Here’s the latest roundup of tech stuff:
Nestle’s CEO needs to get head checked — Or at least, that’s what Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla caustically suggested in response to Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe’s comments at Davos. Brabeck-Letmathe (pictured left) said global warming doesn’t much matter, Al Gore deliberately omitted contradictory information from his movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” and the world would be better off using money it is spending to comply with the Kyoto Protocol to improve water supplies. “He should see his proctologist to find his head,” said Khosla, “and you can quote me.” (Via Fortune)
China’s Internet revolution lessons — Is all about entertainment, and mobile IM. That’s the lesson taught by China’s hottest Internet company, Tencent, and its 35-year-old co-founder, Ma Huateng. It’s also a lesson U.S. companies are slow to learn. Story in NYT. Its mobile instant-messaging service, “QQ,” has reached more than 100 million users, or nearly 80 percent of the market.
Jason Calacanis’s new start-up – The founder of media company Weblogs, now working as an Entrepreneur in Residence at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, is starting another company, apparently called 20.com. PaidContent has the scoop. It has backing from Sequoia, Mark Cuban (an investor in Weblogs) and reportedly another big unnamed media company. It wants to develop an “online talent network, possibly as video blogs, podcasts and others, with the owners/talent given equity into the new company, as well as revenue cut from the ad sales.” Calacanis also plans a joint conference with Techcrunch.
Microsoft’s new Vista operating system may corrupt iPod — Details here.
Update on MontaVista — We talked with MontaVista’s chief executive Tom Kelly about the staff cuts we reported last week. He said fewer than ten people have been replaced, and the changes began when Kelly first took over the reins in June. The company’s Linux operating system has great promise, he said, but the company needed to market its product more aggressively, he added, and so he made several key hires. He brought on Rusty Harris to lead field operations, Larry Slotnick as head of engineering (from Palmsource) and Bill Seawick as chief marketing officer. Sales are up 40 percent over the previous year, Kelly told VentureBeat, driven by a strong fourth quarter– suggesting the strategy is working, he said.
San Carlos, Palo Alto going WiFi? — The latest cities getting close to signing up to the Silicon Valley-wide WiFi network. Details on their limited testing here.
The latest deals — Reminder to check out our Newswire. Today, we have stories on the bio-degradable clothes hanger company, Hanger Networks, and Akamai’s acquisition of Netli, among others.
Force10 Networks eats gobbles up more cash — The San Jose provider of 10-gigabit ethernet network and switching gear has raised $60 million more in its sixth round of capital. It had already raised about $53 million, bringing the latest round to $113 million. This brings the company’s total funding to more than $400 million, making it one of the most cash-absorbent companies around. Time to go public, already.
The Superbowl ads, ranked — Where else? On YouTube. Consensus seems to be the ads weren’t that great this year.
2 Comments
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Dan F. said:
It is nice to see the issue of global warming being discussed at such high levels. It will help increase public awareness of this important issue. The world has to look at the big picture and face reality before we reach the tipping point. We spend endless hours on retirement planning and estate planning. It is all moot if the dire predictions of global warming come true.
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Jamie B. said:
Global warming is a very serious yet complex issue. Companies like Nestle get a lot of attention from the NGOs like Greenpeace because they are such global entities. Global warming is also more complex than portrayed by Gore though his book and movie were very compelling and well done. Resource depletion, pollution, water quality, overcrowding, disease, etc. are all equally important problems that all start at the same place - there are 6.5 billion people in the world that are consuming all they can without regard for the earth we live in and with no way to replenish itself. The vast oceans are even polluted. The US is particularly bad, but so are remote places like China and India - do you think they are reclaiming refrigerant on equipment that stops functioning? Not a chance. They vent it, toss it, etc. which is more to the point of why the Kyoto protocal is fairly useless. Kind of like locks for honest people, you have to want to or know how to comply. There is no one problem on this earth to point at for global warming, nor is there a single answer. It is an intertwined complex problem that has been developing for decades. It will take a global and systematic effort to mitigate stop or reverse global warming, if it even can be at this point. If you have ever researched global warming, you will realize that all of the refrigerant that a Nestle expels in a year is a paltry amount compared to the methane given off from cattle, cars, etc. That doesn’t mean the CEO is right nor does it mean he isn’t an idiot. As someone who worked on global warming for the Coca-Cola Co. and who has a scientific background, I can see both sides. I think Khosla may have misinterpreted the points to a certain extent, and the Nestle CEO should be smarter than to make himself a target like that. Maybe he has been watching Bush make speeches. Cheers, J
