"He's always thinking about lots of things — he's a pollinator, he brings ideas to the table" You probably know Neal Stephenson for his work as an author (generally in or adjacent to the Science Fiction genre), but he's also an inventor at Washington based "Idea Factory" Intellectual Ventures, a place with modern goals like stomping out malaria and preventing hurricanes. This is after his old job as part-time rocket scientist.
posted by Artw on Sep 1, 2008 - 17 comments

The rumors are true. Outage-plagued Twitter really has been raising money and today announced that they'd closed their funding round. Venture firm Spark Capital doled out some cash as did Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos. Twitter, however, ain't saying how much money was raised. (It's reportedly around $15 million.) CNET helpfully points out how the press release from Twitter that announced the news went out of it's way to mention that the company will -- hold the presses -- someday be supported by an actual revenue model: "To reach our goal, Twitter must be reliable and robust. Private funding gives us the runway we need to stay focused on the infrastructure that will help our business take flight."
posted by not_the_water on Jun 24, 2008 - 81 comments

Start-up Junkies. An eight-part documentary on hulu about the genesis and growth of a multi-million dollar startup company.
posted by norabarnacl3 on May 24, 2008 - 16 comments

The earliest recorded noncompete case was brought in England in 1414. Since then their power and utility has depended on which line you were signing. While some have shown they impede mobility of "superstar" talent could it also be they prevent entire geographic areas from maximizing their potential?
posted by zap rowsdower on Dec 6, 2007 - 7 comments

No VC after the dot-com bust? No problem! Just sign up for eight no-annual-fee credit cards with interest rates as low as 1.7 percent (for a few months, anyway), and shazam: You've got $35,000; you're a start-up! Question: Has this guy read a newspaper in, say, the last 18 months?
posted by nathanstack on Jan 14, 2002 - 15 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

Can Linux be anything more than a Server/Developer OS without something like Eazel? Will the open-source community be able to do anything productive with its code? Or have we just reached a point where the OS is superfluous?
posted by machaus on May 16, 2001 - 52 comments

Phillip Greenspun speaks about what's happening (to him) at aD.
posted by Dean_Paxton on Apr 22, 2001 - 2 comments

Why? Story talks about stupid dot-com ideas who are having trouble getting funding. But somehow this ugly site burns through $50,000/month. How? Why can't someone give me some of that cash?
posted by owillis on Oct 9, 2000 - 7 comments

Slanted story? Does anyone really believe that most VC firms wouldn't back a solid business plan only because a woman ran the company? The argument sounds like parity for the sake of parity, without merit.
posted by owillis on Jul 19, 2000 - 4 comments

While I still work on my writeup of the event, let me share one URL I heard there for the first time. eCompanies.com is a consortium of successful Netprenuers in the LA area that want to fund your great idea. It looks like they will accept and review business plans and offer venture captial to those deemed worthy.
posted by mathowie on Sep 3, 1999 - 1 comment