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Monday, June 29, 2009

Facebook Selects New CFO: Former Genentech Exec Ebersman

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Facebook picked a new CFO quietly, after its cloddish public parting with longtime top financial exec Gideon Yu earlier this year.

The fast-growing social-networking site said in late March it was looking for a CFO with “public company experience,” and it seems to have gotten one in former Genentech CFO David Ebersman.

And, indeed, with the addition of Ebersman, Facebook inches ever closer to an IPO.

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Exclusive: Tellme Founder and GM McCue Departs, as Microsoft Reorganizes Its Speech Recognition Unit

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After running one of the more successful Silicon Valley acquisitions by Microsoft for several years, Tellme Networks founder and GM Mike McCue will be leaving the company at the end of June.

As part of the transition, Zig Serafin, who has been running a lot of the speech technology efforts for the software giant in Redmond, Wash., is taking over the voice services subsidiary and all the other related units and making them into a single team with about 400 employees in total.

McCue and Serafin are now meeting with Tellme staff at its Mountain View HQ about the changeover.

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Monday, April 6, 2009

Raise the Yangtanic Again! Sun/IBM Gets New Tech Metaphor Thrown at It (Also Not So Currie-licious?)

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BoomTown is not going to go all servers and Solaris on you, as I am leaving the complicated details of the collapsed IBM bid for Sun Microsystems to Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski to sort out.

But I wonder if every failed tech merger with a squabblefest and a board in chaos will now be accused of blowing it, as most think Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang did in rejecting the $41 billion buyout offer from Microsoft.

And former Netscape CFO Peter Currie certainly has his hands full–he is on the Sun board and also just signed up to be the financial adviser to Facebook, after it abruptly parted ways with its former CFO.

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Entire Facebook Goodbye-Gideon-We-Are-the-Money-Champions Memo

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Dear Elliot Schrage:

BoomTown wins.

As Sheryl knows from experience, don’t mess with the Swish. Or Texas. Or Zohan.

Just don’t mess.

For everyone else, here is the entire memo that Facebook sent out this week to its staff about the departure of CFO Gideon Yu and the financial status of the social-networking start-up, which some had been questioning.

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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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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Former Netscape CFO Peter Currie Will Be New Facebook Financial Adviser, Until New CFO Is Found

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In a back-to-the-future move, former Netscape CFO Peter Currie will be the key adviser to Facebook about financial matters, until a new CFO is found, sources said.

The temporary move puts a well-known and well-liked Silicon Valley figure in place at the social-networking company at what is surely a tumultuous moment. Currie has most recently been a venture investor.

Today, Facebook parted ways with its CFO, Gideon Yu, saying it was prepping for an eventual IPO. But other sources said the departure was due to increasing tension with Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Perhaps most interestingly, Currie is close with Facebook board member and Netscape Communications co-founder Marc Andreessen.

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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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