Sam Perry, the Reuters correspondent turned startup investor, has always been moderately famous in Silicon Valley circles. But he got a taste of real fame when TV host Oprah Winfrey cried on his shoulder, on camera, while watching Barack Obama's victory speech.Oprah invited Perry on her show, as this clip shows, and thanked him. But Perry should be thanking Oprah. This is why every geek switches from blogging about APIs to blathering about politics. None of Perry's venture-capital investments would ever have gotten him on Oprah — but his volunteer work for Obama's campaign did.

Read this. All the way to the end. [WP]

Rember how Obama's election was the greatest thing to happen to the newspaper industry in a decade? People lined up across New York City to buy copies of the New York Times proclaiming his victory! And the smart ones put those copies right on Ebay. This chart shows the average of the five highest prices paid on Ebay each day for that November 5 issue of the NYT. One early seller fetched $400; today you can have your pick for less than $30. Oh, the metaphor.

Facebook's COO is mounting yet another PR offensive. But not on behalf of her current employer, though it could use some good press. No, Sheryl Sandberg is defending former boss Larry Summers against charges of sexism. Summers, who was Treasury Secretary under Clinton, is being talked up for the same role in Barack Obama's Cabinet. A controversial speech Summers gave as president of Harvard University — speculating that innate differences might have to do with women's lack of progress in math and science — could ruin his chances. Hence Sandberg's timely defense.But the defense is timely for Sandberg as well. Sandberg served as Summers's chief of staff before she moved to Silicon Valley and joined Google, setting her up for her current job at Facebook. Summers and Sandberg had a close professional relationship; he even escorted her as his guest to a White House dinner in 2000. At Google and Facebook both, colleagues roll their eyes as they recount how often she brings up her Washington experience and brags about how working in tech is a cakewalk compared to D.C. But Sandberg's tenure at Facebook has been controversial. She's been acting as if she's the company's No. 2 executive, despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg's reassurances that her role is limited and she's not a CEO-in-waiting. Several key tech and product executives have left since she's arrived — and, crucially, she has not made visible progress in improving the company's ad-sales operations. At least one prominent investor has been talking about "reining her in." So why not head back to D.C.? If Summers gets the Treasury job, he'll surely call on Sandberg for advice, and perhaps more. Will she be able to resist the call to public service? Her husband, Dave Goldberg, is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Benchmark Capital — a placeholder job he could easily leave. Her children are young enough that she could move back east without disrupting their schooling. It might be a now-or-never opportunity. It must be on her mind — and on the agenda at Facebook's next board meeting. Sandberg leaving Facebook for the government gives everyone a graceful out from a bad situation. Zuckerberg could help give her a nudge; his cofounder, Chris Hughes, was the director of Obama's Web campaign. Perhaps he could put in a good word for Sandberg? If Summers gets the Treasury job, the only question is whether, having made millions at Google, she really wants to work as hard as she tells everyone she used to.

Grey's Anatomy finally entered the final phase of its gaywashing yesterday, disposing of Brooke Smith's Dr. Hahn in a scene as muddled and incoherent as Smith's actual firing.Hahn and her on-screen love interest, Sara Ramirez's Callie, had only one scene where they discussed their same-sex leanings, and it came near the end of the show. The exchange started in classic Grey's "This hospital issue is really about our relationship!"-speak before devolving into...well, we don't know exactly. It appears that Hahn gets mad at the somewhat reluctant Callie and says, "You can't kind of be a lesbian," which is awfully tough talk for a character who just realized she was a lesbian in the last episode. "I don't know you at all," Hahn continues, before storming off into the parking lot (where she is presumably flown back to her home planet on a rocket ship booby-trapped by worried ABC executives).

Days after winning the presidency for a skinny black man from Kansas and Kenya and Indonesia (and also rescuing funny-but-unwatched sitcom 30 Rock), it's been revealed Queen of Media Oprah Winfrey will end her syndicated talk show in 2011, according to Broadcasting & Cable. But according to sources with Oprah's production company, Harpo, the show will merely shift from syndication to her new cable network, forcing cable providers to add "OWN," which is currently called the Discovery Health Channel, or "the channel with the world's fattest man and the dying babies." What's going on? No one knows. The head of the Discovery cable empire David Zaslav stirred the Oprah pot when he announced on a conference call that Oprah was going to end her show in 2011 and focus primarily on building OWN. "This is her chapter two," he said. Those comments forced Harpo to release a statement:

Tesla Motors, Silicon Valley's troubled electric carmaker, is still running on financial fumes, with $9 million or less in the bank. It's been widely misreported that the company has already raised $40 million. In fact, that's the amount it's hoping to raise, in the form of convertible debt, from current investors in a rights offering, which will take 30 days to complete. Musk made a fortune from PayPal, the online payments startup purchased by eBay, and other startups. He says he has enough money to take the entire round if other investors don't step up. And that may be exactly what he's hoping will happen.In a bankruptcy, holders of Tesla's debt will have priority over all holders of common and preferred stock in the company — including the Valley celebrities like Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and eBay billionaire Jeff Skoll who have invested in Tesla. Raising this round of debt, followed by a bankruptcy filing, could be Musk's way of squeezing out other shareholders — especially cofounders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Employee with unexercised stock options will get wiped out in such a scenario. Current shareholders will have a right to invest in this debt round according to their current share — but Musk may well be counting on the short 30-day offering period and tight financial markets to shut out anyone who doesn't have the cash handy. Why do I think this is a likely scenario? Because Musk has done something similar before. When Musk briefly served as PayPal's CEO, he'd run the company's bank account to six weeks' worth of cash. PayPal insiders say Musk was pulling "financial machinations" to maintain his control of the company — but the board fired him instead and replaced him with cofounder Peter Thiel, who steered the company to its $1.5 billion purchase by eBay. Unfortunately for Tesla, there's no obvious white knight like Thiel on the horizon.

The Weinstein Company this week released the accompanying portrait from Nine, director Rob Marshall's musical currently shooting in London. The occasion was the American Film Market, where foreign buyers (and probably not just a few domestic distributors smelling blood) rummaged through Harvey's Dollar Store for bargains on TWC properties, and as the photo suggests, nothing says "deal" like Penelope Cruz in her best bladder-holding pose opposite a spread-eagled Fergie. (Click through for a larger image.)And that's not even counting the four Oscar winners on display: Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard and Dame Judi Dench. And look at Kate Hudson! Even the PA's get to be all dressed up on this movie! Dec. 11, 2009, can't come soon enough!

Did you know there were stories in Wednesday's New York Times that weren't about the election? Mike Birbiglia, a fairly successful actor-comedian who got a great break—a profile in the Times for his new off-Broadway show. That profile ended up running on November 5th, the one day people actually wanted to buy newspapers. Remember that? People were lining up around the block to snag a copy of that day's Times. As he explains on 23/6, he couldn't even find a freaking copy to send to his mom!

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♦ For his spring campaigns, Marc Jacobs is eschewing celeb-muses like Meg White and Posh Spice: He's cast Israeli model Raquel Zimmerman for his Collection ads, British model Daisy Lowe for Marc by Marc, and Ryan McGinley for men's. [WWD]
♦ Are you a pregnant Project Runway fan? Then march (or waddle) over to the West Village tomorrow to meet Christian Siriano when he unveils his maternity line, Fierce Mamas. [The Cut]
♦ Plans for a Barneys store in the meatpacking district are definitely underway. The most likely location is on West 13th Street. [The Daily]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has learned to make safer prognostications. At this year's Web 2.0 Summit, he observed that the amount of information people share on Facebook seems to double every year — a claim he might be able to back up with data from his social network. Zuckerberg's Second Law will surely go over better than his first — the assertion, made as he launched new Facebook ad formats, that "once every hundred years, media changes." Zuck, how about this law? Once a year, a CEO has to come up with something impressive to say at conferences. (Photo by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us)

· HBO has paid "low seven figures" for U.S. TV rights to Amy Rice and Alicia Sams' (pictured) documentary about the Obama campaign, in production since 2006 under Edward Norton's Class 5 Films. "We believe this film will capture a tipping point in American history, when a new generation of leadership emerged and old prejudices were finally vaulted over," Norton said, adding, "Obama smaaaaaash!" [Variety] · What took so long? 2007 comedy Death At A Funeral is finally getting the remake it's been begging for, only this one is set to star Chris Rock and will be moved from pastoral England to "an urban American setting." But who will play the deceased's father's achondroplastic gay lover? We're thinking Tony Cox. [Variety] · Warners has bought the rights to the LAT's series "Tales From the Gangster Squad," about '40s-era L.A. mobster wars. [Variety] After the jump: Lost finally gets the new series regular who'll explain everything.· 24's Reiko Aylesworth has now joined the cast of Lost, while Amy Price-Francis has joined 24. [THR] · Disney reported $37.8 billion in revenue this year, due in no small part to 2 million sales of the Tinker Bell: Faerie Jailbait Killing Machine DVD. [THR] · Dylan McDermott will star in TNT pilot The Line, from Jerry Bruckheimer, about LAPD cops who "walk the line between doing their job and being seduced by easy money." [THR]

Lynn Sweet is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times who led the outraged howling over the Obama campaign charging the press extortionate prices to cover his election-night rally in Chicago. Yet even she has been brought in line by the Obama charm! During the just-completed press conference Sweet stood up with a broken arm and allowed that she had broken it covering his rally, and Obama gave a sweet answer and flashed the biggest smile ever and in one fell swoop made Lynn Sweet America's most famous reporter for a day and also a lady who probably would like to smooch Barack Obama right on the mouth. Click to watch the exchange. [UPDATE: Bonus Observer story on Sweet too!]

President-elect Barack Obama's first press conference happened the day the nation shed yet more jobs, it began a half-hour late, and the subject was mostly the miserable economy. Obama looked tired, and lapsed occasionally back into campaign boilerplate when discussing the pressing issues he'll have to address the second he's sworn in. As he reminded us, again and again, "there's only one President at a time." But with one question from Chicago reporter Lynn Sweet, Obama immediately won over the audience, and America. He's getting his little girls a puppy! "With respect to the dog," President-elect Obama said, "this is a major issue." Slipping into deadpan mock seriousness, Obama discussed the crux of the problem—the dog should be a hypoallergenic breed, but they wanted to rescue a shelter dog. "Obviously," Obama said, "a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me." Even Fox is being nice to our new President now.

Though the deaths of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew spawned some iffy reactions from celebrity streetwalker New York and an enterprising maker of bedside shotgun racks, neither could have prepared us for the, uh, less-than-tactful way that Hudson's sister Julia has been updating her Myspace.Despite the fact that her estranged husband is still the prime suspect in the murders (and may be free as soon as Monday), Julia has added new pictures that showcase her partying with friends, as well as a picture of her late brother captioned, "NOW THAT JASON'S GONE I'M THE PRETTIEST ONE." There's also this picture of Julia with American Idol's Fantasia Barrino:

♦ A peek inside Elsa, which will be the only bar in the East Village to serve beer out of an antique sewing machine (as well as sell bespoke suits) when it finally opens next Tuesday. [Eater]
♦ Tickets are still available for this year's Chocolate Show on Pier 94, which started today and continues through the weekend. [GS, Metromix]
♦ Grub Street has put together a guide to restaurant recession specials across the city. [GS]

Poor Jessica Vascellaro. The Wall Street Journal reporter will never be able to live down the video she and several Webhead friends recorded on a Cyprus vacation. The song-and-dance number was controversial as a sign of bubble-era excess — and as an indication that Vascellaro might be rather too close to the companies she covers. Last night, as Vascellaro partied at the MySpace Music party, the DJ put on "Don't Stop Believing" — the same Journey song which provided the soundtrack to their seaside frolics. Kara Swisher has video from the party:Click to view

Hey Ivy League students, did you think that the walls of the Ivory Tower would shelter you from this global financial crisis? Figured you'd be able to continue pulling in your financial aid and frolicking in your school's brand new buildings full of fancy professors who teach one class per year and spend the rest of the time writing little-read books? Think again! Because it looks like even the mighty Harvard is losing billions in the current market downturn. More billions than you might expect:

You may not be able to sneer at Rush Limbaugh as he makes his way down Madison Avenue for much longer. He said on his radio show this week that he's considering selling the Upper East Side apartment he purchased in 1994, since "it may now become stupid to own any property there." Condolences to the pharmacy department at Zitomer's on the loss of a dedicated customer! [NYO]