• exits

    Ev Williams didn't Twitter that he fired his CEO

    The good news: Jack Dorsey, the handsome programmer ousted as Twitter's CEO yesterday, can put his nose ring back in and stop seeing that CEO coach he hired. The bad news: His cofounder, Ev Williams, who's replacing him as CEO, is sugarcoating Dorsey's exit. Dorsey is not going to be working in Twitter's office, and his coworkers are saying their tearful goodbyes; he's effectively out of the company, though he retains the title of chairman and what is presumably a large stake in the messaging startup. So why did Dorsey get fired? More »

    2:40 PM on Fri Oct 17 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    3,808 views, 3 comments

    Latest by meowmeow: That's just good business sense -- Twitter, with its impeccable uptime, would have been a great tool for reliability-critical ambulances. more »

  • quotable

    There is no VC conspiracy, says VC Fred Wilson

    "This is not some coordinated cynical attempt by VCs to talk down valuations or put entrepreneurs on the defensive. We are not spreading the contagion of gloom and doom. It's all about acting responsibly and making sure we all survive to fight another day. Because in the end, survival is what darwinian capitalism is all about." — Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson, on Sequoia Capital's conveniently timed warning of bad times ahead.

    5:20 PM on Sun Oct 12 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    837 views, 9 comments

    Most discussed TheRealTruth: So the sad reality is that these VC that are telling their portfolio companies to conserve cash, should have been more »

  • fred wilson

    New York Times discovers a venture capitalist

    Fred Wilson's venture-capital firm, the paper of record tells us, "has built its portfolio making small bets on young companies." That is an excellent definition of early-stage venture capital. But is Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, to be congratulated with a glowing New York Times profile merely for doing his job? Apparently so. The real thing that distinguishes Wilson from his peers are not his practices or his profits; it is his prolixity. Wilson writes a blog read by some 25,000 people a month. Newspaper reporters can relate to him as a wordsmith rather than a financier. Also, he is in New York, which makes him geographically convenient for the media capital. The news event which prompted this profile? More »

    3:00 PM on Tue Sep 23 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    589 views, 7 comments

    Latest by FarfallaGebian: Man, I was going to call out @TRTeller for being useless but THE fredwilson did it for me. USV has more »

  • spy photos

    Venture capitalists, they're just like us

    Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures carrying his own lunch order from Shake Shack in Manhattan's Madison Square to a group of tables where he was entertaining wantrepreneurs in New York for the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo. Not pictured: Lane Becker, president of online customer-service startup Get Satisfaction, who kept his distance from the assembled nerds, pacing around a tree and chatting on his cell phone.

    12:00 PM on Wed Sep 17 2008
    By Jackson West
    1,108 views, 6 comments

    Latest by kimbjo: Where is this ass kissing coming from VW? Try as they might, we all know VC's are the rubber neck more »

  • layoffs

    Laid-off Wall Street techs offered work at Silicon Alley startups

    Buy low, sell high, as they say on Wall Street. And right now, there's a flow tide of technical talent from shuttered financial firms flooding the New York Area available at rock-bottom prices. Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures says why not take a pay cut and work longer hours at a Web startup? The "quant jocks" Wilson describes could also bank their savings and some unemployment checks and spend six months pitching a business plan — I bet they could convince Wilson to throw some money your way. The entrepreneurial route worked for former finance techie Jeff Bezos, an early adopter who worked at a hedge fund before hedge funds were cool. First Round Capital has a list of jobs in and around New York for those who would rather continue collecting a paycheck. Though the fund did sneak in email startup Xobni, which is on the left coast. "[H]ey, why not consider a move. The weather is better and winter is coming!!!" That said, so is Julia Allison. (Photo by AP/Mary Altaffer)

    9:00 AM on Wed Sep 17 2008
    By Jackson West
    699 views, Comment

  • zemanta

    Fred Wilson amplifies tech's echo chamber

    Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson has given European startup Zemanta another $750,000, raising the young company's total to $2.25 million in early funding. What does Zemanta do? They've created a set of browser and blogging software plugins that automagically suggest and quickly adds "relevant" links to your blog posts, which Wilson has described as like "AdWords for content creators." My prediction? More »

    7:00 PM on Mon Sep 15 2008
    By Jackson West
    569 views, 4 comments

    Latest by posna: I tried this service a few weeks ago... It seems to be pretty simple in terms of functionality. Kind of like more »

  • fred wilson

    Assume Twitter has four or five plans to make money

    New York venture capitalist Fred Wilson is sick of answering questions about how his firm's most notable investment, Twitter, will ever make money. "The No. 1 question I get about Twitter is, how do you monetize it?" Wilson told the Deal's Alain Sherter. He continued: More »

    7:00 PM on Tue Sep 9 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    1,208 views, 23 comments

    Most discussed Lawrence: enough bickering about how to monetize Twitter and slap a Google Adsense bar there already, or something - just in more »

  • fred wilson

    VC Fred Wilson doesn't think you're cheap, just an asset

    Doing nothing to turn the tide back in favor of all those kooky startup incubator kids, Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson offers this on why funding young wantrepreneurs is just good sense to him: More »

    7:40 AM on Fri Aug 22 2008
    By Melissa Gira Grant
    749 views, 2 comments

  • pranks

    Tech's most awkward prank: the singing telegram

    Why do so many people in tech deliver singing telegrams? Because they're so painful. My colleague Jackson West ventured this explanation: "Tech people are uncomfortable enough in the real world — raising the discomfort level and then blogging it for laffs provides a tail-eating narcissistic kick." Plus, it's a passive-aggressive sadism that can be documented in video and posted online. In the clips below, watch singing telegrams get delivered to prominent New York VC Fred Wilson, Yahoo ad exec Mike Walrath, and NextNewNetworks cofounder Timothy Shea. Watch and feel the heat rising on the back of your neck. More »

    12:40 PM on Fri Aug 15 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    578 views, 1 comment

    Latest by raincoaster: I can top that: a friend of mine was out at a restaurant when a bachelorette party there got a more »

  • social networks

    Calacanis, Scoble, Arrington pawns in FriendFeed's smart marketing campaign

    Egobloggers Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble as well as startup PR clearinghouse Michael Arrington all want to know: How amazing is it that after two years of using Twitter, they've each already got nearly half as many "followers" on FriendFeed after just a few months? Asking the question, each offer hypothetical answers involving the social-network aggregator's ease of use — "The comment systems is so fast and easy that it's perfect," says Calacanis — or Twitter's frequent outages — "Twitter downtime plays a big part," writes Arrington. But here's the real answer to the amazing growth these bloggers have seen on FriendFeed: More »

    10:00 AM on Mon Jul 7 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    1,717 views, 13 comments

    Latest by Mr. Gunn: giania: So, some people have different groups of friends on different sites, and FF provides a way to follow all more »