharon Wienbar and Pascal Levensohn explain to Sarah Lacy how entrepreneurs can avoid getting fired during a downturn. We watched and took notes. Below, the clip and notes on the VCs' six essential points:

In this Tech Ticker segment, correspondent Sarah Lacy laughs and smiles and pitches softball questions — "Salesforce.com is going to become Siebel, and you're going to become SAP?" (Siebel was swallowed up by Oracle, while SAP is Oracle's chief rival.) The flattery is effective: Lacy lets NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson…

Jeremy Johnstone, a Yahoo engineer, has taken a break from hanging out with iJustine to object to our mention of one of his images — a screenshot of Flickr, a Yahoo website, displaying a failure message. He responded by replacing the image with a vulgarity. Good to know he has so much time to spend doing anything but…

We hear that Yahoo TechTicker, the online-video show from Yahoo Finance featuring Valley fox Sarah Lacy and red-hot moneymen Henry Blodget and Paul Kedrosky, is delayed, and won't be airing early episodes next week as rumored. Dammit! Scott Moore, we blame you for this, too.

Yahoo TechTicker may launch as soon as next week, reports Michael Arrington. The TechCrunch editor then spins off into lurid fantasy: "Screen shots are starting to leak, and we have this one with Lacy and Blodget just prior to locking into a passionate embrace, I'm sure." Heavens, Michael. No wonder Lacy tried to cool…

For anyone who missed the rumor in Valleywag last month, Michael Arrington confirms that Yahoo will launch a streaming-video finance program with hosts Henry Blodget, Sarah Lacy, and Paul Kedrosky — the exact lineup we reported. The name is TechTicker. [TechCrunch]