Former Genentech chairman and CEO Art Levinson has resigned from Google’s board, where he has been a director since April 2004. No reason was given for his departure, though his membership on both the Google and Apple boards, and the Federal Trade Commission inquiry into into possible implications of such dual memberships, surely played a role.
Silicon Valley luminary and Golden Geek cover model Marc Andreessen is adding another gig to his CV: Hewlett-Packard director. Andreessen, who sold his software company, Opsware, to HP two years ago for $1.6 billion, will begin serving on the board immediately, bringing its total number of directors to 11.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s board this morning was a nice gesture, but it’s not going to end the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of the ties between the Google and Apple boards. In a statement issued this afternoon, the FTC applauded the move, but said the two companies are foolish if they think it will simply abandon its inquiry as a result.
Well, this is unexpected. Amazon has agreed to purchase online shoe retailer Zappos.com in a deal valued at about $850 million. Under its terms, the retailer will acquire all outstanding Zappos shares in exchange for roughly 10 million shares of Amazon common stock, valued at about $807 million, and some $40 million in cash and restricted stock. If the shoe fits, right?
The Federal Trade Commission may worry about the ties between the Google and Apple boards, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt clearly doesn’t share its concern. Asked during a press luncheon if he would resign from Apple’s board in the face of FTC scrutiny, Schmidt bristled–“Why would you ask that question?”–and then said simply, “It hasn’t crossed my mind.”
He had a good run of it, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s stint as an Apple director may be coming to an end. Now that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the close ties between Apple’s and Google’s boards of directors violate antitrust laws, Schmidt’s seat on the former’s board, which he has held since August 2006, seems more trouble than its worth.
What’s Sun going to do now? Shares in the company dropped more than 27 percent percent to $6.48 in premarket trading following reports that Sun’s board rejected a formal acquisition offer by IBM. After weeks of negotiations, the two companies were thought to be finalizing a deal for about $7 billion. But IBM lowered its offer over the weekend and then withdrew it after Sun balked at the price and terms of the sale.
Reports of a Steve Jobs cameo at Disney Co.’s shareholders meeting today have proven greatly exaggerated. Earlier this afternoon, Marketwatch issued a news bulletin claiming Jobs, who missed Apple’s shareholders meeting a few weeks back, had turned up at Disney’s. A noteworthy event if it had been true, but it was not.
If the Save Sirius coalition hopes to fulfill its eponymous mandate, it may have to do so by other than legal means. Because its lawsuit against Sirius XM has been dismissed.
BoomTown was right, Facebook has scored itself a “golden geek.” TechCrunch reports that Netscape/Opsware/Ning founder Marc Andreessen will join Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer, Founders Fund’s Peter Thiel and, of course, founder Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s board of directors.
Look out Jerry Yang, Carl Icahn now has one fewer distraction as he prepares to propose his slate of dissident board nominees at Yahoo’s Aug. 1 shareholder meeting. At its own shareholder meeting Thursday, Biogen investors voted to support management’s preferred board candidates and to reject a slate of directors proposed by Icahn.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
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.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
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