meltdowns
Bad times have hit sunnily optimistic northern California. Does it matter if the mayhem on Wall Street had any real connection with the tech-powered Silicon Valley economy? Some of the region's most influential power brokers believe it will — and by pushing others around, they can make perception reality. A helpful insider has
provided notes from a recent meeting of Sequoia Capital, a backer of Apple, Cisco, and Google which has risen to become the Valley's preeminent venture-capital firm. Michael Moritz had summoned CEOs of Sequoia's portfolio companies to tell them to prepare for a long, hard downturn. The bottom line: All startups must become cash-flow positive — in other words, earn more than they spend. Or in other, other words, act like the real businesses they always should have emulated. Here are what our tipster claims are notes from the meeting, apparently forwarded by one of the attendees:
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serial executive
If there's one thing Michael Capellas knows, it's how to make money fast. After becoming Compaq's CEO in 1999, he turned the company around — and turned around and sold it to Hewlett-Packard in 2002. Tenure as CEO? Three years. He then joined the bankrupt MCI in December2002. MCI emerged from bankruptcy in 2004, and by February 2005, Capellas sold MCI to Verizon for $7.6 billion. Tenure as CEO? Just over two years. Now, Capellas, most recently
an advisor to Silver Lake Partners, was named CEO of First Data Corporation, a payment-processing company recently taken private by KKR. Tenure as CEO? At the rate he's going, Capellas
still being the CEO of First Data in 2009 would be a real surprise.
(Photo by Ben Baker for Fortune)
Valleywag
[tomuse.com] Could TechCrunch and Michael Arrington be searching for "dream team" blogging deal in light of Valleywag's surging traffic and fear of being dethroned?
