Results tagged “venturecapitalists”

Tired of attending conference after conference in which attendees were regaled with unblemished successes, Cassie Phillipps was inspired to organize FailCon, which went down yesterday at the Kabuki Hotel and which featured panel discussions with startup CEOs and former CEOs talking about their errors and grand failures. Panel members included Max Levchin talking about early failures and missteps with PayPal and Slide, Mark Pinkus talking about the troubles with Tribe.net, and former Friendster CEO Dan Olsen, who now heads YourVersion.com -- a site that finds you new web content tailored to your interests and frequent search terms -- which, for better or worse, won the prize for audience favorite at FailCon.

Could the wheels of techie commerce once again be spinning? Two news items today suggest that yes, the powers that be are opening their wallets. First off, that long talked about Microsoft-Yahoo deal may be moving forward, with Microsoft execs in Silicon Valley all last week negotiating, and Microsoft now appearing primarily interested in Yahoo's search engine and advertising business.