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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Meet Peter Currie, Facebook’s New Money Man (For Now)

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Back in the heyday, Peter Currie was the money man to see in Silicon Valley.

As CFO of Netscape Communications, he led the famed browser start-up into history, as the first great Internet rocket ship, when it went public on Aug. 9, 1995.

Rising to insane levels, the stock was ground zero of the Internet gold rush, despite the fact that it had no profits to speak of. But it did have a 23-year-old co-founder and tech wunderkind in Marc Andreessen and a growth trajectory that was astounding.

If you think it sounds somewhat similar to Facebook today–where Currie will now help out as temporary financial adviser after the social-networking site parted ways with its CFO, Gideon Yu, yesterday–you are correct.

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Monday, March 16, 2009

How to Juice AOL: A Spin-Out, Of Course, But Also a Reunion at Dulles HQ?

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First came the go-go hello email, and now new AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong will address all the troops tomorrow at 11 am EST and has chosen to do so from, of all places, AOL’s old center of power in Dulles, Virginia.

Many at AOL hope that Armstrong will quickly and transparently lay out plans for a spin-out of the Time Warner online unit from the media conglomerate, where it has languished for years.

And sources said Armstrong could further up the ante and help raise the layoff-weary morale by having some former AOL execs from its glory days as the top online player in person at the event.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A Video Smorgasbord From the Churchill Club’s “Sixth Annual What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology”

Last night, Walt Mossberg and I hosted yet another annual “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” event for the Churchill Club.

It was a gadgetfest with BoomTown, Walt Mossberg, Gadgetoff’s Greg Harper and Twitter Co-Founder and CEO Evan Williams presenting the digital show-and-tell.

Here is a rather longish video of the event, which is well worth watching. (Yes, I am–along with my No. 1 son, Louie, and an animatronic Elvis–wearing a Yahoo hat.)

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The Entire D6 Interview With Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg (2 of 4)

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 2 of 4 of an interview I did with Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

The social-networking site has had quite a year as the hottest and most hyped on the Web 2.0 landscape. With fast growth and still-questionable monetization power, where Facebook is going will be a journey plenty will be paying attention to.

In this video, Zuckerberg talks even more about sharing information, explains why he wants to stay CEO, discusses mistakes like Beacon and successes like Facebook’s open platform, and defends widgets. Meanwhile, Sandberg talks about why she came to Facebook from Google, compares widget popularity to Elvis fans and talks about where ad spending is going online (think virtual ice cream cones).

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About Kara

Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »

Ethics Statement

Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.

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