elevation-partners

Fake Steve Jobs gets down with San Francisco's filthiest hacks

Owen Thomas · 11/08/07 08:00PM

The dirty secret behind last night's book-tour party for Dan Lyons, the man behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog? Rumor is it almost didn't happen, thanks to a little tiff over who was going to rep him. Flack fight! After the jump, the real battle over Fake Steve.

Wikiprofits on Wales's mind?

Nicholas Carlson · 10/18/07 01:07PM

A tipster is telling us we got it right on why founder Jimmy Wales is moving Wikipedia to San Francisco: dollar bills. Tall stacks of them. Specifically, Wales is looking to tap the deep pockets of Wikipedia benefactor Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, our source believes. You know, the firm U2 frontman Bono shills for. Our tipster writes that McNamee and Wales have plans to profit from Wikipedia. Curious, since Wikipedia's run by a nonprofit. The tip, after the jump.

Jordan Golson · 10/11/07 04:28PM

Private-equity firm Elevation Partners — which counts U2 frontman Bono among its partners — sold gaming companies BioWare and Pandemic Studios to Electronic Arts for $860 million. Elevation Partners, which is named after the U2 song, was a natural for EA to do a deal with. One of the founding partners, John Riccitiello, is the CEO of Electronic Arts. Elevation purchased the two game companies in late 2005 for $300 million. Not bad for less than two years' work. [WSJ]

iLike a good mustache, don't you?

Owen Thomas · 09/07/07 08:24PM

ATHERTON — I'm told I left the party too early, but once Third Eye Blind started playing, Thursday night's iLike bash was pretty much over for me. Don't get me wrong — I like Third Eye Blind. It's right in tune with my utterly bland and more than slightly gay musical tendencies. But this is exactly why I will never, ever use a service like iLike, which makes a Facebook app that allows you to reveal your musical taste, or lack thereof, to your friends by posting songs, and find people with similar tastes by seeing who's going to concerts. Here's the thing: I know my taste in music is egregiously bad. I don't want to advertise the fact to the world, and if anything, I want to meet people who specifically dislike the music I listen to. That's all right, though — what I really wanted to listen to was the buzz in the room.

Steve Jobs and Bono explained

Owen Thomas · 08/28/07 11:39AM


From cartoonist Hugh MacLeod, a concise explanation of why Apple CEO Steve Jobs keeps pushing his company deeper into the music business, and why rock star Bono has joined tech private-equity firm Elevation Partners.

wagger1 · 06/14/07 08:47PM

Left hobbled with debt by Elevation's cash-out refinancing, the smartphone maker is laying off developers. PCWorld.com