Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool, by Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve Jobs) digs into the lying, collusion, and rotten dealings that surround tech journalism in the Valley. [more inside]
posted by smitt on Feb 14, 2012 - 54 comments

The inside story of how The Cornell-Technion Partnership won the bid to bring applied sciences to New York City. Will it make NYC the next Silicon Valley? [more inside]
posted by rosswald on Dec 30, 2011 - 42 comments

Looking for work? Come to India!
posted by Tom-B on Nov 12, 2011 - 26 comments

“Sheryl is putting together a new-girls network inside Silicon Valley.” She neither flaunts nor hides her ambition, and she talks about her guilt at not being home more; she takes command in meetings, yet she’s comfortable describing Mark Zuckerberg as “my boss,” and as “the Steve Jobs of his generation.” She is emblematic, Gruenfeld thinks, of a post-feminist woman who believes that “when you blame someone else for keeping you back, you are accepting your powerlessness.”
posted by availablelight on Jul 4, 2011 - 95 comments

Andrew Norman Wilson was fired from his job at Google for investigating the working conditions of yellow badge employees misusing company equipment: [more inside]
posted by AlsoMike on Apr 30, 2011 - 167 comments

The Viral Me - GQ article on some of the newer social media stuff coming down the pike by Devin Friedman who asks: What is the endgame of your revolution? And can you promise me it won't suck?

A more general thesis about the basic disappointment of the Internet: It ultimately evolves only where it meets human desire, which itself is geared for life circa 200 b.c. If the Internet ultimately disappoints, it's because it was made for humans. Give us instant connection to everyone and the ability to collaborate in vast seamless networks and we spend 99 percent of those resources telling everyone what kind of oatmeal we ate for breakfast and 1 percent of it building Wikipedia.

[more inside]
posted by marble on Jan 28, 2011 - 21 comments

Adolf Finds Out Bin 38 AngelGate. Originally used as a term to describe wealthy individuals who funded theater productions in great Britain, angel investors have become the go-to people when your start-up needs seed money, but not enough warrant a full fledged venture capitalist firm. Acquiring an angel investor can involve everything from full on formal proposals to an individual visiting your dorm room and writing a check... [more inside]
posted by AElfwine Evenstar on Sep 24, 2010 - 26 comments

Afraid that Jobs' wild spending and Woz's recurrent "flights of fancy" would cause Apple to flop, Wayne decided to abdicate his role as adult-in-chief and bailed out after 12 days. Terrified to be the only one of the three founders with assets that creditors could seize, he sold back his shares for $800. An interview with Apple Computer co-founder Ron Wayne (he also designed Apple's first logo). Had he held out, his shares today would be worth $22 billion.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Jun 4, 2010 - 49 comments

Technology innovation will be a large part of late 20th century American history. Now the gearheads can explore the roots of all that geekdom. The Geek's Guide to Seattle is a virtual tour of some of the region’s most interesting and notable technology locations. A Geek's Tour of Silicon Valley hits hotspots there. Don't forget The Tech Museum and the Computer History Museum. Back east, there's Research Triangle Park (pdf) in North Carolina, and The Computing Revolution at the Museum of Science in Boston.
posted by netbros on Aug 28, 2009 - 8 comments

How the myth of Silicon Valley is really like a “gold rush.” Riches for some, “slavery” for many, says Toronto technology commentator Jesse Hirsh, who also takes aim at the ethic of waste built into Web ideology as expressed in Chris Anderson’s Free. (Video of presentation.) [more inside]
posted by joeclark on Aug 6, 2009 - 30 comments

Geeks gone wild! The ten most embarrassing silicon valley, according to Valleywag. Totally NSFW.
posted by delmoi on Feb 2, 2007 - 35 comments

Autism is growing, especially in the Silicon Valley. We’ve talked of this twice before, but what are we missing about the connection between autism, geekhood, and the Silicon Valley? Let’s talk about this more [inside].
posted by Milkman Dan on Aug 13, 2006 - 80 comments

Applied Materials to Slash 14% of Its Work Force How many of you work in the Silicon Valley semiconductor business? How do you feel about an industry giant like AMAT having yet another layoff? Or, if you work for one of AMAT's competitors, what does this do to your own sense of job security?
posted by Captain Ligntning on Mar 17, 2003 - 6 comments

The founders of Webshots.com sold out to Excite@home in '99 for $82.5M, they just bought it back--for $2.4M. $6.7B Excite.com goes for $10M and Blue Mountain Greetings ($780M) goes for $35M. A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon we're talking more than pocket change.
posted by m@ on Jan 8, 2002 - 12 comments

"It seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential." But now the techies in Silicon Valley who prospered with that dash are having children with far more pronounced problems. Is having too many shy programmers in one spot the equivalent to pissing in the gene pool?
posted by hellinskira on Dec 19, 2001 - 31 comments

Dot-Com Is Dot-Gone, and the Dream With It A New York Times article on the dot-com-crash. "Each day, the old idols seem to fade further into the dim past, barely recollected in a country where the languages of "revolution" and "warfare" are no longer just business metaphors. This is the next step after the bursting of the dot-com economic bubble — the bursting of the cultural bubble, the end of the nerd as a crossover hit, of the I.P.O. zillionaire as role model to college students." I agree that our country is in the beginning of a cultural revolution; starting with the dot-com crash last year and accelerating with 911. Am I alone or does anyone agree?
posted by Oxydude on Nov 25, 2001 - 23 comments

Luckyluncher.com Launches With $42 in Angelo Financing
Found this on Business Wire:
"A new web site to help Silicon Valley stock option refugees enjoy the extravagant lunches of yesteryear started today with $42 in Angelo financing.

That's Angelo financing, not Angel financing. 'My friend Angelo loaned me the 42 bucks to register the domain name' explains co-founder Gary Cook."
posted by lheiskell on Oct 19, 2001 - 1 comment

I'm not really sure if I feel for these people or not. A lean job market is no picnic, but c'mon, there are other jobs out there. Maybe it is some sort of divine retribution for these shelter denizens after spending months cutting people off while yapping on the cell-phone behind the wheel of the leased Porsche. Yes, that was a run-on sentence.
posted by donkeysuck on Jun 15, 2001 - 20 comments

Bush seeks support from Silicon Valley leaders for tax plan. "I haven't seen the list of attendees yet, but it's for the purpose of building support for the President's budget and tax plan, for the vital group of the economy that's kept our economy strong. If there's any group that has its finger on the pulse of the economy, it's the high tech community, and the President wants to hear their thoughts about the strength of the economy and to share with them his ideas for how to improve it."

Yeah, but what about the PEOPLE? Shouldn't WE be asked about the tax plan?
posted by bkdelong on Mar 27, 2001 - 10 comments