Free Republic

The oil crisis and the credit crunch mark the end of one epoch and the painful but promising beginnings of another that won't come from Wall Street or Washington.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was slated to attend a political fundraiser in Burlingame Sunday morning with more than 1,00 people paying as much as $2,500 each to sit down with her for brunch. Palin supporters and anti-war protestors were both expected to rally outside during the brunch at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Aiport. Palin has spent the weekend accusing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" for his association with a former 1960s radical. Palin was referring to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the Weather Underground. The group took credit for bombings,...

Since the credit crisis began gripping the financial world, Silicon Valley has watched from the sidelines, secure in the faith that it was insulated from the coming storm. That faith is now being seriously undermined. High-tech entrepreneurs, investors and executives now believe the question is when, not if, the financial chaos will hurt the country’s cradle of innovation. From San Francisco to San Jose, the effects are already palpable. This week, Apple, one of the Valley’s high-fliers, lost 16.3 percent of its value as investors reasonably concluded that consumers would shun expensive gadgets over the holidays in favor of lower-ticket...

Laid off from your Wall Street job? East Coast venture capitalists and start-ups want you to know they are hiring. Josh Kopelman at First Round Capital, a Philadelphia-area venture firm, started LeaveWallStreetJoinAStartup.com on Monday, after waking to hear the news that Lehman Brothers was filing for bankruptcy protection and Bank of America would buy Merrill Lynch. Like any good investor, he saw opportunity in the pain. His plea to the 150,000 financial sector employees who could be laid off: “You might want to consider joining a start-up. These days, start-ups are more stable than Wall Street (seriously).” He listed job...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not only firing women up on the campaign trail but she is also exciting women on the Web. A dot-com startup is seeing a huge rise in traffic because it asked women what they think of Palin. In a Silicon Valley coffee shop, women were checking the latest political news wirelessly on Thursday. That is good news for Deborah Perry-Piscione. Her Web-based startup, bettyconfidential.com, just surveyed women about what they think of Palin. The company got a wide-ranging response. "Women are somewhat torn because they think she's terrific," Piscione said. "Incredible to have a woman...

To some women, Sarah Palin is the savior of the Republican party, a bona fide outsider who can multi-task with a BlackBerry and a breast pump. To others, she is a thief of Hillary Clinton's mantle, a little-known governor thrust into the limelight who doesn't agree with the majority of women on key social issues, like abortion. Whatever the sentiment, Palin has emerged as the most polarizing candidate since, well, Hillary Clinton. In Silicon Valley, which has been a fundraising stronghold for Democrats, a late September luncheon with Palin is so popular that the event in the garden of Tom...

WHILE CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS AREN'T COUNTING ON CARRYING CALIFORNIA IN NOVEMBER, THEY ARE SEIZING THE GOP VP CANDIDATE'S SUDDEN STARDOM TO RAISE CASH IN THE STATE.What plans do California Republicans have for Sarah Palin, the GOP's instant political supernova? Fundraising. The Republican vice presidential nominee will hold a lunch fundraiser at the Woodside home of Siebel Systems founder Tom Siebel on Sept. 25, according to an e-mail invitation. She'll be in the state for a two-day swing packed with fundraising events, said former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, chairman of the state's McCain campaign. He said he didn't know whether...

Sarah who? John McCain's decision to yank little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from the obscurity of the great northern tundra and dub her his running mate had Silicon Valley Democrats and even some Republicans scratching their heads Friday. A brilliant end-run around opponent Barack Obama's mantra of change? A blatant attempt to throw a tantalizing bone to Hillary Clinton's more disgruntled female supporters? "Who's she?" asked Democrat and former San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer. "I don't know what McCain's motives are, but I can't imagine any Hillary supporters supporting a conservative like Palin. She's pro-life and it seems she'd oppose...

McCain's pick puzzles many in valleyGOP LAUDS PALIN AS 'ROLE MODEL'By Patrick May Mercury News Article Launched: 08/30/2008 01:32:52 AM PDT Sarah who? John McCain's decision to yank little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from the obscurity of the great northern tundra and dub her his running mate had Silicon Valley Democrats and even some Republicans scratching their heads Friday. A brilliant end-run around opponent Barack Obama's mantra of change? A blatant attempt to throw a tantalizing bone to Hillary Clinton's more disgruntled female supporters? "Who's she?" asked Democrat and former San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer. "I don't know what McCain's...

Two lanes of southbound U.S. Highway 101 in Sunnyvale reopened at about 9:15 a.m., following a crash in which a big rig transporting vodka overturned and spilled the product onto the roadway, city spokesman John Pilger said. The big rig overturned shortly before 8 a.m. at North Mathilda Avenue, spilling vodka and fuel and temporarily closing all southbound lanes. Emergency personnel have extricated the driver of the big rig, but Pilger did not know the driver's condition. The left two lanes on the southbound side have reopened, but authorities are advising commuters to take alternate routes if possible, as traffic...

Editorial: Assessment ruling won't serve state well Monday's state Supreme Court decision striking down an assessment by the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority was one more nail in the coffin of California's quality of life. Not that the court was unreasonable. The justices were interpreting Proposition 218, as convoluted and mean-spirited an anti-tax law as California voters ever passed. The 1996 initiative aimed to tighten the rules set by Proposition 13 to make it even harder for government to raise revenue, and it's succeeding all too well. Californians must come to grips with the kind of place they want...

California high court strikes down Santa Clara County open space tax The California Supreme Court today struck down a special fee on Santa Clara County homeowners used to pay for open space acquisition, possibly wiping out more than $50 million collected over the past seven years for parks, trails and other services. In a unanimous ruling, the justices found that the 2001 special assessment by the county's Open Space Authority violated Proposition 218, a 12-year-old voter-approved law known as the "Right to Vote on Taxes Act." Proposition 218 was designed to limit local governments' ability to raise revenue without voter...

Coal, steel, oil — we think of these old-economy industries, and we picture pollution. Smoggy skies, fouled rivers, toxic waste. As we make the transition to a new economy, we imagine that industrial pollution will become a thing of the past. Mobile phones, laptops, MP3 players — they conjure images of spotless semiconductor factories and the eternal summer of Silicon Valley where the digital economy was born. But the tech industry has a dirty little secret: it has toxic waste of its own. Phones and computers contain dangerous metals like lead, cadmium and mercury, which can contaminate the air and...

Few arenas can match the business office for its combination of humdrummery and world-shaping influence. Sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote of office workers, “Whatever history they have had is a history without events.” The history of office technology seems especially uninspiring: the invention of double-entry bookkeeping, calculators, and spreadsheets are unlikely material for a captivating History Channel feature, to be sure. Yet the importance of the business office and its techniques is undeniable. Max Weber saw the office’s methods of organization, its rationality, and its disciplines as hallmarks of modern capitalism, making possible dramatic gains in efficiency and forever altering...

SUN MICROSYSTEMS HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF THE GREAT Silicon Valley sagas. Founded in 1982 by a trio of Valley legends -- Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim and Scott McNealy -- the company (ticker: JAVA) has been the launching pad for a variety of trend-setting technologies, including SPARC microprocessors, the Solaris operating system and the now-ubiquitous Java programming language, among many others. (JAVA: 12.64, -3.69, -22.6%) has gone through some tumultuous years over the past decade, including an astounding run-up in its stock during the bubble years, which was followed by an equally momentous collapse. Two years ago, McNealy stepped down...

San Francisco is a hub for web developers British entrepreneurial talent is on tour in Silicon Valley as part of a government-backed project to provide a window into the UK's start up scene. Twenty companies were chosen from over a hundred for the first Web Mission 08 to showcase the high level of technology emerging beyond the Valley. Organiser Oli Barrett said: "Silicon Valley is such a hub of innovation you have to experience it first hand." The project is supported by UK Trade Invest, Oracle, Sun and Make Your Mark. One of the biggest backers Stateside is fellow Briton...

Call it one price of globalism. Last year, tuberculosis increased in four of the Bay Area's five largest counties, and the San Jose area in 2006 had the highest TB rate of any large American metro area, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health. San Francisco, after an outbreak of TB among Latino day workers in the Mission district, has the highest TB rate of any...

If there's a recession going on, someone forgot to tell Silicon Valley. Yes, the region's economy has slowed noticeably in recent months. Yes, unemployment is up from a year ago. Yes, credit is tight. And yes, there is a severe dip in the housing market. Despite those problems, the dynamics of Silicon Valley's technology sector have buffered the South Bay from the worst effects of the national downturn. Observers point to a host of reasons for this strength. The valley's largest companies have tons of cash, limiting their need to borrow. Much of their business is overseas, where spending remains...

SAN JOSE, CA (TDR) - Hundreds of angry programmers took to the streets burning Indian flags, and chanting anti-Indian slogans after Wednesday morning production meetings. The protesters - mostly young males - have reached a boiling point after years of technological imperialism and failed Indian programming policies. Busy midday traffic came to a halt as this once proud high-tech mecca was transformed into raging, socially-challenged powder keg of humanity...

In October 2003, as the computer world buzzed about what cool new gadget he would introduce next, Apple CEO Steve Jobs - then presiding over the most dramatic corporate turnaround in the history of Silicon Valley - found himself confronting a life-and-death decision. During a routine abdominal scan, doctors had discovered a tumor growing in his pancreas. While a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is often tantamount to a swiftly executed death sentence, a biopsy revealed that Jobs had a rare - and treatable - form of the disease. If the tumor were surgically removed, Jobs' prognosis would be promising: The...

Paul McGuinness, long-time manager of rock band U2, on Monday launched a verbal attack against illegal music downloaders, as well as internet service providers, device makers, Silicon Valley and even hippies in a speech at a conference in France. McGuinness blamed these forces for "destroying the recorded music industry," with illegal downloading through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks the single biggest reason for why the business is in decline. ISPs have for years profited from that illegal downloading, which occurs on their networks, and their arguments that it isn't their job to police the internet are no longer valid, he said. The...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today appointed Silicon Valley lawyer Lucy Koh to a Santa Clara County Superior Court judgeship, moving quickly to fill an opening created by the recent disability retirement of Judge Randolf Rice. Koh, 39, is a partner in the McDermott, Will and Emery law firm, working as a litigator in the intellectual property department with a focus on patent and trade secrets cases. Koh is a former federal prosecutor who served in the major fraud section of the Los Angeles U.S. attorney's office and she worked as a Justice Department lawyer in Washington, D.C. from 1994 to 1997....

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nanosolar, a heavily financed Silicon Valley start-up whose backers include Google’s co-founders, plans to announce Tuesday that it has begun selling its innovative solar panels, which are made using a technique that is being held out as the future of solar power manufacturing. The company, which has raised $150 million and built a 200,000-square-foot factory here, is developing a new manufacturing process that “prints” photovoltaic material on aluminum backing, a process the company says will reduce the manufacturing cost of the basic photovoltaic module by more than 80 percent. Nanosolar, which recently hired a top manufacturing...

Health Care ... blah, blah, blah. Global Warming ... blah, blah, blah. Water ... MR. WRIGHT: Okay. In addition to the health care reform, as you mentioned, you stated this summer that California really needs a comprehensive plan for water, and for the fact there will be about 50 million people in California over the next 25 years. The Silicon Valley Leadership Group approves of your plan. The Mercury News supports more focus on conservation and more efficient use of existing conservation efforts, especially in the farm regions. Quickly outline your plan, if you will, and what you think you...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In a career marked by second acts, Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is becoming a partner at Silicon Valley's most storied venture capital firm. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said on Monday that Gore, a campaigner for action to slow global climate change, will join the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm as a partner focused on alternative energy investments. The venture firm, which since 1972 has backed seminal computer start-ups ranging from Sun Microsystems to Compaq Computer to Amazon.com to Google Inc, has...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Engineers, scientists, and computer whizzes study or manipulate nature and machines to find sound, logical solutions to nagging questions and everyday problems. But if hard empirical evidence is what makes a techie brain tick, then how is he or she able to justify or believe in something as scientifically unprovable as God or as mind-boggling as transubstantiation? Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, a self-described techie and Vatican astronomer, argues in a new book that a nerd is not necessarily a nihilist, and geeks can and do believe in God. In "God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make...

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson was spotted in some pretty unusual venues on Wednesday seeking to boost financial and voter support - Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Unusual for the former senator from Tennessee to spend time in such liberal outposts when he's been insisting since his post-Labor Day entry into the race that he is a true voice for conservatives. But Southern California fires postponed the first leg of his trip and a campaign spokesman said the former star on NBC's "Law and Order" sees opportunity in appearing in GOP-light regions. Primary delegates, he noted, will be doled out...

We just had a relatively large earthquake in the San Jose area, lasting more than 20 seconds.

Silicon Valley's $200 million electric car startup Former SAP (SAP) top exec Shai Agassi unveiled his new venture last night in the pixels of the online editions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times: a startup backed by $200 million that will lease removable batteries for electric cars. The company will also build a network of battery-charging stations and battery replacement centers. It appears that Agassi's company, called Better Place, won't spend its considerable cash hoard on developing new battery technology or electric cars themselves. Instead, according to the articles' somewhat differing takes, Agassi seeks to extend...

New Swedish companies are bursting with ideas in IT and biotech. It's time for international investors to sit up and take notice, says leading entrepreneur Johan Staël von Holstein.

They weren't out to make history, the eight young engineers who met secretly with investor Arthur Rock 50 years ago to form Silicon Valley's ancestral chip company, Fairchild Semiconductor. The men, among them future Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, mainly wanted to escape their brilliant but batty boss, William Shockley, who had just shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for his role in the invention of the transistor. Shockley, who had started a company in Mountain View in 1955 to commercialize this breakthrough, had bullied and browbeaten his young engineering staff, whose numbers included future venture capitalist Eugene Kleiner, at...

Spies 'stole secrets' to arm Chinese military By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 11:57pm BST 27/09/2007 Two Silicon Valley computing engineers have been charged with economic espionage for allegedly conspiring to steal sensitive microchip designs they hoped to use to go into business with the Chinese military. Lan Lee, an American, and Yuefei Ge, who is Chinese, are accused of stealing trade secrets from their employer, NetLogics Microsystems, and a second company, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. The two men allegedly set up a business, SICO Microsystems, for the purpose of developing and marketing products using the stolen...

By almost any definition — except his own and perhaps those of his neighbors here in Silicon Valley — Hal Steger has made it. Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States. Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for...

MENLO PARK, Calif. —Today's New York Times has an article about people who are worth millions and are still complaining:Silicon Valley is thick with those who might be called working-class millionaires — nose-to-the-grindstone people like Mr. Steger who, much to their surprise, are still working as hard as ever even as they find themselves among the fortunate few. Their lives are rich with opportunity; they generally enjoy their jobs. They are amply cushioned against the anxieties and jolts that worry most people living paycheck to paycheck.But many such accomplished and ambitious members of the digital elite still do not think...

(Fortune Magazine) -- Just how red-hot is the current worldwide expansion? "This is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime," U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson declared on a recent visit to Fortune's offices. That may come as news to many Americans, whose boom-time memories are stuck in the 1990s, when Silicon Valley was the epicenter of our growth fantasies. But the fellow now occupying Paulson's old office at 85 Broad Street in downtown Manhattan shares that upbeat view. Just returned from a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the Middle East, Goldman Sachs (Charts, Fortune 500) CEO...

Apple board member and former US vice president Al Gore would win the presidency if he ran for election, says Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "If he ran, there's no question in my mind that he would be elected," Jobs told Time Magazine. "But I think there's a question in his mind, perhaps because the pain of the last election runs a lot deeper than he lets most of us see." The report explains the background Gore's strenuous campaigning to persuade people to address the growing threat of climate-change caused environmental collapse. "We have dug ourselves into a 20-foot hole, and...

California continues to employ far more technology workers, pay higher wages and attract more venture capital than any other state. But the overall U.S. tech sector is also growing at a surprisingly brisk clip - for now. That's the conclusion of a highly anticipated annual report by AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association, the country's largest technology trade association. Researchers relied on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, mostly from 2006. According to the 2007 "Cyberstates" report, to be published Tuesday, the U.S. tech industry employed 5.8 million people last year - up 2.6 percent from 2005. The...

MENLO PARK, Calif (Reuters) - Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have been searching for the next big thing in high-tech for years, but now many have switched to greener pursuits -- finding technology to help cut global warming. Although commercial success could take years, venture capitalists are pouring cash into solar power, fuel cells, wind energy, biofuels, new lighting microchips, "smart" power grids, and other innovative energies. "The best brains in the country are no longer working on the next pharmaceutical drug or the next Silicon Revolution. They want to work on energy," said Vinod Khosla, a top venture capitalists...

Bay Partners is the latest Silicon Valley venture firm to go through a major generational change — witnessing an influx of new faces, even as an older generation of partners exits for reasons apparently related to poor performance. Chamath Palihapitiya, a partner at another well-known Mayfield Fund, recently said he was taken out of context when quoted complaining about an exclusive white circle of insiders. While that may be true for the world in general, it isn’t in Silicon Valley, he said in clarifying remarks. If his views are still in doubt, take a look at Bay Partners, a venture...

A man whose habit of jogging in a park wearing nothing but a pair of running shoes said he would keep his clothes on after he was fined $95 for indecent exposure. Darryl Delacruz, a Silicon Valley engineer, said he would miss the "liberating feeling" of running naked in Fremont Older Open Space Preserve. But he conceded his personal comfort was less important than the discomfort he caused others.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani coyly inched closer to a formal announcement of his presidential ambitions Monday, telling an audience of Silicon Valley business and technology leaders that he is "100 percent" running for president and thinks California is a great place to have an early presidential primary. "I am 100-percent committed," he said. "That official part, I still have to do a formal announcement. But we'll figure out how to do that. My idea is that I'm going to try to announce this in 100 different places," he said, noting that he wanted to tease out the...

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT IS DEEPLY, AND RICHLY, CONNECTED TO TECH When former Vice President Al Gore addresses a gathering of Silicon Valley business and civic leaders in San Jose on Friday, he will do so not only as the world's premier crusader on the peril of climate change, but also as a valley insider -- a key board member of Apple, an adviser to Google, an entrepreneur himself. But what is less known -- and what could become a political problem -- is the way Gore has become enmeshed, and enriched, in Silicon Valley through his association with a close-knit...

Sen. Barack Obama has not yet officially said he is running for president, but supporters in Silicon Valley are already preparing to help pay for his bid. Tech-savvy politicos in the wealthy California region have formed a political action committee backing the Illinois Democrat and are planning a major local fundraiser for next month. The Obama for America Draft Committee PAC, created by San Jose Democratic consultant Jude Barry, raised $30,000 in December. Organizers say the phone is ringing off the hook from potential contributors and volunteers. Obama, 45, formed an exploratory committee earlier this week for a 2008 presidential...

Apple Computer announced today that Fred Anderson, the company's former chief financial officer, is stepping down from the company's board of directors after a three-month investigation raised ``serious concerns'' about the actions of two former officers. A special board committee of outside directors convened after the company disclosed in June that it had found ``irregularities'' in past stock option grants. Apple said it would turn over its investigative findings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jobs issued an apology for ``these problems, which happened on my watch. We will now work to resolve the remaining in issues as quickly as...

If David and Goliath were alive today, they would likely take time out from their battle to cast a ballot against Proposition 88. So, too, would the feuding Hatfields and McCoys. Such is the diversity and unanimity of opposition to this ill-conceived tax increase. Proposition 88 on the November ballot will raise property taxes. This tax would be imposed by the state and would be in addition to any fees, assessments, bonds and the local property tax regulated by Proposition 13 that homeowners already pay. Considering that 10 million property owners would face higher property taxes if Proposition 88 passes,...

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox told a Senate panel his agency is currently investigating more than 100 companies for possible fraudulent reporting of stock option grants. The total is 25 percent more than the the agency said it was probing a month ago. "The companies are located throughout the country, and include Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller [companies]," Cox told the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday. "They span multiple industry sectors." Cox told reporters in San Francisco on July 20 when he announce the indictment of former Brocade Communications Systems Inc. executives in connection...

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- How's this for a perk? A free iPod from the boss. National Semiconductor is giving each of its 8,500 employees a video iPod. It helps that National makes the chips used in many digital audio players and other portable entertainment devices. A statement from the company said the iPod giveaway caps its best year ever. The iPods aren't just to entertain workers. The company said it will communicate with employees via downloaded podcasts and other media playable on the iPods.

President General Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday that high growth and friendly policies had made Pakistan an ideal destination for world entrepreneurs. He said that the country’s economic reality was far better than “distorted perceptions”. In a keynote address to OPEN Silicon Valley’s annual business moot in California through videoconference, Musharraf said the country was shaping up through the construction of Gwadar Port. He said that a network of infrastructure was in place to serve as trade and energy corridor for the landlocked Central Asia, South Asia, the Gulf region and China. “Pakistan today is in an altogether different league...

Is Intel about to rid itself of 16,000 workers - just over 16 per cent of its global workforce - later this month? So suggest whispers doing the rounds among Silicon Valley's technology community at the moment. That's what blogger Omid Rahmat claims (http://omid.tomshardware.com/2006/05/intels_amd_mome.html?www.reghardware.co.uk) at least. It's certainly no secret that Intel is examining every part of its business for signs of under-performance - CEO Paul Otellini said as much in April this year. "In terms of non-performing businesses, anything with a bracket will be looked at," he said. "It would be too simplistic to simply do a reduction in...

BANGALORE, India — After graduating from Northwestern University last year, Nate Linkon contemplated job offers in Chicago and New York. But he chose a less conventional path and started his career here, in India's booming tech capital. The 22-year-old Milwaukee native works in marketing at Infosys Technologies Ltd., India's second-largest software exporter. He's part of a small but growing number of young Americans moving to Bangalore and other Indian cities to beef up their resumes, launch businesses or study globalization in one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Despite the traffic-choked streets, unsteady electrical supply, occasional digestive troubles and other daily...