michel-verville

Inside Capazoo's drug-fueled implosion

Jackson West · 03/21/08 04:00PM

The Montreal-based social network that's teetering on the edge of extinction was a family affair, both in the nepotism sense and allegedly in the mafia sense. That's according to a former employee who sent in an epic tale of sex, drugs and shady business dealings under CEO Luc Verville, pictured here in happier times. His brother Michel, a cofounder, was kicked out of the company — but not before generating some serious ill will among employees:

Coke-addict startup founder snows Capazoo under

Owen Thomas · 03/20/08 06:00PM

Capazoo, a Canadian social network which promised to pay users for signing up friends, is is going under. The company has fired its 60-person development staff, which took two years to launch the site, and ended up attracting a little over 10,000 users. The best part of the site, by far, is its deadpan Web infomercial, where users like Corey Vidal, pictured here, talk about how they didn't make any money off MySpace or YouTube. TechCrunch reports that founders Michel and Luc Verville allegedly took $2 million out of the $25 million in venture capital the company raised. It doesn't mention what they spent it on. Here's the report from a company insider: