nerdspotting

Ron Jeremy at Web 2.0

Megan McCarthy · 10/22/07 08:33AM

What was porn star Ron Jeremy, pictured above, doing at the Palace Hotel for the last night of Web 2.0 Summit? Or, more importantly, who was he doing? Somehow we doubt he was there for the panels, since his career as a tech blogger seems stillborn. He hasn't posted a new "Techsmart with Ron Jeremy" video on his Heavy.com channel since May. No wonder the porn pioneer had nothing better to do than play the John Doerr drinking game. All we know is that he did indulge us when we asked for a picture with some Web 2.0 Summit paraphernalia. Have any dirt on his presence? Please share.

Sergey takes the night off in San Francisco

Owen Thomas · 10/19/07 11:17AM

After Valleywag broke the news that Google cofounder Sergey Brin had rushed up to San Francisco for an impromptu dinner with a Facebook investor, protestations issued from his tablemates that nothing was afoot. Why, some random Russians — Brin's countrymen — got invited! Tom Rielly, the teddy-bear Ted conference organizer, was there! Absolutely no talk of Facebook all night! Oh, really. Never was an elephant in the room less mentioned, then.

Steve Chen has great calves, stalkers

Nicholas Carlson · 10/16/07 11:40AM

So we know the guy is loaded, but who figured YouTube cofounder Steve Chen had groupies? Oh, he does. And they're in Hong Kong. A Valleywag tipster spotted Chen at the "posh" Four Seasons hotel. And by spotted, I mean she followed him to the hotel pool and then later took a picture of him while he ran on a treadmill. It gets creepier. "He has really great calves," our source reports. Details on Chen's entourage after the jump.

Steve Ballmer and Mark Zuckerberg set hotel rendezvous

Owen Thomas · 10/12/07 06:53PM

MENLO PARK, CA. — It's hardly a secret that Microsoft and Facebook are negotiating over the purchase of a high-valued stake in the hot social network. But why would Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer be so foolish as to pick the Stanford Park Hotel as their meeting place for a final round of negotiations? The hotel, practically at the intersection of El Camino Real, the Main Street of Silicon Valley, and Sand Hill Road, the center of venture capital, is as public a spot as one could choose. And hotel-staff gossip, according to a Valleywag informant, has it that Ballmer and Zuckerberg were set to meet there this afternoon. A manager, when asked, said "important people" were meeting in the hotel's boardroom. Another source says that Ballmer was so eager to clinch the deal that he offered to head straight from the airport to Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters — an option dismissed for the more-private hotel. Oops.

Owen Thomas · 10/12/07 05:23PM

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was spotted leaving Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters, according to Fake Steve Jobs. FSJ's blog, written by Forbes editor Dan Lyons is highly satirical, but from what we hear, a meeting between Yang and Zuckerberg right now makes all the sense in the world. [The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs]

Owen Thomas · 10/08/07 01:49PM

So unfair: Venture capitalist and blogger Fred Wilson is handily winning a charity contest whose prize is a lunch with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. We'd think Wilson, who sold Del.icio.us to Yahoo, could ring up Yang and have lunch anytime he likes. More deserving: The brash, grating Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, who would likely make Yang suffer by filming the entire meal. [AllThingsD]

Peter Thiel's college tour

Owen Thomas · 10/08/07 12:08PM

Fame in Silicon Valley so rarely manages to reverbate past the Sierra Nevada range. Take, for example, Peter Thiel. The former PayPal CEO is now a rock star at home for his prescient — or, at any rate, lucky — investment in Facebook, where he's now a board member. But even the Facebook connection wasn't enough to fill a measly 200-person auditorium at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where Thiel is, as I write, speaking. According to a Valleywag correspondent, some of the audience was given extra credit for attending:

Eric Schmidt's outsized reading habits

Megan McCarthy · 10/05/07 01:46PM

Recently, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was spotted purchasing "Mine's Bigger," the book about the yacht obsessions of Kleiner Perkins founder Tom Perkins. Sure, Perkins's firm invested in the search behemoth. But why would Schmidt purchase a book detailing the methods Perkins used to ensure that he had the most spectacular yacht in the world? He hardly needs lessons on oneupmanship. After all, Schmidt already owns a stake in the Google founders' party plane, believed to be the world's largest private jet. And he's likely helping Larry and Sergey add to their fleet. One can only marvel at how deep Schmidt's inferiority complex must run, if he feels he needs to take tips from Perkins. After the jump, the full nerdspotting episode:

Owen Thomas · 09/28/07 03:15PM

Removed from his Bay Area fanbase, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington speaks to a mostly empty room at the DigitalLife convention. Valley fame, it seems, does not travel well. [News.com]

PodTech escapees have lunch with the VJ

Owen Thomas · 09/08/07 02:10PM

San Francisco videographers Irina Slutsky and Eddie Codel have broken ties, we hear, with troubled online-video network PodTech. So what were they doing lunching earlier in the week with PodShow executives Adam Curry, the former MTV video jockey, and John Dvorak, the faux-grouchy tech columnist? The foursome were spotted eating al fresco at a restaurant near AT&T Park. We'd make jokes about the frying pan and the fire, but from the looks of Codel in this photo snapped by a Valleywag informant, he's just happy to be eating a hot meal. Eddie, baby, call us up. Next lunch is on us.

Nerdspotting: Where my CEOs at?

Nick Douglas · 08/30/06 09:10AM

Eric Schmidt was last seen on Fire Island, where the Google CEO has been cavorting with East Coast girlfriend Marcy Simon. One reader saw him at the Albatross Restaurant. A New York Post tipster saw Schmidt at the Island Mermaid. Ten points for old-school Rat-Pack style, Schmidt — the only thing that beats getting elected to the board of another huge tech company is hearing the news while you're with your "girl on the side."

Click three times: Chin up, Alex Welch!

Nick Douglas · 08/18/06 05:19PM

Wallowing in the muck of Silicon Valley makes everyone homesick from time to time. A reader says they saw one startup chief reach that moment in public.

Nerdspotting: Eric Schmidt doesn't wash his hands

Nick Douglas · 08/09/06 05:54PM

Google's CEO is sloppy, says an attendee at the Search Engine Strategies conference. "I just took a piss next to Eric [Schmidt] from Google, and he didnt wash his hands after," says this reader from Atlanta.