Category: Tech news

GM is banking large on the Chevy Volt and apparently feels confident about its success. The auto maker just issued a statement, which conveniently coincides while President Obama is touring the assembly plant, detailing the increased production estimate for 2012. The Detroit-Hamtramck facility will now pump out 50% more than previously detailed, an increase to 45,000 from 30,000.
Chances are this production bump is dependent on a successful roll-out of the first 10,000 vehicles slated to hit dealers later this year. If the $41,000 Volt quickly flops, then GM will probably scale the production numbers back to the initial estimate or less.

>>Groupon Clone Script<<

Just $89, Full Featured ,Paypal, Tweet Machine

According to Groupon CEO Andrew Mason who is on stage right now at Social Currency CrunchUp, the breakout deals site Groupon was originally a side project Mason started in order to make money, “We tried a zillion things” Mason said.

Including a cheesy-sounding slippers with flashlights deal, which Mason describes as “act of desperation, pretty impressive considering that the company is currently making $365 million in revenues, a million a day according to our sources. Mason gave no thought whatsoever as to whether or not it would work.

With Groupon now in over 170 cities in over 22 countries, its come a long way from flashlight slippers, and Mason aspires to one day be a replacement for the classic city guide, “We’re focused on creating a market as efficient as possible with regards to getting as much exposure to local business as possible.”

From the humble slipper beginnings, to currently selling deals on laser eye surgery, Mason has not just created a business, he’s created an entirely new business model, now with over 500 clones. Couponing is currently the hottest thing on the internet; Asking the CrunchUp audience whether or not they had bought a Groupon deal Mason joked, “Raise your hand if you’ve only bought a Groupon so you could figure out how to clone us?”

Update: The original slippers with flashlights Groupon, below.

Photo: Uneasysilence

Today, during our Social Currency CrunchUp, angel investor Ron Conway had some interesting data to share for the first time. Conway says that his company, SV Angel, has recently done an audit on the over 500 companies they’ve invested in over the past 12 years. And he was surprised with the results.

Conway expected it would show that about one-third of companies fail, one-third get investors their money back, and one-third bring a 2x to Google-x return (Conway invested in Google early on). But that’s not the case. Conway noticed that during the Internet Bubble in 1997 to 2001 — the failure rate (startups that go out of business and the investors get nothing) was a staggering 77 percent. “It was catastrophic,” he said.

But things improved. The failure rate in recent years — since 2002 — has dropped to about 40 percent, Conway says. He makes sure to note that that’s just his portfolio — which they’re picky about. They only invest in about one of every 40 companies they see.

Conway notes that he was able to make it through the Bubble years because of a very few smart investments in Google, PayPal, and others that also took place at that time. “We were lucky, others weren’t,” he notes.

He also notes that entrepreneurs have a 66 percent chance of being successful on a startup if it’s their second one. But that’s also partially because they’re often doing a second startup if they were successful the first time around.

All that said, Conway notes that his data shows that regardless of the time period — Bubble or Boom — the rate of very successful outcomes has stayed roughly the same. With that in mind, “anytime is a good time to start a company,” he concludes.

Conway says there is a misconception that “every 10 years we get a Google.” “That’s not true,” Conway says. He notes that AskJeeves came, then six years later, Google came. But then six years after that was Facebook. And now the big companies are coming faster. After Facebook, it was only four years until Twitter came around. Then it was two years later that Foursquare, Zynga, and others have come along. “Great companies are being created at a much greater rate,” Conway says.

You can watch the rest of the Social Currency CrunchUp live here.

Google has been cleared of any wrongdoing relating to Wi-Fi snooping in the UK. Well, partially cleared. The country’s Information Commissioner’s Office, whose job is to “uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals,” has said that “it is unlikely that Google will have captured significant amounts of personal data” during its Street View mappings.

Today at our Social Currency CrunchUp in Palo Alto, CA, Michael Arrington sat down with investors Ron Conway and Paul Graham. Obviously, these are two of the biggest names in early-stage investing (with SV Angel and Y Combinator, respectively).

Both Conway and Graham had some interesting data to share. Conway, in particular, was able to give some great numbers because he’s recently done an audit on the over 500 companies he’s invested in over the past 12 years.

You can also follow the full Social Currency CrunchUp live here.

Below find my live note (paraphrased):

MA: Ron Conway is the founder of SV Angel which is a $10 million angel fund.

RC: Over 500 companies I’ve invested in.

MA: Ron has some new data to share today that he hasn’t shared before. It will be great to hear that data. Paul Graham is the co-founder of Y Combinator. You guys have funded 212 companies?

PG: 208 companies. 72 companies a year now. First investment was in 2005.

MA: Yesterday was the Angel Conference. 8-10 super angels were speaking, then me. I presented an argument that perhaps Y Combinator and angel investors were destroying Silicon Valley. Ron wants to rebutt that argument. The “Dipshit” argument.

RC: Well referring to these entrepreneurs as dipshits is bullshit. It’s bullshit in my opinion. It takes a lot of guts and passion to start a company. There’s too many M&A in the $25 to $50 million dollar range. Some of them could have been building the next huge company — but they sell too soon. But that’s the entreprenuers decision to make. But the real fallacy is that it’s hurting Silicon Valley. Because the exits are going up it’s helping.

PG: Around 10% or a little more get series A round from VC funds. Anyone who gets that knows they can’t sell for $25 million.

MA: What about the other 90%?

PG: Well most go to angels, the 10% is just from actual VCs. So everything you said if false.

MA: Let’s talk about Mint. Ron you had a stake. Sold for $175 million to Intuit. There’s an argument they could have not sold and become the next Intuit. Some VCs wanted them to take money off the table instead. Same with Aarvark. Investors were begging them to keep going. Isn’t that a bad thing?

RC: Well they’re good examples, but they didn’t stop hiring after being bought. Their parent companies now have a lot more money. And it’s about scaling the idea — much easier now.

MA: There’s been a trend in deals. Facebook has 5 or 10 in the pipeline right now. A small amount of cash, and no stock — but the employees get stock. Some investors complain this is ridiculous — to fund a hiring process for Facebook.

PG: The way to make money isn’t on these small deals anyway.

MA: But if they get a tenth of percent in options — that’s a big deal.

PG: That sounds wrong.

MA: I”m never wrong.

RC: I have another ulterior motive. Founders of Hot Potato, FriendFeed, and Parakey won’t be at Facebook their whole lives. An entrepreneur is an entrepreneur.

MA: Let’s talk data. Paul you have enough companies now to predict if a startup will be successful. Ron, we talked about your recent audit with investments over 12 years. And you were suprrised. You thought it would be different.

RC: I’ve invested in 500 companies over 12 years — there’s a ton of data. People ask all the time what’s the success rate. 1/3 fail, 1/3 you get money back, 1/3 you get 2x to Googlex — I THOUGHT. That’s not accurate. If you go back to the bubble: 1997-2001 — the failure rate (out of business investors get nothing) was 77%. It was catastrophic. But we got Google, PayPal, etc. We were lucky. Others weren’t. That failure rate has plummeted to closer to 40% now. That’s post-Bubble from 2002 to today.

PG: But the failure rate is going to be much higher overall. This is just your portfolio.

RC: That’s right. Just our portfolio that we picked closely from. Repeat entrepreneurs have a 66% of being successful on startup #2.

MA: Does it matter if they were successful the first time?

RC: Well 70% of those companies had a successful first exit. Funny how that works.

RC: A high percentage had huge flame outs too. A third.

MA: What’s the average age of investment?

RC: I don’t know. It’s 25 and under.

PG: Ours is 26 — yours have to be older.

MA: What’s the ROI been?

RC: I haven’t shared that — probably never will. There’s more money coming in. Two more data points: entrepreneurs who start a company, regardless of the climate — since 2002 to today — we’ve had ups and down. Entrepreneurs have the same chance of success — Anytime is a good time to start a company.

MA: Who is the coolest entrepreneur you’ve ever met?

RC: I’m gonna dodge that bullet and say Shawn Fanning. He’s started 3 companies.

MA: Zuckerberg vs. Fanning in the startup pit. He takes him out at the knees right?

RC: Zuck has grown in maturity at an algorithmic scale. He’s a leader. You are a different person than you were 6 months ago. One other point that I think is interesting. People are saying ‘every 10 years we get a Google.” That’s not true. I invested in AskJeeves, then came Google. 4 years later was Facebook. 2 years later was Twitter. 2 years later was Foursquare, Zynga, etc. Great companies are being created at a much greater rate. Awesome news for entrepreneurs. Giant companies every 2 years.

MA: Paul your data has helped you pick entrepreneurs.

PG: We haven’t had enough exits. We noticed that 4 person teams have done badly. We’re not for sure why, but I have a theory. 2 and 3 is good but 1 isn’t great. We’ll fund them, but 2 and 3 is optimal

MA: What about 2 if they’re dating.

PG: It depends. If they stay together. Or if they’re married.

MA: What if you’re gay?

PG: So far it’s all good.

MA: Women?

PG: Only 14 women out of 450 so far. But that’s just because of the applicant pool.

Google has added weather data to its Google Earth application. As of now, the new feature only supports locations in North America and parts of Europe.

Product: Pedestal Fan

Manufacturer: Dyson

Wired Rating: 8

Let’s just get this out of the way upfront: This thing looks an upgraded version of the Guardian in the classic Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.” And I’m pretty sure sticking your hand through it could have more or less the same outcome.

But if you can’t resist the temptation to put your hand (or head) though the gaping hole from whence forced air magically appears from the Pedestal, at least you won’t get carved up by those pesky blades that have been the essence of every other electric fan since the device was invented in the 1800s.

The Dyson Pedestal (and the Tower, which we haven’t evaluated yet) are the newest iterations of the Dyson Air Multiplier series introduced last year as desktop devices. And they’re just in time too. We got one in to test-drive during what’s proving to be one of the hottest summers on record (in New York, at least).

Dyson claims its “Air Multiplier” technology, which doesn’t use conventional blades, “generate smooth, uninterrupted airflow with no unpleasant buffeting.” I must say, it is a pleasant experience sitting in front of the Pedestal but I can’t say the $50 floor fan I bought last week is unpleasant. And if that one buffets I have either not noticed or don’t care or am not a sufficiently sophisticated air current aficionado.

Admittedly there is a fair amount of science involved here — suffice it to say this is as inventive as the Dyson vacuum cleaner, which (you will pardon the expression) redefined suck by showing how much other vacuums sucked. (Full disclosure: I’ve owned a Dyson DC25 Animal for many years. The Dyson Pedestal is a review copy).

Just as the Dyson vacuum got rid of the bag and thus the baggage of vacuuming, the beauty of this beast is the singular lack of rotating blades — indeed, there are no (visible) moving parts unless you turn on the 90-degree oscillation.

But there are reasons to own one. Knocking it over won’t cause the fan to become uncalibrated. No flimsy wire cover will pop off, presenting a theoretical danger to small children, pets and inebriated guests (or hosts). It’s dead simple to assemble and very easy to clean. No troublesome knob to keep it from oscillating. There’s even a fingertip control for adjusting the angle — no heavyset screw.

But a possession like this is more about the aesthetic or even minor ease-of-use advantages, and there’s no reason to apologize for sometimes placing a high value on style. The truth is that some people need a fan but wouldn’t be caught dead leaving one out for “company” to see. This fan will get a prominent place in a living room and a lot of use.

No, the Dyson Pedestal will not be hastily stuffed into a closet when one is entertaining. In fact, I can imagine some Mr. Smooth showing it off to his date like the iPad he casually left on the coffee table and the Montblanc Meisterstück 149 piston fountain pen he never fails to carry (or use).

Just make sure that when you are putting the moves on, you avoid the phrase, “Hey, stick your hand in here!”

WIRED Really pretty and blasts air like you really would not believe. Assembles in seconds with no tools. Adjusts for height and angle. Three-button remote is stylish and thin — it runs on a watch battery — and even stands on end.

TIRED $450. For a fan. Mr. Dyson, you are brilliant, iconic, elusive and mysterious. But do you also have to be Steve Jobs? Noted: Your top-of-the-line wind machine is cheaper than an entry-level iPad, but not by much.

Product: HZ35W

Manufacturer: Samsung

Wired Rating: 5

Take a compass on a trip and you’ll spend a lot of time wandering around trying to find out which way is north. Take a camera with a built-in GPS receiver and you’ll get tons of tasty geotagged photos that can be automatically dropped onto interactive digital maps in programs such as Apple’s iPhoto or Aperture.

The problem is, not all GPS cameras are created equal. While testing several models on a five-borough photo tour in New York City, we got some interesting results, to say the least.

Is Nathan’s Hot Dogs in Kyrgyzstan? The GPS-enabled 12-megapixel Samsung HZ35W certainly seemed to think so, placing Coney Island’s culinary landmark in the mountains of Central Asia when we pulled our images into Apple Aperture 3’s “Places” mapping feature. When the same thing happened with a replacement camera, we switched to Apple’s iPhoto, which also has Places, and the geotagged photos were dropped properly into a map of New York City. Go figure.

Despite the glitch, the slightly chunky Samsung camera had the most extensive GPS features of the models we tested including Map View mode which displays your location and where your photos were taken on a map on the camera’s 3-inch LCD. The mapping feature on our camera confusingly defaulted to Washington, D.C., though, showing us walking down F Street instead of 181st in Washington Heights. (Once the camera locked in on the GPS signal, the map switched to the current location.)

Images captured by the HZ35W were only so-so with oversaturated color and blurry edge detail. We loved the 15x optical zoom though, which went as wide as 24mm for capturing landscapes and bridges.

WIRED GPS turns on easily with a switch on top of the camera. Displays current city, state and country on LCD in shooting mode. Map View will tell you where all the local Starbucks, McDonald’s and Bank of America ATMs are.

TIRED GPS antenna is placed where you put your forefinger on the camera, potentially blocking the signal. Must download maps from Samsung website and store on memory card in camera to use Map View mode. Slowest GPS camera we tested.

Product: Swiss Army Dive Master 500 Chrono

Manufacturer: Victorinox

Wired Rating: 8

Who needs concrete shoes to sink a body to the bottom of the ocean when there’s the Victorinox Swiss Army’s Dive Master 500?

This quarter-pounder (actually 4.7 ounces) of eye-grabbing design and Swiss engineering takes its name from its 1650-foot water resistance. Yes, you read that right; the Dive Master 500 sucker is capable of descending over a quarter mile below the surface where it will still function. To put it in perspective, you could break the world record for deepest scuba dive (1,083-feet) and still drop the distance of almost two football fields before the watch (or you) malfunctioned.

The Dive Master’s heft and diving prowess are only part a Davey Jones’ Locker full of geeky features. There are central 60-second and 60-minute counters, a 12-hour counter and a data calendar. A bi-directional rotating bezel helps calculate how long you stay underwater or, for us, how much money was left on the parking meter in front of the Y.

Some might complain that the orange-on-orange might be look like a neo-Pantone^TM nightmare, but it actually serves a purpose. When you’re six feet underwater or several hundred), things get dim, but a bright watch (complete with luminescent hands and hour markers) is easy to read in murky situations.

We dig the Dive Master 500, but it’s not really for day-to-day wear. This is a watch for people who spend a good portion of their lives under the sea and hooked to scuba gear. Still it’s an elegant timepiece that can survive a drop to some seriously deep depths, even if you don’t.

WIRED Endlessly elegant Swiss precision. Can handle aquatic pressure over a quarter mile down. Multiple functions. Insanely cool, if not ostentatious, design.

TIRED Is that a boat anchor on your arm, or are you just happy to see me?

Product: Clevo W880CU

Manufacturer: AVA Direct

Wired Rating: 6

Seeing — and lifting — the AVA Direct Clevo W880CU brings back fond memories of days gone by. Those were the days when laptop makers didn’t give a flip about how big and bulky their laptops were, as long as they managed to wedge every last state-of-the-art component into the system. Battery life didn’t matter and neither did looks. Also irrelevant was price: Gaming nuts would pay upwards of five grand for these machines.

In recent years, the market has changed, as vendors have managed to get high-end components into slimmer, sexier chassis and keep prices headed downward, too. Today, you can get a top-performing laptop without the bulk and without much effort.

And so the Clevo W880CU arrives, a machine trapped in the past, despite modern amenities bolted onto it, including a USB 3.0 port, 1080p display and a pre-release version of Nvidea’s new GeForce GTX 480M graphics card. Under the hood, just about everything else is up to snuff, too: 1.73-GHz Core i7 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 500-GB hard drive. About the only piece lacking, on paper at least, are a Blu-ray drive (the 1080p screen isn’t nearly as dazzling with old DVDs), and a brightness upgrade on said LCD — it’s the dimmest screen we’ve seen in more than a year.

Performance-wise, the W880CU is top-notch. Both general apps and gaming benchmarks set records, if by very small margins — both about 5 percent higher than our former record-holder, the BFG Deimos X-10 we tested back in October. However, it’s worth noting that the Deimos cost $1,500 more than the W880CU, weighed 13 pounds, and had to use two GTX graphics cards to achieve its numbers; the Clevo only needs one to muscle its pixels around.

While the W880CU is awfully fast, you’re unlikely to fall in love with its usability or looks. The trapezoidal case design is hopelessly dated and difficult to work with, the numeric keypad bafflingly puts the right arrow key where the “0” key should be, and numerous ports (including the power adapter) are hidden behind a giant, hinged flap on the back of the laptop. Seriously, a flap?

In our testing, the W880CU also suffered from instability that, while not quite massive, was serious enough to force us through several reboots during testing. Merely playing a DVD managed to crash the computer in colorful fashion, and the whole machine vibrates dangerously when a disc is spinning. A collection of sporadic, random error messages didn’t instill additional confidence, either.

Driver upgrades and patience may help matters, but that’s asking a lot from someone who has shelled out $3,000 for ultimate performance.

WIRED Dazzling speed when the system isn’t crashing on you. Don’t laugh, but it’s reasonably portable (8.6 pounds) and affordable (under $3K ) for this category.

TIRED Somewhat unstable. Record-setting (on the short side) 40-minute battery life. Janky design: No, really, a flap?

Product: Cyber-Shot DSC-HX5V

Manufacturer: Sony

Wired Rating: 8

The days of forgetting where you took a photo are over. The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX5V, and several other cameras we tested recently, has built-in GPS receivers to geo-tag your shots so you can show jealous friends your globetrotting exploits and never lose track of what side of an international border you were on.

Though it works exceptionally well, the Sony HX5V doesn’t exactly flaunt its GPS chops. In fact, if it weren’t for the picture of a satellite on the side of the camera, you might not even know this slick little pocket shooter had a GPS receiver inside its black metallic body. The camera’s GPS feature itself is similarly stealth: You have to dig through menus just to turn it on and it can take up to a minute to lock in on a signal. This is kind of annoying.

Once we switched on sat-tracking, though, the 10.2-megapixel HX5V geotagged our shots with sniper-like accuracy during a five-borough photo tour in New York City. Reception is charted in bars on the camera’s large 3-inch LCD screen so it’s easy to tell how strong the GPS signal is. Unfortunately, New York’s skyscrapers (and even the comparatively squat Madison Square Garden) knocked out the reception, so our photos of the Empire State Building were left untagged. (Not a biggie though. Most people know it’s in NYC.)

Along with GPS, the HX5V has a few more tech tricks up its sleeve. When we got lost in Brooklyn during our photo tour, the camera’s digital compass on the LCD led us north toward our final stop in Queens. Image quality was also near the best of four other GPS-enabled cameras we tried, thanks to several helpful features like the multishot high dynamic range (HDR) mode, which combined highlight and shadow detail of two late-afternoon shots of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge into one evenly balanced photo.

WIRED GPS automatically sets the camera’s clock depending on the time zone you’re traveling in. Intelligent Sweep Panorama captures wide or tall subject matter — think Grand Canyon or the Sears Tower — just by pressing the shutter and sweeping the camera in front of you. Records full 1080p HD video in popular AVCHD format with stereo sound.

TIRED GPS signal quickly surrendered to buildings or even overhanging trees. Doesn’t display nearby place names or points of interest during playback. Confusing menu system makes adjusting GPS setting a chore.

Every big publisher on the Web wants to be able to serve up ad-friendly videos, but creating them can be a pain. But there are already plenty of high-quality videos out there in every subject imaginable. With that in mind, Answers.com has quietly launched Video Answers with about 200,000 videos from video distribution network 5min on everything from home repair and fashion tips to cars and travel.

5Min is already one of the largest video networks, with more than 110 million video views a month and 30 million unique visitors across 800 partner sites. But Answers.com will become its biggest partner by far. 5Min syndicates videos from about 1,000 online video producers, including CBS, Hearst, Scripps, and WatchMojo. Anytime one of 5Min’s videos matches a question asked on Answers.com, WikiAnswers, or ReferenceAnswers, video results will show up and they will play on the new Video Answers page. Advertising revenues will be split between Answers.com, 5Min, and the video publisher, with roughly a third going to each.

“What we are really building here is ability for every publisher to have their own video section without producing because I think there is no ROI for production,” says CEO Ran Harnevo. The videos in his network are all in highly-targeted, evergreen niches like yoga or food videos with low double-digit CPMs. Video producers ca extend their reach beyond their own sites by syndicating with 5Min and make some extra cash.

5Min’s model contrasts with Demand Media’s, which produces its own videos at $50 or so a pop and shows them on eHow and its portfolio of search-friendly niche sites. AOL also wants to get into this game with its recent acquisition of Studio Now. But 5Min’s philosophy is to let others produce the best videos, and focus on distributing them at scale, while splitting the downstream revenues. “Destinations are just not big enough today,” he says.

For some time now, Twitter has been working on a new API: the Twitter Streaming API. The idea behind it is to allow third-party Twitter clients to receive continuous tweet updates in realtime. As developer advocate Taylor Singletary notes today on the Twitter Development Talk Google Group, limited testing of this new feature (also called “User Streams”) for desktop clients has now begun.

Currently, TweetDeck and Echofon, two popular Twitter desktop clients, have access to the new API for testing. Singletary notes that not all users of these clients will see this new tech in action at first. Instead, there will be a more gradual roll-out with each app. Once that occurs, Twitter will start opening up the Streaming API to other clients as well.

Twitter first started talking about this new API this past April at their Chirp conference. Others have already been internally testing it for some time as Twitter is also testing out its new Annotations feature through the API.

While the feature is very cool and makes third-party clients much more interesting, the Streaming API also helps Twitter significantly. As Singletary notes, “The transition to User Streams should return considerable capacity to the
REST and Search APIs, increasing stability for Twitter users & developers alike.” With their recent scaling problems, one of the aspects hurt the most by limits Twitter had to impose is the API. Services like TweetDeck and Seesmic rely heavily on the Search API for their various windows — so obviously, this was a problem. The Streaming API should alleviate that quite a bit.

And there’s more. Singletary notes that:

Additionally, several interesting new event types are available: Favoriting, retweeting, following, and list additions are also streamed along with direct messages, mentions, the user timeline and the home timeline.

Again, all of this should help ease strain on the rest of Twitter’s APIs. The only question is: how long will it take to roll-out in a meaningful way? Twitter says that an open beta is tentatively scheduled for Q3 or Q4 of 2010.

At the end of the message, Singletary also hints at a new API product called Site Streams:

Application developers needing to consume multiple, simultaneous user streams will be served by an upcoming Streaming API product called Site Streams. Stay tuned for more information on that when we’re ready.

[thanks Richard]

We broke the news yesterday on Facebook’s most recent acquisition – social activity service Hot Potato. Like most of Facebook’s acquisitions, this deal looks to be mostly about getting a great team of engineers on board, not about the product.

And like many of these acquisitions, investors in the acquired company don’t stand to make much money. Facebook is paying around $10 million in cash for Hot Potato, we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal. Employees will also be getting stock options which could prove to be very lucrative down the road. But investors aren’t getting any stock in Facebook.

This is very similar to Facebook’s very first acquisition, Parakey, back in 2007. That deal gave shareholders just $4 million or so in cash to split – giving them their initial investment back plus a small return. All the stock went to employees.

Hot Potato raised around $1.4 million in a single round of financing prior to the acquisition.

Most investors won’t balk publicly at deals like this, they’re way too concerned that they’re seen as entrepreneur-friendly so that they can get access to future deals. But privately they gripe. Putting money to work for only a 1x or 2x return is a great way to go out of business for startup investors, when so many of their deals never pay anything back at all.

In fact some of these deals could theoretically be a violation of various corporate and securities laws that require shareholders of a given class to be treated equally in an acquisition. But without investors actually complaining, it’s unlikely any lawyers will ever get involved.

Also, stock options are clearly being granted for future services of the acquired employees, not for past work done at the acquired startup.

Another way investors can “complain” is by simply scuttling the deal – they usually have veto rights over an acquisition baked into their deal agreements when they invest. But that, again, would be seen as completely anti-entrepreneur and would kill future deal flow.

So for now investors will simply grin and bear it. But as these types of deals become more and more common we may see changes to various state corporate laws in the future that put limits on how much consideration might be given in cash to investors in an acquisition v. how much is given to active employees in stock options on an acquisition.

It seems that all Kindle orders have been frozen and, it seems, that Jeff Bezos is hanging around New York right now and will speak on Charlie Rose tonight. While I seriously doubt that Bezos will whip out the Kindle 3 on the Charlie Rose show (he’ll probably talk about ebooks outselling hardbacks) it seems there is definitely something afoot.

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