Alastair Goldfisher

Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) ended its annual conference today and President Rick Nathan is already looking forward to next year’s gathering, which will be held in Montreal. One of the bright spots at this year’s event, held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the amount of investors the conference attracted. More than […]

I’m a panelist in VC Taskforce‘s Meet the Press event tonight in Redwood City, Calif. Len Rand of Granite Ventures is moderating the discussion, which will cover what makes news, and what doesn’t. I imagine that there will be a fair number of Valley-based startups in attendence, with their respective flaks, wondering how best they […]

I’m headed to school today. No, this is not a career change. I’m visiting a journalism class at my alma mater, San Jose State, for a career day. I have regularly spoken to classes there or participated in SJSU’s Magazine Day over the last 16 years for my former magazine prof Harvey Gotliffe. One year, I […]

I’m in the market for new cellphones for my wife and me. She wants to replace her small clamshell with a smartphone so she can check email and keep tabs on her schedule (though, frankly, I’m not sure why since she always loses her phone and never keeps it charged, which as her co-dependent, I […]

I’ve always believed that you should root root root for the home team. But as a graduate of San Jose State University, it’s been difficult to be a booster of the college. Till this last season, I can’t ever recall the Spartans winning more than two football games a year. And when it comes to entrepreneurship and innovation, […]

John Riccitiello has found out what most of us who play video games already know–it’s hard to walk away from a good game. Riccitiello announced in a press release this afternoon that he is re-joining Electronic Arts as CEO. Riccitiello served as president and COO of EA before leaving the video game publisher in 2004 to co-found […]

Wikis are no longer solely the domain of software developers who used the collaborative technology to write code. As evidence to that is the funding announcement today that Seattle-based Wetpaint has raised $9.5 million in Series B funding led by new backer Accel Partners and from existing investors Trinity Ventures and Frazier Technology Ventures. You can read the […]

Phil Angelides, last year’s wannabe gubernatorial candidate in California, is apparently starting his own venture firm, according to the San Jose Business Journal. Arnold Schwarzenegger crushed Angelides in the November election for governor by about a 17-point margin, but Angelides has told the Business Journal, as well as the Sacramento Bee, that this new venture of […]

The New Year brings new beginnings, especially for Rob Day, who just sent an email to say that he’s moving on to join @Ventures in Boston. Day, who was a principal at San Francisco-based Expansion Capital Partners, is well known in investment circles for his blog, which covers the world of cleantech. Apparently, nothing will change with the […]

It’s no longer novel to see Silicon Valley as a setting for books and movies. So I wasn’t too surprised when I picked up Killer Code, a murder mystery which takes place around a small, publicly traded company that  makes a network security system. Author John Walker is no stranger to Valley intrigue. He’s worked […]