I'm a business and technology columnist at the San Jose Mercury News where I think about innovation in Silicon Valley. I also run The Next Newsroom Project where I think about the future of journalism. This site aggregates all my online writings and conversations.
// August 6th, 2010 // Comments Off // Apple, Innovation, O'Brien, Silicon Beat, Strategy, facebook, google
Since the announcement that it was killing Google Wave, Google has turned on the spin by proclaiming how they “celebrate our failures.” There is a lot to admire about Google, and one of those things is its ability to experiment and, as CEO Eric Schmidt said, “try things.” It’s not just hard for many organizations [...]
// August 2nd, 2010 // Comments Off // Innovation, Silicon Beat, Strategy
With everyone talking breathlessly about cloud computing, it seems I rarely hear this mega-trend being called into question. The advantages of moving your computing onto the Internet seem clear: Lower costs, more efficient management of resources. What’s not to like?
According to BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker, the answer is: Plenty.
I had a fascinating conversation with Klinker [...]
// August 2nd, 2010 // Comments Off // Innovation, Silicon Beat, Strategy
With everyone talking breathlessly about cloud computing, it seems I rarely hear this mega-trend being called into question. The advantages of moving your computing onto the Internet seem clear: Lower costs, more efficient management of resources. What’s not to like?
According to BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker, the answer is: Plenty.
I had a fascinating conversation with Klinker [...]
// May 19th, 2010 // Comments Off // Innovation, O'Brien, Silicon Beat, Social Media, Technology, facebook
I spent Tuesday at the Internet Identity Workshop at the invitation of Kaliya Hamlin. I met Hamlin a couple of years ago while working on another conference, and had some fascinating discussions at the time about the Semantic Web and the future of news.
Hamlin was named by Fast Company last year as one of the [...]
// April 21st, 2010 // Comments Off // 1, Innovation, O'Brien, Silicon Beat, Social Media, Strategy, facebook, google
After spending the morning at f8, the Facebook developers conference, I’m convinced more than ever that Facebook is about to take over the whole Web. And by the whole Web, I mean, well, all of it.
And if Google isn’t trembling over this, they ought to be. We might look back at this day as the moment [...]
// April 16th, 2010 // Comments Off // Innovation, O'Brien, Silicon Beat, Social Media, Strategy, twitter
I’ve had a couple of days to reflect back on Chirp, the first Twitter Developers Conference held this week. Reading back on my column this week, written the day before, my gut feeling that Twitter is at an inflection point was reinforced by what I heard and saw this week.
What’s amazing about Twitter is how [...]
// February 22nd, 2010 // Comments Off // Innovation, O'Brien, Silicon Beat, Strategy
This morning, Reply.com of San Ramon announced it had filed its prospectus to go public. Just over the weekend, I wrote a column about how Silicon Valley would be better off with fewer IPOs.
This is just a hunch, but after reading through the filing, I can’t help but think the company is really angling for [...]
// February 17th, 2010 // Comments Off // Innovation, O'Brien, Oracle, Silicon Beat, Strategy, google
One of the most significant trends I’ve been watching over the past decade is the dramatic drop in public companies in Silicon Valley. Naturally, that number was artificially inflated during the dot-com bubble when it reached 417 in 2000. For our purposes, Silicon Valley includes San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and the southern half of [...]
// February 3rd, 2010 // Comments Off // Apple, Future of Media, Innovation, O'Brien, Silicon Beat, Strategy
A few months back, I noticed a bunch of folks tweeting about the 1999 made-for-TV-movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley.” I remember hearing about the movie just as I was moving to Silicon Valley that year, but never got around to watching it. I had heard mixed things about the movie, and its accuracy, but the [...]
// January 19th, 2010 // Comments Off // Innovation, O'Brien, Silicon Beat, Strategy, google, techcrunch
For those of you thinking the IPO market is going to come roaring back this year, think again.
I just saw the post from Techcrunch yesterday that Yelp was on the verge of taking a $50 million investment from Elevation Partners. This comes after the failed acquisition talks with Google. Here’s what’s interesting:
“The size of the round is in the $50 million range, but includes both a primary investment component as well as a secondary offering for long time employees. These deals are now being referred to as ‘DST deals,’ since DST first invested in Facebook in May 2009 at a $10 billion valuation and later funded employee buyouts at a $6.5 billion valuation. They did a similar deal with Zynga.”
In other words, part of the investment will allow long-time employees to cash out options. Same deal with Facebook and Zynga. But why?This is what a company does to release some of the pressure to go public or sell. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to avoid an IPO. But it’s a sign of just how much the world has changed since the dot-com bubble a decade ago.
But companies should avoid finding themselves in this spot. And that’s why last fall I suggested it was time for the valley to stop using options as a compensation tool and figure out a new way to provide incentives for entrepreneurs and long-time employees.
Copyright © 2010 Chris O’Brien. All rights reserved.
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