SM: What is Elevation’s investment thesis regarding positioning? Is it still a prosumer play? EB: The Elevation thesis is pretty simple. It basically says that smartphone market is at its very infancy, and the arrival of the iPhone is expanding the opportunity, making it more real to more people. It is very clear that it [...]
Web 3.0 Framework discussion Below is a quick overview of the Web 3.0 framework for the Time Warner sites. We have not gone into the details of all the properties, but you can review the Web 3.0 section of this site for detailed discussions on some of the vertical categories. Context CNN.com stands for News. [...]
SM: How did you fund the first phase for Cashview? RL: We had some Angels. We raised about $1.5M from some friends, which kept us going for a year and a half. I talked to 80 venture capitalist for PayCycle in the Fall of 2000. I had phone conversations with 20, meetings with a dozen, [...]
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) reported its earnings for Q1 2008 in September. Revenue was $4.5 billion, a y-o-y increase of 26%. Its EPS was $0.16, up 28% over Q1 2007. Net income was $840 million, an increase of 25%. Software revenues increased 26% over last year to $3.5 billion with new software license revenues increasing 35% [...]
Vertical Strategy Time Warner operates a host of online properties, which are extremely popular in the US. We will take a look at the Company’s various online verticals below. News CNN.com is among the world’s leaders in online news and information delivery. CNN.com delivers the latest breaking news and top stories on US and World [...]
Palm’s Elevation Partners deal is a smart move to give the cmpany its best shot at a turnaround. Jonathan Rubinstein joins as Executive Chairman, as part of the deal, and the transition is due to happen soon. SM: What about the CEO though? EB: What was critical was to be able to add this talent [...]
Symantec Corporation (SYMC), best known for the whimsical Norton Anti-Virus, provides software and services for information security, availability, compliance, information technology, and systems performance. The company’s mission is to develop and maintain IT leadership in protection from intrusion or exposure. But this leadership is riding on a few new products, and a bunch of old [...]
SM: What is your educational background? RL: I went to school at Stanford and ended up with a Masters in electrical engineering and an undergraduate in economics. When I was looking for a job, a lot of consulting firms came calling. They were saying “Come work with us. You will work 80 hours a week [...]
