mysteries

Choire · 12/07/07 01:42PM

Whoa. The Dia Art Foundation sold their monster West Chelsea space, the one that started the Chelsea gallery boom. The price was $38.55 million; the buyer is unknown. [Modern Art Notes]

TheFunded's "Ted" is Adeo Ressi

Owen Thomas · 11/15/07 09:17PM

Why is Adeo Ressi smilling? The serial entrepreneur, now CEO of Game Trust, has pulled one over Sand Hill Road. Through a forwarded Skype phone line, Gmail account, and proxy-registered domain name, he's hidden his secret identity as "Ted," the creator of VC-ratings discussion board TheFunded.com. Now, at a time of his own choosing, staged in sync with a Wired profile, Ressi has outed himself. Which tells us one thing: He's much, much smarter than Fake Steve Jobs blogtard Dan Lyons.

A new secret behind TheFunded.com

Owen Thomas · 11/15/07 07:44PM

"Ted," the secretive creator of VC-ratings message board TheFunded.com, isn't hard to reach. I called him on his easy-to-find Skype line: 415 992 8801. He was busy getting ready for the $500-a-seat event tonight, held on the Stanford campus, at which he plans to reveal his identity at 6 p.m. We'll all know his real name soon enough. I asked him, instead, where the pseudonym "Ted" came from. He told me that early members of TheFunded.com picked it for him, apparently to annoy him, since it was the name of his nemesis. So who's the Ted who hates "Ted"? Ted Leonsis, the annoying AOL retiree? Ted Dintersmith of Charles River Ventures? Ted Dziuba of sarcastic tech blog Uncov? None of them fit, so I'm hoping you might have a better guess.

Philip Kaplan knows who runs TheFunded.com

Owen Thomas · 11/15/07 06:54PM

The so-far anonymous creator of TheFunded.com, a message board which lets entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists, is going to unveil himself tonight at an event. New rumors continue to bubble up about who "Ted" might be, as the site's founder is known. One tipster suggested Philip "Pud" Kaplan, the founder of FuckedCompany and AdBrite. Nah — that's not Kaplan's style. When he does something, he signs his name to it. He's transparent, much like his shirt in the above picture. But we do hear that Kaplan knows the secretive entrepreneur's true identity.

Bradley Horowitz joins Yahoo alumni group

Owen Thomas · 11/14/07 04:17PM

Yahoo executive Bradley Horowitz has joined the Yahoo Alumni group on Facebook, Mashery CEO Oren Michels notes on Twitter. Now, anyone can join that Facebook group, so it could just be that Horowitz wants to stay in touch with departed colleagues. And we hear Horowitz is working closely with Yahoo president Sue Decker on a project, so every indication is that his star is on the rise. Still, the voluble Horowitz, normally a ceaseless status-caster on Twitter and Facebook, has yet to elaborate on his move.

Why isn't the Googlephone guy rich?

Owen Thomas · 11/08/07 10:50AM

There's one thing in last Sunday's New York Times profile of Andy Rubin, the man responsible for Google's nonexistent Googlephone, that did not compute. Why isn't Rubin loaded? After all, he cofounded WebTV, which Microsoft bought in 1997 for $400 million. He should have raked in more than enough from that success to fund Android, the mobile-phone startup Google bought in 2005. Instead, Rubin had to hit up his friend and WebTV cofounder Steve Perlman for a $100,000 loan. Where did the money go? One insider sneers, "Too many ex-wives cleaned him out." Anyone know if that's all there is to the story? (Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Why Was Owen Wilson At Butter Last Night?

Emily Gould · 11/06/07 10:50AM

That little stretch of Lafayette where New York pretends to be L.A. was buzzing last night as strike-fearing actors packed into Butter. Says our spy, "Two stars from '30 Rock,' Kristina Bowen and Lonny Ross, were like, 'Um we are pretty much screwed. We have one more shooting script and that's It.' Lance Bass tried to join in on the convo, asking 'Wait does this affect talk shows....' His nose in person reminds me of Peter Pan. Plastic surgery is NOT his friend." But the biggest celeb in attendance was the Butterscotch Stallion himself, 'Darjeeling Express' star Owen Wilson, accompanied only by "a PR lady and two bodyguards." "He left in under 30 mins. It was a bit of a buzz killer—everyone was like 'Gasp—that's the Wilson brother who tried to kill himself.' It was such an odd reaction. Why is he going out anyway, you know?" To promote 'not being dead,' one assumes.

BugMeNot's founder outs himself

Mary Jane Irwin · 10/08/07 01:10PM

The New York Times has done away with its for-pay pages, realizing the folly of trying to charge for online content. But it still insists, to the annoyance of many Internet users, on requiring registration. BugMeNot has long helped users bypass such measures by storing a database of disposable usernames and passwords. (And a good thing, too; annoying registration requirements just lead users to falsify the information they're forced to share.) Fearing the wrath of media websites, which use registration data to target ads, BugMeNot's creator has long sheltered in anonymity. Now, at last, he's stepped forward. The 29-year-old Guy King created the site after getting fed up with demographic-seeking inquiries from the likes of nytimes.com and YouTube. So why did King out himself? For the lone purpose of promoting his new company Stateless Systems and website RetailMeNot — a coupon repository. Time may be money, but given the choice, I'd rather keep BugMeNot.

Why is Steve Jobs cheerleading Yahoo?

Owen Thomas · 10/01/07 04:25PM

When all else fails, bring in a motivational speaker. For last Friday's management meeting, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker went all out, bringing in Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Glossed over in Kara Swisher's otherwise excellent report was the question: Why would Jobs rally the troops at Yahoo? Swisher treats it as an obvious choice, likening Jobs to Oprah Winfrey. But I think there's more to it than that.

Why Isn't TMZ Covering Owen Wilson?

Doree Shafrir · 08/30/07 04:10PM

Since Owen Wilson was hospitalized on Sunday, TMZ has done five posts about the world's saddest clown. This is a bit odd, considering that on the single day that Lindsay Lohan got caught with cocaine in the pants that weren't hers, the site did 24. Why aren't they updating us on his every move? Why haven't they talked to "friends" and his brothers and anyone who ever took a crap within a 12-mile radius of him? Something's fishy. Is TMZ suddenly all sensitive because Owen attempted suicide? Maybe. But doubt it. Any ideas? Do let us know.

What does Vint Cerf do at Google?

Owen Thomas · 08/28/07 09:36AM

Vint Cerf, Google's Internet evangelist, really did invent the Internet. So we suppose it's okay for him to coast a little. But as with anyone with the word "evangelist" on his business card, we can't help but wonder what, exactly he does. A profile in the Times of London does little to clarify matters. Apparently Cerf worries about the security of Web browsers and operating systems — never mind that Google doesn't make browsers or operating systems. Cerf got his job by emailing Google CEO Eric Schmidt and asking if he needed any help. Schmidt replied, "Yes." We're thinking Schmidt might be wondering now if he should have been more specific — and if Cerf could be contributing to Google's little payroll problem.

Who's behind TheFunded.com? Not Jason Calacanis

Owen Thomas · 08/24/07 01:21PM

Inc. magazine is digging into the mystery of who's running TheFunded.com, a website which lets entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists. Writer Max Chafkin makes four guesses: Gawker Media publisher and Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton; Digg founder Kevin Rose; Blogger and Twitter founder Evan Williams; and blog blowhard Jason Calacanis. Asked by Chafkin, Calacanis denied being "Ted," the mysterious man behind the site. A curious stance, since until recently, Calacanis was eagerly attempting to take credit for TheFunded.com. Never one for subtlety, he told friends of his plan to leak a rumor to Valleywag that he was behind the site. Alas, no, Jason: You only wish you were clever enough to come up with an idea like TheFunded.com.

The Mystery Of The Gower Gulch Cavemen

mark · 08/23/07 05:17PM


A little while ago, a representative from ABC's program publicity department wrote in to let us know that the Cavemen-on-the-street shoot encountered by a pair of our readers (whom, by the way, we know not to be affiliated with ABC) at Hollywood's Gower Gulch shopping center yesterday afternoon was not connected with the network's series. Despite our utter confusion about why some guys in Neanderthal make-up and a camera crew not on the network payroll would be chatting up the series (weird!), we are happy to pass along this clarification about ABC's avowed non-involvement in whatever it was going on at the Gulch.

Megan McCarthy · 08/15/07 08:10PM

So, that weird spinny semaphore public art thingy above the Adobe building in San Jose? Apparently it was broadcasting the entire text of Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49. Fun fact: The two dudes who broke the code met when they both attended "a workshop on how to flirt with women." [San Jose Mercury News]

Today We Find Out Who's Going To Publish O.J.'s Book!

Emily Gould · 08/14/07 09:40AM

The publishing industry, or whatever of it isn't at its beach house, is all atwitter today over the news that somebody is going to publish O. J. Simpson's 'If I Did It,' with commentary from the Goldman family, who won the rights to the contested memoir in a lawsuit. Will it be cheesy, slightly shady Atria, home of authors like Jodi Picoult and subway-erotica factory Zane? Or how about Broadway, which publishes everything from Bikini Bootcamp to I Got Your Back ("In a powerful testimony, music legends Eddie Levert and his late son Gerald offer up their father-son bond as a realistic and encouraging example of the healing and renewal that's possible in black families"). Of course there's also Hyperion, the Disney-owned house that usually tries to avoid soiling its hands with this type of thing—even as it prepares to publish You Can Run But You Can't Hide by Dog the Bounty Hunter. Or will it be someone small, some dark horse? Let's all hold our breath together.

Did Jann Wenner Make Sure His Son's Wedding Announcement Didn't Go Online?

Doree Shafrir · 07/03/07 01:40PM

As I perused the New York Times Weddings section on Sunday under the watchful eye of my mother ("Do you know that girl? I thought you might know her. Didn't you go to college with that guy? He's young! I didn't know he was a lawyer!" OMG, shut up, Mom! I'm never coming home again!), I noticed one Alexander Wenner's wedding announcement. He got married in the Hamptons! He's 22! He was an intern at Electronic Arts, the video-game designer! But then when we went to post about it yesterday, it was, mysteriously, not online! Was Jann worried that the internets would post about his son? Hmm! Anyway, we've reproduced the announcement, so you wouldn't miss it. Also, his son really looks like a video game designer, but my mom and dad don't have a scanner (Google Image Search was no help), so you'll just have to trust us on this one. (He doesn't really look like Jann, though. So no help!)