Watching which way the talent is flowing in Silicon Valley can tell investors a lot. Even if a big brain drain isn't a sure death knell for a major player, it can't be ignored. And during the last couple of years, a lot of talent has been draining out of Silicon Valley icon Google.
Amid rumors that Twitter is considering pursuing another round of venture funding, the microblogging site's co-founder Evan Williams said his company has "a lot of money in the bank," and that its advertising efforts are paying off better than expected.
On Friday, the Justice Department announced it had settled with six tech giants that had made anticompetitive agreements not to poach top employees from each other. That may have been an issue two years ago, but not now as a major talent war rages in Silicon Valley.
Check-in phenom Foursquare just passed 3 million users, a milestone that cements its growing lead in mobile social networking. But how did it outrace competitor Gowalla, which was born at the same time and with arguably better technology? By having the right real world social networks, of course.
Web startups are now so cheap to build out and can fail so quickly that very early stage funding, when angel investors tend to participate, has risen in prominence. Venture capital, which usually enters at a later stage, is playing a shrinking role.
President Obama's $2 billion booster shot for solar is surely good news for the green energy sector. But it may not be enough to counter the drag of a global economic stall that many see coming. Because when other energy prices fall, solar investment tends to dry up.
Intel co-founder Andy Grove wants to induce U.S. firms to rebuild the nation's manufacturing base and boost our employment. So, he proposes a tax on companies that send jobs offshore. It's an intriguing idea, but it needs lots of work.
President Dimitry Medvedev visited California Wednesday to pitch tech CEOs on his plan to establish a Silicon Valley-esque innovation center outside Moscow -- and to lure Russian entrepreneurs back home.
Tesla Motors has plenty of skeptics. But make no mistake: Its sleek sports car has fired up the imagination of Silicon Valley's wealthy trend-setters. This excitement bodes very well for Elon Musk's auto start-up.
Hewlett-Packard announced Tuesday that it was about to invest $1 billion in its enterprise services division -- but it will recover a large chunk of that in the savings it accrues from laying off thousands of workers in the process.
Big bets by Yuri Milner of Digital Sky Technologies on Facebook, Groupon and Zynga have Silicon Valley abuzz. But is his fat wallet inflating values in the Valley?
Well regarded tech entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa warns that talent fleeing the U.S. for India and China is threatening innovation here. But at a popular Valley eatery, you can see -- and hear -- a very different picture of the area's global brainpower.
The American economy has been fueled by technology start-ups. But with Silicon Valley venture investing down, that trend has lost some of its vigor. So Wall Street is turning to China in search of companies to take public in the U.S.
