FACEBOOK FEVER. Facebook (META) is opening an engineering office in New York. “For us this isn’t a satellite office, this is going to be a core part of our engineering stack,” said a company exec today. So how does the still-nascent New York tech scene feel about the arrival of such a giant?
“I mean, Google is freakin’ massive, and they’ve almost had no effect on the community,” Hacker Union head and 10gen engineer Brandon Diamond told us by Gchat. “They’re trying to get out there, but they seem to be awful insular. I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook is the same way… it will probably help more than it hurts. Fb obviously isn’t banking on the ‘tremendous number of hackers living in NYC.’ Instead, I think they believe they’ll be able to woo many new hackers with the added bonus of being in a cool city. It’s a boon.”
As to whether the new office will lure back some of the talent Facebook poached in the form of Drop.io, Hot Potato, Daytum and Mail Rank, but survey says no. “I don’t suspect? Highly doubt it, actually,” says a source, regarding the Hot Potatoes.
CC FAIL. “Note to all: Don’t CC the current CEO on an email that speaks to replacing the current CEO. #idiot,” tweeted Zelkova Ventures’ Jay Levy before Thanksgiving. Crappy way to find out you’ve been terminated, we suppose, but it turns out the CEO was in the clear. Apparently a rogue board member was musing a little too freely on email and indiscreetly copied the founder on an email about firing him. “The rest of the board had 110% confidence in him and asked that board member to remove himself from the board,” said a source familiar with the matter. “Him being the CEO… CEO staying and is going to continue to grow the company into a force in the industry.”
WHITHER THE PARTY? Last week, Betabeat interviewed MessageParty founder and Y Combinator graduate Amanda Peyton for a story about East versus West. We casually dropped by the site and noticed it was a bit of a deadzone; Ms. Peyton herself hadn’t posted in three months, the Twitter account hasn’t tweeted since August, and the last newsletter went out in June. Yikes, we thought, remembering MessageParty’s April pivot. Has the startup bitten the dust? “We are actively considering a few options for the future of the product, though it won’t stay in its current state for much longer,” Ms. Peyton said in an email.
Sean Parker, MAN ABOUT TOWN. Lolol:
He said, ‘Google my name and Lindsay Lohan. You’ll see that a year ago there’s an article written that says she had me kicked out of Bungalow 8.’ He said, ‘I don’t think she had me kicked out… I want to know who [did].’ “Lerner, who knows Lohan socially, agreed to look into the matter. It turns out it wasn’t the Mean Girl but her ex, DJ Samantha Ronson. Satisfied, [Sean] Parker restored Lerner’s profile in just six hours.
STAYING TRUE TO STEREOTYPES. Tumblr’s John Maloney has purchased a new bicycle, which according to engineer Matt Hackett “is attracting quite a crowd. Bikes are flames to moths here in Tumblr HQ.” The hipster startup has a room full of the the things.
ALL YOUR PARTIES ARE BELONG TO US. Send Betabeat your holiday party tips.
