When it rains, it pours on the Church of Scientology. First, spokescreature Tommy Davis publicly flamed out on his prime time interview. Now, Oscar-winning Crash director Paul Haggis' public resignation from Scientology has leaked. And it's incredibly damning to them.
Is bro-blogger Tucker Max's movie as chest-thumpingly awful as the script made it out to be? Based on some "leaked" footage we've been sent, yes, yes it is. Sex with midgets and deaf girls; wannabe-alpha-male trash talk; it's all there.
For three years, Twitter made no money. But the microblogging company will supposedly be taking in more than $1 million per month by the end of this year and twenty times that much in 2010. Ah, the miracle of spreadsheets.
A hacker compromised various online accounts of Twitter staff, and while the company insists Twitter's own servers were not breached, the attack exposed internal documents gleaned elsewhere — showing the company's hubris and employees' growing sense of entitlement.
Even as Wall Street rallied last month, Peter Thiel's hedge fund lost close to $25 million, according to leaked documents obtained by Valleywag. Maybe this is why the PayPal founder has been grumpily calling people "frauds."
ABC's marketing department is so hardcore that they will get Mickey Mouse to hand out cigarettes to children if that's what it takes to get people to watch their crappy shows!
Did contractors pave imperfection into Apple's parking-lot paradise? A controversial photo showing a misspelled traffic warning sent one employee out on the asphalt to disprove yesterday's report of a chip in Steve Jobs's flawless facade.
Morgenstern runs Valor Equity Partners, which led a $40 million investment in Tesla in February 2008 and controls a seat on the board. The badly mismanaged electric-car startup quickly blew through Valor's money; by October, it was down to $9 million in cash. Despite raising more money from investors, Tesla is running on fumes, and collecting deposits for its Model S electric sedan, a car which exists only as a barely drivable quasi-prototype. Tesla requires hundreds of millions of dollars more than it has to make the Model S a reality — which is why Morgenstern's talk of new money is so interesting.
Hackers have broken into Salma Hayek's email, revealing the actress's iPhone-app obsession, designer-clothes habit, travel plans, and more. (Her billionaire husband, François-Henri Pinault, who's throwing a second wedding for her this weekend, pays the bill!)
Ever wonder how much computer-book publisher Tim O'Reilly gets to flap his mouth at conferences about how everything should be free? His flack revealed it to the world last night via Twitter (of course).
When times are tough, bad bosses lash out. After John Soden III, a managing director at Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco, sent a hectoring email ordering employees into the office, his underlings struck back.
Barack Obama's daughters have named the first dog Bo, after a cousin's cat and in honor of Michelle Obama's grandfather, who was nicknamed Diddley. Also, intrigue surrounds the leak if his identity!
What thoughts keep magazines bosses up late at night? Late last night John Koten, the CEO of Fast Company publisher Mansueto Ventures, was wondering why his staff hasn't asked him about how great he is.
More layoffs are coming to Google, employees there believe. A Googler tells us top executives abruptly cancelled meetings across the Googleplex Friday.
Is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hunting leakers? His internal memo about CFO Gideon Yu's departure got forwarded to bloggers. Perhaps he was hoping that would happen, and not just so his spin would get out.
John Coale, currently advising Sarah Palin on running for president in 2012, is a Scientologist. And according to a memo obtained by Gawker, Coale once plotted to use friendly politicians to advance the power-hungry cult's agenda.
Taylor Stein, the mother of Estée Lauder CEO William Lauder's love child, is going to court to get him to pay a $9.5 million settlement he agreed to in exchange for her silence.
Enraged by leaks at his troubled Silicon Valley electric carmaker, CEO Elon Musk cooked up a sophisticated electronic scheme to catch the blabbers. It backfired hilariously on the brilliant entrepreneur, who's a bit blabby himself.
Amit Kapur, the 27-year-old No. 2 executive at MySpace, is leaving, according to a memo from MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. It looks like he's planning a startup: He's taking two executives with him.
