Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly May 2, 2011 [via]

That aggressive moose knuckle (male camel toe, dur) in the photo above that John C. Reilly was sporting courtside wasn’t nearly as hard to watch as the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ tragic loss to the Mavericks last night in the Western Conference semifinals series opener. Alas, win or lose, Lakers games are always breeding grounds for budding celebrity bromances. Last night, Reilly and Will Ferrell proclaimed their bro-ffection for one another for all the world to see with this passionate embrace, and their’s is just one of many a famous bromance that has burgeoned alongside the Lakers’ home court. From Bieber to Jacko, courtside bromance knows no limits. It sees no color, age or receding hairline. Let’s take a look at the some of the passion-filled celebrity bromances we’ve watched blossom at Lakers games through the years… Read the full story

He may be down and out, but this man spotted near the 405 has not lost his spark. Based on this photo alone, I already know he has a better sense of humor than most. Now, I’m not saying he didn’t sleep with Lindsay, so this isn’t about irony. This guy is ahead of the curve and using it as a call for sympathy from the masses. Everyone knows engaging in that sort of thing with her is a fast track to misery and compromised physical/mental health. Just look at Wilmer Valderrama. Read the full story

Legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers sat out most of the recent social networking craze, but it’s been catching up quickly over the past year. And the latest addition is Facebook, the social networking crown jewel.

Kleiner is buying as much as $38 million in Facebook stock from other shareholders (which usually means employees and early investors) at a $52 billion valuation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch. That’s slightly higher than the company’s $50 billion valuation when it raised $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs, DST, and Goldman clients in January.

The firm appears to be taking a similar strategy to another big-name firm, Andreessen Horowitz — since they missed out on most of the social networking superstars early on, they’re willing to put a lot more money into them now, at tremendous valuations. And if they can’t invest directly, they’re willing to buy shares on the secondary markets. For example, last fall Kleiner led a $200 million round in Twitter that valued the company at $3.6 billion. Andreessen Horowitz didn’t participate in that round, but it recently purchased more than $80 million in Twitter stock from existing shareholders.

Kleiner was less active on the social Web (with the notable exception of an investment in social gaming giant Zynga) until last year, due to its funding of Friendster and a focus on cleantech investments. Now, however, in addition to these bigger deals the firm has been investing in what it hopes will be the next wave of social networking hits through its sFund, which Facebook has also invested in. (In the photo above, Kleiner partners John Doerr and Bing Gordon bookend a lineup of sFund participants including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.) In fact, Kleiner and Andreessen Horowitz are the two firms that have a stake in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and Groupon.

Companies: Facebook, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

People: Bing Gordon, John Doerr, Mark Zuckerberg

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers sat out most of the recent social networking craze, but it’s been catching up quickly over the past year. And the latest addition is Facebook, the social networking crown jewel.

Kleiner is buying as much as $38 million in Facebook stock from other shareholders (which usually means employees and early investors) at a $52 billion valuation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch. That’s slightly higher than the company’s $50 billion valuation when it raised $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs, DST, and Goldman clients in January.

The firm appears to be taking a similar strategy to another big-name firm, Andreessen Horowitz — since they missed out on most of the social networking superstars early on, they’re willing to put a lot more money into them now, at tremendous valuations. And if they can’t invest directly, they’re willing to buy shares on the secondary markets. For example, last fall Kleiner led a $200 million round in Twitter that valued the company at $3.6 billion. Andreessen Horowitz didn’t participate in that round, but it recently purchased more than $80 million in Twitter stock from existing shareholders.

Kleiner was less active on the social Web (with the notable exception of an investment in social gaming giant Zynga) until last year, due to its funding of Friendster and a focus on cleantech investments. Now, however, in addition to these bigger deals the firm has been investing in what it hopes will be the next wave of social networking hits through its sFund, which Facebook has also invested in. (In the photo above, Kleiner partners John Doerr and Bing Gordon bookend a lineup of sFund participants including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.) In fact, Kleiner and Andreessen Horowitz are the two firms that have a stake in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and Groupon.

Companies: Facebook, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

People: Bing Gordon, John Doerr, Mark Zuckerberg

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers sat out most of the recent social networking craze, but it’s been catching up quickly over the past year. And the latest addition is Facebook, the social networking crown jewel.

Kleiner is buying as much as $38 million in Facebook stock from other shareholders (which usually means employees and early investors) at a $52 billion valuation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch. That’s slightly higher than the company’s $50 billion valuation when it raised $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs, DST, and Goldman clients in January.

The firm appears to be taking a similar strategy to another big-name firm, Andreessen Horowitz — since they missed out on most of the social networking superstars early on, they’re willing to put a lot more money into them now, at tremendous valuations. And if they can’t invest directly, they’re willing to buy shares on the secondary markets. For example, last fall Kleiner led a $200 million round in Twitter that valued the company at $3.6 billion. Andreessen Horowitz didn’t participate in that round, but it recently purchased more than $80 million in Twitter stock from existing shareholders.

Kleiner was less active on the social Web (with the notable exception of an investment in social gaming giant Zynga) until last year, due to its funding of Friendster and a focus on cleantech investments. Now, however, in addition to these bigger deals the firm has been investing in what it hopes will be the next wave of social networking hits through its sFund, which Facebook has also invested in. (In the photo above, Kleiner partners John Doerr and Bing Gordon bookend a lineup of sFund participants including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.) In fact, Kleiner and Andreessen Horowitz are the two firms that have a stake in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and Groupon.

Companies: Facebook, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

People: Bing Gordon, John Doerr, Mark Zuckerberg

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Back in July, we met the principals of Rebellion Research, a new hedge fund described by the Journal as being like a teeny tiny RenTec, sans the cartons of Pall Malls. Founded by Spencer Greenberg, the firm uses “artificial intelligence” to invest, being of the mind that computers = smart, man = stupid, and that trying to go head to head with a computer would be a bad idea (“No human could do this,” Michael Kearns said. “Your head would blow off.”) And speaking of man versus machine, there’s one very important thing missing from the photo at left. In fact, you might call him the “star” of Rebellion.

Naturally we speak of “Star,” Rebellion’s computer and head trader. In a radio interview today, Mr Greenberg, discussed Star’s role in the success of Rebellion (which Greenberg said regulations prevent him from discussing), and then had the balls to add that the firm “always” checks all of Star’s trades “before they go out to the market” and opine that guys like Star will never replace humans in this industry. (Meanwhile, dollars to donuts that there are more than a few people reading who would be happy to seed Big S; he’s got options.)

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Remember that thing I said about New Yorkers being tougher when it comes to weather? Well that goes double for the women of NYC.

This photo was taken from the window of the cab I took into work one morning after I looked up the weather which was was whopping “21° feels like 7°.” [...]

Article courtesy of %source%

This photo was taken in either the back room or main room at Trousdale. Think you know which it is? Find out if you're right HERE and learn about all the differences between the Two Trousdales! MORE>>[...]

Article courtesy of %source%

Image tagging startup Stipple announced today that it has scored $2 million in seed funding, just three months after its launch in August.

The San Francisco-based company lets anyone tag photos on their website, similar to how you can tag photos on Facebook and Flickr. The tags can reference people or products in the photo or can just be fun notes.

If you tag a product, the service figures out the best place to buy it on the web and links your readers directly to it. The company offers a revenue-sharing program for purchases made through its tags, and you can use Stipple’s “People Dots” to alert your friends when they’ve been tagged.

To implement Stipple on your site, you just need to include a small snippet of code. Afterwards, you can use Stipple’s in-line editor to add tags. The service is built to be unobtrusive to your site’s viewers, so the tags don’t appear unless a visitor mouses over an image.

The company announced partnerships with blogging company Six Apart, Jive Records, Atlantic Records, and media company E.W. Scripps at its launch. You can see the service in action in the video below, and it’s also been used on Britney Spears’ website.

The funding round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and Floodgate. Other investors include Naval Ravikant, Eghosa Omoigui, Global Brain Corporation, Quest Venture Partners, Parkview Ventures, John Ferber, Justin Timberlake and Rick Marini. The company says that Mike Maples and Eghosa Omoigui will join its board of directors.

Tags: images, photos, revenue sharing, tagging

Companies: Atlantic Records, E.W. Scripps, Floodgate, Global Brain Corporation, Jive Records, Kleiner Perkins Caufield And Byers, Parkview Ventures, Quest Venture Partners, six apart, Stipple

People: Eghosa Omoigui, John Ferber, Justin Timberlake, Naval Ravikant, Rick Marini

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Our friends at Bridgewater Associates have long loved Halloween and a good Halloween soiree.  In addition to an annual party paid for by the firm, its staff is known to host bunches of get-togethers in the week leading up to the big night, where everyone gets into the spirit. It wasn’t until very recently, however, that they felt comfortable speaking frankly about candy corn and costumes with the outside world. 

For example, one year, let’s call it 2008, a bunch of the ladies of Bridgewater dressed up as “Mortgage Ratings Gone Bad.” Everyone was represented: triple-A, double-D and so on and so forth. People were so excited about the costumes that an innocent photograph of the naughty ratings made their way to a site that chronicles Wall Street. Despite the fact that the picture appeared without naming the firm at which the girls worked, that it was snapped at one of the unofficial gatherings (i.e. not B-Water sanctioned), and that there was no negative commentary, this website’s approval of the general cleverness of the costumes was unappreciated by the firm.

How dare you show our employees dressed up for our most favorite holiday in the world, someone protested. That same someone spent the weekend threatening to sue if the photo was not removed, and once informed that they had no legal right to get it taken down, as there was no defamation but more importantly, they did not own the picture, demanded that the photographer turn over the rights so they could declare copyright infringement. It was upsetting, to say the least. But this story has a happy ending.

That anecdote illustrated Bridgewater’s old attitude about Halloween, for which they should not be faulted. They weren’t ready for non-Bridgewaters to know about their costumes and you can’t push people, like I did, until they’re ready. You have to let them come to things in their own time. Happily, they did just that. Bridgewater’s new attitude, of which we VERY much approve, is to speak openly and honestly about how much their Halloween parties kick ass. In fact, they’re now being used to attract new talent. Business Insider took a looksee at the company’s website and in a new section, several employees have offered testimonials re: how B-Water does H-Ween (among other things) right:

* Nick, on the “best” event at Bridgewater: “The Halloween party. Dressing up in the most offensive costume I could think of won me tickets to anywhere in North America.”

* Joe, on the “best” event at Bridgewater: “My favorite was the first Halloween party three months after I started working here. The costumes were outrageous. The competitive spirit really kicks in when it comes to dressing up. People are really creative every year, and winning a prize for dressing up as the Heisman Trophy a few years ago was a highlight of my Bridgewater experience.”

* Fred, on the “best” event at Bridgewater: “The parties at Bridgewater (holiday, Mardi Gras, summer picnic, and Halloween) are great because they are not stuffy corporate parties, but parties where letting loose is encouraged instead of discouraged.”

* Hassan, on the “best” event at Bridgewater: “The Halloween party, although I don’t remember all of it…”

It goes without saying that we love and support this new policy. Now that we’re all the same page, if anyone would like to share some visuals from this year’s fête, we would be happy to receive them.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker