confabb

And in the end the stock you take is equal to the mess you make

Owen Thomas · 08/01/08 06:00PM

How many ex-Yahoo managers does it take to reproduce a classic Beatles album cover? From left to right: Salim Ismail, Chad Dickerson, Scott Gatz, and Bradley Horowitz. All four were, at some point, responsible for parts of Yahoo's advanced-products group, including the Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco. The band reunited last night at the 21st Amendment bar in San Francisco's South of Market district to bid Dickerson farewell; he is leaving Yahoo to become CTO of Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for hipster-friendly handicrafts one must nod politely about. Ismail is attending to Confabb, the startup he failed to sell before joining Yahoo; Gatz is now running GayCities, a queer-travel website; and Horowitz is now at Google. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments The winner will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: Naughty Jason L. Baptiste, for "One bubble Pete Cashmore would like to pop."

Silicon Valley Tool tries to cozy up to Valleywag

Megan McCarthy · 11/15/07 10:20AM

Near the end of a Stirr mixer in San Francisco on Tuesday, I ran into Salim Ismail, the head of Yahoo Brickhouse and our newest Silicon Valley Tool, though he'd yet to get the prize for being one of the Bay Area's most annoying executives when we met. I noticed he had the name of his startup, Confabb, on his nametag instead of Yahoo. When asked why he wasn't representing Yahoo, he responded he wanted to "get the $10 fee" — the price Stirr charges for startup founders, instead of paying the $20 general admission fee. (Okay, he's cheap, but you'd be cheap, too, if you'd started seven companies without a single successful exit.) We chatted for a bit about Brickhouse. Then, when I started jotting down notes and he realized I might quote him about dodging the event's full fee, the conversation with the wantrepreneur turned downright silly.