“Jeff Bezos is an unstoppable force! An entrepreneurial mastermind! Unwavering in his confidence!”

Such is the preview video for tonight’s episode of Bloomberg Game Changers, one of my favorite overwrought, over-the-top businesses documentary series.

If past history is a guide, the show will examine in rapid-fire style how the Amazon.com (AMZN) CEO got where he is, what makes him tick, and what his big challenges were, and will punctuate it with dramatic quotes from people who’ve met Bezos, all wrapped up in a kind of hyperbolic tempo leading into every commercial break.

Really, it’s fun, check it out.

The show goes on at 9 pm, Eastern. Usually, Bloomberg posts the full program on their YouTube Channel after the show airs, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, if you can’t catch it tonight, or you don’t have a TV.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Earlier this morning, Jim Paulsen popped by the Squawk Box set (via phone) for a chat about the death of Osama bin Laden. What does it all mean? According to Paulsen, what the US did told the world, “Hey world, we’ve got balls.” Killing OBL should do more to get the confidence back in the markets that was obliterated during the financial crisis than things like “repairing our balance sheets.”

The way JP sees it, Sunday’s move to “cut the head off the snake” was “just the type of thing that adds up to the confidence to spend cash flow and..to feel better about your portfolio and equities in general.” Another reason to feel “bullish on America”? Putting our balls out there means “we don’t have to take crap, if you will, from China or North Korea or anybody. That’s a good feeling overall.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Shares of disk drive maker Seagate (STX) are up 91 cents, or over 6%, at $15.60 after the company this afternoon declared its first-ever quarterly dividend, 18 cents per share, and forecast fiscal Q3 revenue at the high end of a prior forecast and ahead of analysts estimates.

The declaration of the dividend, payable on June 1st to holders of record as of May 2nd, at a current yield of 5%, “reflects the strength of our balance sheet and the exceptional cash generation ability of our business, as well as the confidence that the Board and the management team have in the Company’s ability to generate free cash flow on a sustained basis,” said CEO Steve Luczo.

Seagate now sees Q3 revenue for the three months ended April 1st coming in at about $2.7 billion, at the high end of a forecast for $2.55 billion to $2.7 billion offered during the company’s Q2 conference call back on January 19th, and ahead of the average $2.62 billion estimate of analysts.

Gross profit margin is expected to come in at the high end of the company’s previously announced 18% to 19% range.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Bain Capital Ventures has led an $8.3M investment round in Clovr Media, which has built the first platform that converts banner, text-link, video, or mobile ads into card linked offers.

The company, which aims to pioneer “Loyalty 2.0,” or the next generation of consumer loyalty programs, gives advertisers the ability to offer special discounts to consumers without requiring any payment up front or paper coupons from users. The company works with financial institutions to present offers from select brands to customers via credit and debit cards. The benefit to advertisers is that they can track and measure clicks and spending.

Says Jeffrey Glass, Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures, “Our investment in Clovr reflects our confidence that the card linked offer is the next step in the evolution of digital coupons and loyalty programs. This platform will eliminate the need for paper coupons and elevate the personalization of savings for every participating consumer.”

Competitors in the space include Offermatic, which raised $4.5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Ron Conway, Omar Hamoui and others.

The funding round was led by Jeffrey Glass of Bain Capital Ventures. Clovr Media’s seed round investors Kepha Partners and Common Angels also participated in this round, as well as angel investor Mark Wright. Based in Waltham, Mass, the company had previously raised $1.5M.

Photo via bfishadow on Flickr

Tags: consumer loyalty, deals, discounts, Loyalty 2.0

Companies: Bain Capital Ventures, Clovr Media

People: Jeffrey Glass

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

With bonus season rapidly approaching, one must ask his/herself an important question. This year, you can be one of two people– the guy who takes whatever number is offered him or the guy who picks one out of thin air, regardless of performance, visualizes it and brings it on home. If you want the latter, you can have it. But you’re going to have to allow yourself to be coached by the experts. To that end, today FINS offers a tip on what sort of body language emboldens a person to make big bets or demands.

Subjects who kicked back and threw their feet on a desk or leaned over and planted their hands far apart on a desk for about a minute showed spikes in testosterone, a hormone that cultivates dominant behavior, muscle growth and risk tolerance. At the same time, they showed decreases in cortisol, a hormone that is released as a response to stress. The results were consistent for males and females alike. The research, which was just published in Psychological Science journal, also showed that “high-powered posers” behaved differently and made different decisions based on the hormonal shift. After the initial posing experiment, each of the 42 subjects was given $2 and the choice of gambling the money on a 50/50 chance to win $4. Some 86% of those who had just struck powerful stances took the bet, compared to 60% of the subjects who had been in weaker positions.

Naturally the feet on the desk move can be tailored based on what you’re asking for and how ridiculous it is relative to reality.  Shooting for a unit?  The desk should be your boss’s and you should sweep the papers off it first.  Going for 9 figures when you’ve lost the firm twice that much this year?  Make sure to take your shoes off and go socks only.

That, of course, is just one important element for these talks and only a real fool would hope simply propping his feet up would produce a spectacular bonus, earned or not. The guys cashing the Publisher’s Clearing House-sized checks of their dreams will be following our early tutorial. If you haven’t already, be sure to refresh yourself before going in there.

1. You must–must!– have a wing-negotiator. I don’t care if it’s a first year analyst, an intern, or the receptionist, you need someone who’ll be there to a) back you up but most importantly announce your entrance. You will wait outside the conference room and he/she will go in and let everyone know, “Alright, you suits, prepare yourselves for [your first name]-motherfucking [your last name].”

2. Consider walking in in a manner that conveys to them you have more important shit going on than your bonus negotiations (fielding other offers, reaming out your pimp for hooking you up with a piece of less than Grade A quality meat, etc), like entering in the middle of a phone conversation and giving them the “1 minute” sign.

3. Confidence. You’ve got to have it and you’ve got to show it. Opening lines such as “Listen up you motherfuckers, let me just cut right to the chase. This not my first rodeo. I have signed a hundred other bonus agreements that have been way bigger than this shit, okay? So nobody is going to be fucking bamboozling anyone with this lingo-jingo-fucking mingo” are a good idea.

4. Demands. In addition to the cash and stock portion of your bonus, which you will get, have a list of things your employer needs to do for you on top of that. This shows them a) you’re not messing around b) that you know your worth. A big ass office. Bukakke porn. A motorcycle with a “Fuck You” license plate. Etc. Also, in these times, it’s good to go with stuff they can’t really clawback– a tattoo of a naked Russian chick on your inner arm. Fluffers. You get the drill.

5. Wrapping it up. You entered with intimidation, you leave with it, and on top of that, you grab the boss’s pen or whiteboard marker and you walk out with that too. You are not someone to be trifled with.

If you’re having trouble thinking about how to put all these tips together as a cohesive unit, please do review the following training video that incorporates them all. Read the full story

As previously discussed, CNBC has been running a new series of interviews in which Becky Quick sits down with some financial heavyweight and asks him to discuss the “worst trade” they ever made. While seemingly the stuff of tedious job interviews, wherein applicants are asked to name their worst quality, such as being a workaholic, so far they’ve actually been quite interesting and shined a light on aspects of the subjects’ personalities that have helped shaped their storied careers but may not have been known to the outside world. For instance, Warren Buffett has a love of buxom milkmaids and this morning we learned that Larry Fink would not have gotten to where he is today without a serious stumble that resulted in making the conscious decision to stop second-guessing just how much ass he kicks.

“My first trade was really a function of me,” Fink told Becky. “Back when I was leaving my job at First Boston, I was going through a lot of turmoil…about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to do it…it was pretty clear to me that the buyers of securities didn’t understand the risk of the securities that they were buying, that Wall Street was manufacturing..and so I came up with this idea that we should start an investment management firm that focused on risk management.”

Brilliant idea, right? Unfortunately, Fink “didn’t have the confidence” in himself to start the company. “It was huge self-doubt,” he said pausing for emphasis. “So I went to see Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson at Blackstone and they loved the idea,” because who wouldn’t? Wall Street had never seen anything so awesome. “Within 3 days we came to terms of a partnership. They gave us a 5 million line of credit to start this company and I in turn gave them 40% stake,” Big Lar said, getting choked up at the thought. “They believed in me more than I believed in myself. They made the right investment decision. I didn’t.”

For making the decision to look in the mirror and not see the Golden God staring back at him everyone else saw, Fink paid dearly.

“It was the 35th day of our new company that we got a client on risk management. We started making money about 35 days after that. Within 4 months we started making a profit. And within 6 months we tore up the $5 million line of credit because I didn’t need it. And Blackstone had a 40% interest in a company for free.”

This, Fink says “was the most costly trade I’ve ever done in my life.” He’s not bitter about it, though, nor does he bear any ill-will toward Schwarzman and Peterson and in fact gives credit where credit is due. “It was a great trade for Steve and Pete,” owing to the intel they had that Larry Fink = genius.

Well. Live and learn. And remember: never again. [whispers] Never.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Power-One (PWER) late Tuesday said its board has approved a 10 million share stock repurchase program, which is about 6% of the solar inverter company’s 160 million shares out.
“This repurchase program highlights the confidence we have in our cash flow generation and indicates our ongoing commitment to improving [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Lam Research (LRCX) late Friday announced that it will buy back up to $250 million of its common stock. The company had $992 million in gross cash and equivalents as of June 27.
In a statement, CEO Steven Newberry says the move “illustrates our confidence in the continued growth and [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Listen up, people. It’s never to early to start talking year-end bonuses and in order to ensure you’ll be making it rain, today we’re going to talk about this: strategy. Pick a number, any number. Visualize that number. What is it? A unit? A buncha units? You want it? You can have it, so long as you arm yourselves with the tools to go get it. This is an organic conversation in which you should feel free to toss ideas of your own but to get things started I’m going to offer a bunch of tips I’ve picked up in conversations with seasoned vets. Such as:

1. You must–must!– have a wing-negotiator. I don’t care if it’s a first year analyst, an intern, or the receptionist, you need someone who’ll be there to a) back you up but most importantly announce your entrance. You will wait outside the conference room and he/she will go in and let everyone know, “Alright, you suits, prepare yourselves for [your first name]-motherfucking [your last name].”

2. Consider walking in in a manner that conveys to them you have more important shit going on than your bonus negotiations (fielding other offers, reaming out your pimp for hooking you up with a piece of less than Grade A quality meat, etc), like entering in the middle of a phone conversation and giving them the “1 minute” sign.

3. Confidence. You’ve got to have it and you’ve got to show it. Opening lines such as “Listen up you motherfuckers, let me just cut right to the chase. This not my first rodeo. I have signed a hundred other bonus agreements that have been way bigger than this shit, okay? So nobody is going to be fucking bamboozling anyone with this lingo-jingo-fucking mingo” are a good idea.

4. Demands. In addition to the cash and stock portion of your bonus, which you will get, have a list of things your employer needs to do for you on top of that. This shows them a) you’re not messing around b) that you know your worth. A big ass office. Bukakke porn. A motorcycle with a “Fuck You” license plate. Etc. Also, in these times, it’s good to go with stuff they can’t really clawback– a tattoo of a naked Russian chick on your inner arm. Fluffers. You get the drill.

5. Wrapping it up. You entered with intimidation, you leave with it, and on top of that, you grab the boss’s pen or whiteboard marker and you walk out with that too. You are not someone to be trifled with.

If you’re having trouble thinking about how to put all these tips together as a cohesive unit, please do review the following training video that incorporates them all. Read the full story

$$$ What Does Wall Street Really Want From Ben Bernanke? [CNBC]

$$$ U.S. to Let Tax Cuts For Wealthy Expire [WSJ]

$$$ Geithner Sees `Basic Confidence‘ in U.S. Economy [Bloomberg]

$$$ How To Get A Body Like Beyonce [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker