It’s (Jonathan) Miller time in the tech world — just not at Yahoo
Silicon Valley’s most entertaining parlour game right now is the maneuvering around who will help govern Yahoo.
The latest intrigue centers around former AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller, who was supposed to get a proxy board seat from activist shareholder Carl Icahn. However, that’s apparently not materializing.
AOL, which still has a non-compete clause with Miller, now says Miller can’t be eligible for the seat, numerous reports say. Some argue that this is reversal by AOL, but AOL denies it gave him approval in the first place.
Meantime, Yahoo’s board meeting wasn’t especially entertaining today. Activist shareholder Carl Icahn decided not to attend, nor cause trouble, and he’ll likely be voted onto the board shortly.
Back to Miller. I spoke with Miller earlier this week, ostensibly about his venture firm’s recent investment in Clickability. But of course I had to throw in a question about his Yahoo board seat — assuming his board seat was a done deal — and he made it clear to me it wasn’t.
No decisions have to be made about Yahoo’s board seats until August 15. Maybe Miller will yet get in. Speculation otherwise suggests that he could be the one to engineer an AOL purchase by Yahoo. AOL has reportedly been shopping itself around.
Miller is so much in the mix of things, these days, he’s also been named as a possible candidate to lead Microsoft’s online media efforts — a job he’s reportedly turned down.
In the meantime, here’s a look at what else Miller is up to. He has made numerous investments in online media and advertising companies since leaving AOL, through his new venture firm called Velocity Interactive group. He formed Velocity last fall together with former News Corp executive Ross Levinsohn and parts of erstwhile ComVentures. Velocity, notably, is advised by boutique investment bank Allen & Co that itself helps many Silicon Valley media-focused tech companies raise late-stage funding rounds or sell.
Speaking of board seats and shareholder activism, Velocity and a number of other venture and private equity firms tried to do a hostile takeover of CNET earlier this year, before the online media company was sold to CBS. Miller was one of the activists’ candidates for CNET board seats.
I talked to a Miller representative today, who confirmed that he’s on a lot of boards, but wouldn’t tell me how many or which ones. In lieu of the full list, here’s a certainly-partial one of Miller’s various board seats and investments, based on our previous coverage.
Board seats through Velocity
Crowd Fusion — web publishing platform in stealth mode
Clickable –search ad optimization company
(Note: Both of the above fundings were announced this week)
Publish2 — news aggregator for journalists
Next New Networks — thematic video channels
Broadband Enterprises –online video production and distribution
Angel investments
Launchbox Digital — digital media startup incubator
Lookery — online advertising with a focus on social networks
Miller stays limber through tai chi, and in his younger days racked up humbler experiences doing things like bartending at rock clubs, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article. Given how much his name came up this week, I’m half-expecting to go out to a bar tonight and have him turn around and serve me a beer.
[Miller beer image via Gasoline Alley Antiques; Jon Miller photo via Answers.com]
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.
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