As far as technophiles seeking political office go, Jack Dorsey is taking the opposite approach from Sheryl Sandberg.

Ms. Sandberg’s new book may read like the source material for a campaign platform, but on a recent 60 Minutes appearance, she evaded questions about leaning in to the White House. Mr. Dorsey, on Read More

Mark MacLeod, a partner at the Montreal-based seed fund Real Ventures, recently posted a list of venture capitalists to avoid that quickly got passed around Twitter. Don’t take money, he advised, from archetypes like “the banker,” “the name-dropper,” “the dude on 20 boards,” etc.

Those kinds of self-interested parties have been circling around the tech scene for years. But perhaps the downward turn in startup financing is bringing back the sharp elbows that didn’t serve as well in a “party round” atmosphere.  Read More

Something momentous happened yesterday. America, the beautiful–now with higher “flawless quotient” thanks to second couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé–inaugurated a black president for the second time, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day no less. Bangs were swung, shade was thrown, a terrifying parallel universe was kept at bay.

Less importantly, but no less indicative about the direction this country is heading, the inauguration also elevated the “selfie” onto the political stage. Literally.
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Yesterday, Facebook’s gamble on an Apple-esque press event paid off. The public markets punchline debuted “Graph Search,” a feature that recalled its pre-IPO promise. Some dared to wonder if the world’s largest social network, which can often feel like a steady stream of cross-posts from Twitter and Instagram, found a way to make itself “useful.” 


Through an intuitive search bar, users can easily sort all that data buried in “About” sections or deep the Timeline archives. Yelp can’t tell you which Indian restaurants your friends from India like. And, try as Search Plus Your World might, it wouldn’t be able to help you fill a Google+ circle with librarian friends who also like Beyoncé.
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This morning, The Verge published a damning report on an apparent conflict of interest in CNET’s “Best of CES” awards.

The post claimed that CNET’s editorial staff, which votes on the award, crowned Dish Network’s Hopper set-top box device the winner. But before the staff could reveal its decision, CBS–CNET’s parent company–interceded because of litigation filed by CBS and other networks over the Hopper’s ability to skip past commercials. Read More

This week’s cover story for New York magazine is a rather defensive profile of Mark “Watch Out My IPO Pop” Zuckerberg that seems designed to convince readers that Zuck having 57 percent of Facebook voting shares is a great idea. The piece is penned by none other than dotcom champion and Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget. In honor of Mr. Blodget’s reappearance in the mag, we considered opting for a BI classic like “The 25 Hottest Facts from Henry Blodget You Won’t Believe!!!” or even “CONFIRMED: Mark Zuckerberg Is a ‘Brilliant CEO’” as the story sets out to prove.

Unfortunately, the story is a write-around, which means Mr. Blodget didn’t get access to Mr. Zuckerberg–natural during the quiet period. And if you’ve read David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect, seen Zuck sweat on stage with Kara Swisher, perused Ken Auletta’s excellent profile of Sheryl Sandberg, or can name the founders of Andreessen Horowitz, there isn’t much news to report.

We did, however, enjoy Mr. Blodget’s opaque nod to that time he got banned for life from the securities industry for pumping up stocks in public, while he was bad-mouthing them in private:  Read More

It took awhile for the news to migrate up from Belize, but earlier this week John McAfee, the investor, philanthropist, and founder of the McAfee, the less-than-loved antivirus software company, offered up a statement claiming that he forcibly imprisoned by the Belize Gang Suppression Unit (GSU).

“They murdered my dog in cold blood,” he told told News Channel 5 in Belize, adding that 30 armed officers from GSU showed up at his home, took his passport, and arrested him all for a trumped up weapons charge. “It began, innocently enough, with my refusal to donate to the local political boss of the district where I lvied [sic],” he claims. Read More

The head of Joseph Kony, minus his teeth, sells for $1 million. His actual teeth go for $50,000, depending on availability. A little too pricey? How about $100 for a thank you letter from Richard Gere for funding a Tibetan militia to resist Chinese rule. A mere $25 will also get you a personal thank you for donating to build a “discrete tactical vehicle” for U.S. military interrogators.

That’s the nightmarish world depicted by Kickstriker, a hoax built by a group of NYU grad students from the Tisch School’s ITP program for Clay Shirky’s tech communications class. The object of the fake site is to get people to think about “how a world of crowdfunded warfare might not be so far away,” reports Wired.  Read More

The last time we checked in on The Canyons, the micro-budget noir written by Bret Easton Ellis and directed by Paul Schrader, Mr. Ellis was talking up your girlfriend’s favorite porn star James Deen to play one of the film’s leads. A very Post-Empire move, if you ask him. (Not familiar with Mr. Ellis’s theory? Here’s a good rule of thumb: The Hills is Empire, Jersey Shore is post.)

The movie’s financing strategy, however, might be even more low-brow, brilliant. A few hours ago, Braxton Pope, the film’s producer, formerly of Lionsgate, posted a fund-raising campaign for The Canyons on Kickstarter with the goal of raising $100,000. Read More

Update: Forbes reports that Pop Chips ran this same campaign in the UK before launching in that market. The British reaction to it was exactly the same and the spot was pulled after public outcry. "The reasoning seems to come straight from Oscar Wilde and P.T. Barnum (if he actually said “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”)," says Forbes. Wonder if that's the advice Ashton is giving his startups. 

Correction: Just kidding, Pop Chips PR representatives just confirmed to Betabeat that the Forbes report was wrong. The ad went out in both markets simultaneously. The Forbes blogger merely read the UK dates wrong. And yes, as you suspected, no one is going to come out of this looking good. Including bloggers!

Yesterday, Pop Chips unveiled its latest advertising campaign. It involved having spokesman Ashton Kutcher play a variety of characters, including an Indian immigrant named “Raj,” for which Mr. Kutcher painted his face brown and affected an over-the-top accent. Last night, shortly after Anil Dash pointed out that using brownface to hawk bags of potato chips in 2012 was a sign of ingrained racism–and criminally cheeseball–Pop Chips founder and CEO Keith Belling issued an apology on the company blog.

“our team worked hard to create a light-hearted parody featuring a variety of characters that was meant to provide a few laughs,” Mr. Belling wrote in all-lower case. “we did not intend to offend anyone. i take full responsibility and apologize to anyone we offended.” Read More