Under pressure from their financial backers to increase profits, “Big Agriculture” uses all kinds of chemicals to increase the yield of their farmlands.  But the processes they use are unsustainable over the long haul.  An organic farmer from Northern California discusses the financial pressures on Big Ag and what it ...

The venture capital Industry has enjoyed relatively good times in the last 3 years, but signs are starting to indicate trouble on the horizon, from liquidity problems to Sarbanes Oxley compliance.  Paul Deninger, Vice Chairman of Jefferies and Company Inc., takes a look ahead and analyzes potential warning signs of ...

Roger McNamee, is Founding Partner of Elevation Partners and a business partner of U2 rock star, Bono.   Around Silicon Valley, McNamee is known as an insightful dealmaker and the consummate power player, but after hours he plays in a rock band called Moon Alice.  His band plays upwards of ...

Roger McNamee, is Founding Partner of Elevation Partners, a business partner of U2 rock star, Bono and a political liberal.  Elevation partners recently took a 40% stake in the parent company of Forbes, creating unlikely mix of political persusations and lifestyles.  He explains why the new “shagggy hair” of the ...

What Do You Think of the Barry Bonds Controversy? A team of local softball “experts” provides the definitive word on whether Barry Bonds deserves to be known as the greatest home run hitter of all time, how fair the press has been to him and whether or not there is ...

“Big Agriculture” is under pressure from their financial backers to increase profits, so they use all kinds of chemicals to increase the yield of farmlands. But in so doing, some say they are degrading the quality of the soil and jeopardizing the future productivity of one of America’s most valuable ...

Using a radically new “Miracle Green Diet” consisting primarily of green vegetables, green tea and avocados, this amazing woman actually cut her weight in half in just two weeks, achieving a shapely figure where before there had been plentiful bulge. Consult your dietary guru, however, before using these green dietary ...

Amazing new advances in alternative transportation have opened up new vistas for those who are looking to save energy, cut down on emissions and improve mobility. Embraced by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, it’s an electric scooter for use in pedestrian areas called the Segway Human Transporter. You can even play ...

In August 2005, Yahoo! bought a 40-percent stake in a Chinese B2B Internet company called Alibabba.com. Patric Douglas, CEO of Sharkdiver.com and Guadalapuefund.org, alleges that Alibaba.com has been a world leader in supplying B2B shark fin sales (to the detriment of millions of sharks worldwide). The subject of shark fining ...

Suzanne DiBianca, executive director of the Salesforce Foundation, talks about the innovative practices and principles of integrated corporate philanthropy evangelized in a new book, “The Business of Changing the World.” The book is co-authored by Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, Steve Case, founder of America Online and a galaxy of ...

Suzanne DiBianca is the executive director of the Salesforce Foundation. Here, she talks about how she and Salesforce.com Founder Marc Benioff worked together to create a new model of “integrated philanthropy.” Their so-called “one-one-one model” seeks to leverage each of the three core components of the company — employee ...

Bill Tai, general partner with Charles River Ventures, is an avid kiteboarder. He talks about the excitement and dangers of the sport and how the sport has evolved from windsurfing. He talks about leaping off the waves skimming across the water and the complete sense of freedom he feels when ...

Bill Tai, general partner with Charles River Ventures, talks about what made Google a unique and compelling investment opportunity. He explains what VCs look for in an entrepreneur and a startup idea. He says VCs are looking for ideas that have the potential to disrupt an entire industry and an ...

Bill Tai, general partner at Charles River Ventures, gives an update on the success of CRV Quickstart, a unique financing vehicle that Charles River announced last Fall that attracted a lot of interest in the entrepreneurial community. Bill talks about the trends in VC investing that make smaller, earlier stage ...

Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint, talks about the role of a CEO and the need for setting a clear sense of direction, good listening, creating realistic expectations, prioritizing time and keeping everyone in the company working from the same page. This is part four of a four-part podcast.

Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint, talks about his moment of epiphany, when a friend who was battling cancer felt the need to reach out to a community of others in similar situations, but didn’t know where to turn. That seed of an idea eventually became Wetpaint, his Seattle-based startup that ...

Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint, talks about the broad trends that have given rise to the exploding market for user-generated content and how wikis are now starting to take some market share away from blogs because they put less onus on the creator and invite broader participation in the process ...

Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint, a Seattle-based startup, has created a Website that enables anybody to create a wiki without any technical expertise or significant time investment. He explains how wikis create a sense of user engagement and why both individuals with a particular passion and major brands are ...

Daphne Kwon and her husband, Bill Hildebolt, CEO and president of ExpoTV, discuss the important considerations in hiring the first few employees of a startup and why it can make or break a company. This is the fifth of a five part series.

Daphne Kwon and her husband, Bill Hildebolt, CEO and president of ExpoTV, talk about the unique challenges of running a startup with your spouse as your business partner. According to Hildebolt, it’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but the rewards can be great, not just in a ...

Business models for new media companies are evolving rapidly. In this third part in a series, find out why Daphne Kwon and her husband, Bill Hildebolt, CEO and president of ExpoTV, believe that creating a process of engagement with video content can be a gold mine for advertisers. They ...

In part two of a series of conversations with Daphne Kwon and her husband, ExpoTV President and CEO Bill Hildebolt, a discussion of the boundaries between media and commerce. The husband and wife duo says those lines are now blurred in ways that were unthinkable just five years ago, ...

Daphne Kwon and her husband, Bill Hildebolt, CEO and president of ExpoTV, have created a Website that enables consumers who feel passionate about a product to put themselves on camera in self-generated video testimonials. They explain why consumer-generated advertising campaigns are hot in the advertising world now, and explore ...

Chris Larsen gives a personal narrative discussing the perfect storm of Web 2.0 developments that lead to building an eBay like exchange for money, with the backing of the key movers behind eBay.  This is the fourth of a four part series.

Chris Larsen is CEO of Prosper.com, talks about how lenders on prosper.com’s peer-to-peer lending network can mitigate the risk they take while generating a return on their loans. This is the third of a four part series.