The May Report

News From Ron May

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The May Report: 1/25/2012: Breaking news: Governor Brownback of Kansas freezes funds for the Kansas Bioscience Authority and the forensic audit “found instances of document destruction, misuse of funds and questionable management by former CEO Tom Thornton” who is now paying back money — will there be an indictment or is that jumping the gun?; Mr. Reck and Mr. Glickson, how do you feel about having had such close ties to him over the years?; and Reck, unfortunately, your first name will set off sp** filters which is why I can’t use it; Phil Tadros says he wanted to jettison the coffee shop business to focus on Doejo, so why then is he opening a roasting business with Seth Kravitz of all people — just curious, what does Seth know about roasting?; I’m writing the case against Nancy Sullivan without the personnel issues which starts with puffing the numbers by pursuing frivolous patents (about 50%), how Jeff Norgle told her — so did Colin and so did Jay — that the patents were terrible, and remember it takes $20K-$30K to prosecute each patent application; splitting disclosures to puff the numbers, currying favor with inventors (professors) by helping them skirt around university requirements, waiving patent maintenance fees for inventors, all the rules broken in the hiring and promotion of Jeremy Hollis; and many other things in her bag of tricks; her predecessor Mary Dicig was canned because she did protect university and taxpayer interests; Terry Howerton’s farewell

The May Report January 25th, 2012

The May Report: 1/25/2012: Breaking news: Governor Brownback of Kansas freezes funds for the Kansas Bioscience Authority and the forensic audit “found instances of document destruction, misuse of funds and questionable management by former CEO Tom Thornton” who is now paying back money — will there be an indictment or is that jumping the gun?;…

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The May Report: 1/24/2012: It has been an exciting and invigorating week, possibly since it gave me exposure to two topics that are under covered and under emphasized in our tech world: advanced manufacturing and bio fuels. And JB, Matt Moog, Kevin Willer, and the rest of the gang behind the 1871 Tech Center, I have a message for you: Internet companies are NOT the only game in town and if you’d ever show up at a meeting for energy, manufacturing, and other sectors; David Gulley is retiring in April so maybe then he’ll sing like a canary about Nancy Sullivan and if he doesn’t, I’ll sing for him; There has to be more to the story on Phil Tadros closing down Noble Tree than he’s saying since he also sold off Dollop and Kickstand; Rahm’s library about face; Hoyt Hudson, Chet Kolodziej, Roger Murphy and much more… This was supposed to go out at 3pm Monday, but a frozen mouse and trouble with opening AOL, delayed me until after 1am

The May Report January 24th, 2012

The May Report: 1/24/2012: It has been an exciting and invigorating week, possibly since it gave me exposure to two topics that are under covered and under emphasized in our tech world: advanced manufacturing and bio fuels. And JB, Matt Moog, Kevin Willer, and the rest of the gang behind the 1871 Tech Center, I…

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The May Report: 1/23/2012: The press release hit at 9:27am today, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012: I’ve been waiting and hoping for this day for several years now and I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say about it, but for now, the right thing to do is leave the man alone — as the character Herb Stempel (John Turturro) told the press in the movie Quiz Show when Charles van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) was losing his job and being humiliated before Congress, “You guys never leave a guy alone unless (pause) you’re leaving him alone”; — I’ve been aware of the inside story behind Terry Howerton’s pending resignation since 4:30pm on December 7th, and I’ve agreed not to write about it for a while as things play out in southwest Missouri so let’s just let it ride for the time being and wish Jim Gagnard, former CEO of SmartSignal, well; As Winston Churchill said: “In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity”

The May Report January 23rd, 2012

The May Report: 1/23/2012: The press release hit at 9:27am today, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012: I’ve been waiting and hoping for this day for several years now and I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say about it, but for now, the right thing to do is leave the man alone — as the character…

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The May Report: 1/18/2012: Hey, it only takes 3 reports for me to get it right! My report that the 1871 tech center will be on the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart was NOT a scoop! A press conference was held this morning which was attended by Sandra Guy of the Chicago Sun-Times, Wailin Wong of the Chicago Tribune and John Pletz of Crain’s; all three wrote articles about it; Whom do you think wrote the best article?; Someday, the powers that be will understand that online media folks should be given equal standing to traditional print media outlets; When Judy Barr Topi *ka (the asterisk is to prevent filters from blocking this email think about it) was state treasurer and held press conferences to promote her fund to fund initiatives, Ed Condon made sure that I was invited and I went — I didn’t have dialysis today (which, as of today, I’ve been on for 6.5 yrs.) and I would have gone if invited, but never mind, some things never change; the space for 1871 will be on the north side of the building and there will be an independent committee to determine who gets to rent space there: pardon my French but that claim is just merde or Gswno in Polish or Harah in Hebrew — does anyone believe that the fix isn’t in?; I can tell you right now who will be on that so-called independent committee: Sam Yagan, Troy Henikoff, Kapil Chaudhary, Stuart Larkins, Paul Lee, Brian Hand, Lon Chow, and you know Matt Moog will want to be on the committee; So before the doors even open, they’re signaling that this is an inside crowd deal — why else would they see the need for an INDEPENDENT committee — a bit touchy about the inside crowd charge, huh?; I looked and did find what I wrote on June 24th in Briefly noted, right after the Built-in-Chicago party at the Mart: Little bits and pieces I picked up: Some guy was talking to Matt Moog about Chris Kennedy, who runs the Mart, unless they sold it. And could that have been about Moog wanting to get space there?; Let’s see, that was June 24th, 209 days before the announcement was made!

The May Report January 19th, 2012

The May Report: 1/18/2012: Hey, it only takes 3 reports for me to get it right! My report that the 1871 tech center will be on the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart was NOT a scoop! A press conference was held this morning which was attended by Sandra Guy of the Chicago Sun-Times, Wailin…

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The May Report: 1/18/2012: Dean Acheson wrote a book entitled “Present at the Creation” and I now realize that I was there albeit without knowing it: I even reported that I overheard people talking to Matt Moog about space at the Merchandise Mart and that was the night of the Built-in-Chicago networking event last fall; I don’t know if this is a SCOOP but it may very well be: the tech center will be on the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart with 51,000 square feet, and the other half of the floor will be taken by Razorfish; also, Code Academy will move in there lock stock and barrel; my source here forgets which side of the floor the tech center will be and there were many blue prints considered for the breakout of the space — so, it does turn out to be downtown and near an “L” stop; Am I the last person to know about things?

The May Report January 18th, 2012

The May Report: 1/18/2012: Dean Acheson wrote a book entitled “Present at the Creation” and I now realize that I was there albeit without knowing it: I even reported that I overheard people talking to Matt Moog about space at the Merchandise Mart and that was the night of the Built-in-Chicago networking event last fall;…

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The May Report: 1/18/2012: Matt Moog, I read what you put out about the upcoming new tech center, and how it is named 1871 (for the date of the Great Chicago fire), but I didn’t see where it is located — I gather you haven’t announced that yet, but put me down for the $125 desk, if there is one; I find all the congratulatory comments very interesting, but I must have missed the one from Hoch and Howerton, and from Dave Culver; as Fred told me on Dec. 29th at The Bagel, 50k sf is great and it does help but we need 400k sf to do the job downtown, and btw, the CEC will manage it and Kevin, I hope this doesn’t mean you’ll just be operating within the four walls of 1871 rather than all of Chicagoland; and Maura O’Hara it’s great to see “Comment by Maura O’Hara 4 hours ago Great news for Chicago!” but Maura, I’d really rather see you announce the first Chicago VC conference since 2008!; I’ve been too busy to concentrate on the internet protests, but the Obama administration has now said they won’t lend support to either bill pending in the current form; the curse is off the MIT-EF — last night’s meeting on advanced manufacturing which drew 75-80 people, many of them new,gets an “A” and that is not grading on a curve — the panel was candid and blue ribbon plus excellent audience questions, and I’ll have much more on it in the next few days — I finally met Greg Olson who started QuesTek, and all these years I thought it was Ray Genellie, and Harry Moser just got back from an Insourcing meeting at the White House where he gave some good suggestions to the Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis; Byron Miller was there and Genentech went toes up, so scratch off one more Bob Geras investment — meanwhile Byron is in the Congo

The May Report January 18th, 2012

The May Report: 1/18/2012: Matt Moog, I read what you put out about the upcoming new tech center, and how it is named 1871 (for the date of the Great Chicago fire), but I didn’t see where it is located — I gather you haven’t announced that yet, but put me down for the $125…

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The May Report: 1/17/2012: One of these days, something that Chris Sweis tells me will turn out to be true — so let’s see if VentureBeat really covers Juno Wallet later this week, and let’s see if Juno Wallet really gets a large infusion of cash, in excess of $10MM, he told me Monday night, but one believable thing is that Juno’s iPhone app is now in the top five in the finance area, in the company of Chase, B of A, Wells Fargo, and PayPal; I violated the #1 rule in reporting — spell the name right, especially if you/’re skewering the person: it’s Kapil Chaudhary, not Chadhaury, and Kapil, I apologize for that — there’s no excuse; So, the question is: Who wrote Jeff Willinger’s over the top bio?

The May Report January 17th, 2012

The May Report: 1/17/2012: One of these days, something that Chris Sweis tells me will turn out to be true — so let’s see if VentureBeat really covers Juno Wallet later this week, and let’s see if Juno Wallet really gets a large infusion of cash, in excess of $10MM, he told me Monday night,…

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The May Report: 1/16/2012: In case you missed it, Lesley Stahl did a profile on Andrew Mason Sunday night at the top of 60 Minutes while the Giants were bashing the Packers and the profile also gave us a feel for the Groupon culture and office environment; My deal with Kapil –32 days of email exchanges versus about a day or less with Kevin Willer — well, some folks haven’t gotten the memo yet that Thornton and Weinstein (and their world views) are gone; Steve Fisher on Google Adwords and Adsense; Is Gary Slack taking business ethics lessons from Blago?; and 100 things I want to know before I die — continued

The May Report January 16th, 2012

The May Report: 1/16/2012: In case you missed it, Lesley Stahl did a profile on Andrew Mason Sunday night at the top of 60 Minutes while the Giants were bashing the Packers and the profile also gave us a feel for the Groupon culture and office environment; My deal with Kapil –32 days of email…

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The May Report: 1/11/2012:I’ve been writing this since the week between Christmas and New Year’s and it’s about time I actually delivered on endless empty promises for reports to come, so chew on this while you sip your morning coffee and munch on a crisp sesame seed bagel with cream cheese as I do the table of contents for the next report: 100 Things I want to know before I die

The May Report January 11th, 2012

The May Report: 1/11/2012:I’ve been writing this since the week between Christmas and New Year’s and it’s about time I actually delivered on endless empty promises for reports to come, so chew on this while you sip your morning coffee and munch on a crisp sesame seed bagel with cream cheese as I do the…

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The May Report: 1/11/2012: Rather than just doing the normal thing which is setting up partnership relationships and offices, PT Slack (of Slack and Company) appears to be photoshopping images of his logo into overseas “offices” to shore up a sinking account which he might lose were he not faking it; Kathryn Born may be fairly new to the tech reporting game, but don’t sell her short: TINC Mag has launched a start-up catalogue which now has 71 firms and they’re adding about 3 new firms a day –we can debate whether Restaurant.com and SitterCity.com are really start-ups (Sitter has been around since 2001), but Kathryn argues that regardless of how much time a firm has been operating, if they’re still looking for money, they’re a start-up; on top of all that Kathryn manages to run TINC on about $200/mo! and she’s talking to possible investors; Russ Rosensweig’s name resurfaces after many years

The May Report January 11th, 2012

The May Report: 1/11/2012: Rather than just doing the normal thing which is setting up partnership relationships and offices, PT Slack (of Slack and Company) appears to be photoshopping images of his logo into overseas “offices” to shore up a sinking account which he might lose were he not faking it; Kathryn Born may be…

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