idealab

Remainders: A healthy career in Chinese gold farming

ndouglas · 03/24/06 01:27AM

Now playing World of Warcraft can get you a job. Thrilling, really, to discover that a game played by destroying arbitrarily assigned enemies ad infinitum, rising up a ladder until reaching a disappointing top that isn't a top at all, commiserating with socially inept addicts with little life outside the computer, could prepare you for tech work. No, seriously, I am shocked at this news. [Wired]
It's funny 'cause it's petty: Just as Microsoft pushes Vista to 2007 and shuffles the whole Live department, MSN goes down for an hour. [Threadwatch]
AT&T doesn't really want to break your Internet. Sure, that's what it says while it's sober. [ZDNet]
Google Finance doesn't just disappoint Yahoo blogger (and "Expert Author") Jeremy Zawodny, it makes him sad. Jeremy comes this close to naming the folks who let Yahoo Finance rot, then praises the product manager in charge of Google Finance. "Not speaking for my employer" indeed. [WebProNews]
Idealab shareholders agree to pay founder Bill Gross's $50 million loan. And now he can't have that puppy he asked for, because that was the agreement about responsibility, Bill, and for now you can only keep your goldfish. [LA Times]
Songbird plays a good game of gotcha. Steve Jobs in 2002: "If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own." France fighting iTunes in 2006: "The consumer must be able to listen to the music they have bought on no matter what platform." Oh, they couldn't mean it the way he did, they're just the French. [Songbird]

Vindicated: Bill Gross still broke

ndouglas · 03/21/06 06:39PM

Idealab CEO Bill Gross scored board approval to make shareholders take over his $50 million personal loan. If shareholders approve, Bill will pay back the cash over the next four years (or find a new sucker to buy the loan). The jet's sold, the Ferrari's sold, but Bill must have some tchotchkes left to make a $50-mil yard sale.

Is Bill Gross broke again?

ndouglas · 03/07/06 05:25PM

Another would-be Valleywagger does our job for us, with a report that Bill Gross, CEO of Pasadena business incubator Idealab, is still paying for his sins during the dot-com bubble — or, well, his shareholders are.