A few years ago (Bubble 1.0), GE’s Jack Welch set up a tracking stock for his “web ventures”. Suffice to say, it didn’t work. I’m not even sure if ever took off.
But reading about Google’s brain drain, I wonder, why doesn’t Google simply let those eager to leave a stable environment for startups with a new media fund?
Yes, the devil’s in the details (read: call me if you want me to help you set it up without the obvious pitfalls, conflicts etc.), but if I were the trifecta-of-paid-click-love, that’s what I would do.
I’m not saying all of those who leave Google for new ventures of competitors (read Facebook) would stay on, but trust me, a lot of people would…
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WatchMojo NewsletterAs a long-time trader, I’ll admit: it’s impossible to time a high or low… but as an entrepreneur, I think it’s somewhat easy to bide your time and sell your company at the right time. But what about the chairman of a well-established, developed company?
Bear Stearns Cos. Chairman James Cayne on Thursday dumped his entire stake in the embattled investment bank for $61 million as it appears closer to a takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Cayne sold 5.66 million shares for exactly $10.84 a share on March 25, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His stake was once valued at about $1 billion when the stock was trading at $171.50 per share.
His stake at one point plunged to about $27 million when JPMorgan announced nearly two weeks ago it would acquire the No. 5 U.S. investment bank for $2 per share. JPMorgan later upped that offer to $10 per share,
Read more.
Paid Content - the blog-powered publication that practically created a genre - is growing up, announcing some management changes. Rafat Ali is focusing on his duties as publisher and editor (much like Om Malik did at Giga Om last year) and adding a lot of depth to his team.
Of note, his CEO seems extremely well-suited for the next phase of his company’s growth:
Nathan Richardson was most recently the head of Dow Jones Online, a brand that includes WSJ.com, Marketwatch and Barrons. He joined Dow Jones in 2005 after spending three years as head of the biggest finance site online, Yahoo Finance. While at Yahoo, Institutional Investor named Nathan the #1 Executive in Online Finance, the “impresario” of the finance space.
Paid Content - or rather, parent Content Next Media - is one of the better positioned blog-based empires. I suspect this will only accelerate its trajectory. Ali remains Chairman, I do wonder how receptive he was to the change. I can certainly imagine he prefers not handling CEO duties, but all founders have a hard time not being CEO, even if they say otherwise.
I touched base on all of this in “Step Away from the Machine, Give me the Keys“.
In no way is this a knock at Ali (the man built an empire with the power of his pen, or, should I say, keyboard), but he was a content guy first and an executive by force… so I can imagine he must be relieved to some extent, but this begs the question:
If the company wasn’t VC-backed (Allan Patricof’s Greycroft plunked down some money in 2006), would we be seeing these changes? To me, Ali’s company remains in a league of its own, but with the surge of new contestants Tech Crunch and Nick Denton’s Valleywag and of course, Henry Blodget’s Alley Insider, were the powers-that-be at Content Next Media worried about losing steam?
Net-net: major validation of his company and a natural progression of the blog-based, B2B publication space.
From (of all people) Glenn Beck’s piece on CNN:
Let me give you three numbers that will put this economic asteroid into perspective: $200 billion, $14.1 trillion, and $53 trillion.
Not good, not good at all. Read more.
