Free Republic

A San Francisco venture capitalist who was once dubbed 'Silicon Valley's Party Animal' has been convicted of fraud totalling $19 million - and now faces up to 60 years in prison. Michael Brent Rothenberg, who was raised in a Jehovah's Witness family in Georgetown, Texas, used his dense network of successful Ivy League friends to set up his own VC fund in 2012 based on the strategy of throwing opulent parties. He rubbed shoulders with Mark Zuckerberg, rented out baseball stadiums for networking events, and threw all-day-and-night parties in a bid to attract investors and companies to invest in. This...

Embattled Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a victim who has been "totally attacked," venture capitalist Tim Draper told CNBC on Tuesday. Holmes has been under fire since a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal suggested the blood-testing start-up's testing devices were flawed. "Elizabeth Holmes is a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated. She is a woman entrepreneur who built a fabulous company, did great things for consumers and she got attacked," the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson said in an interview with "Closing Bell." "This is a great entrepreneur who...

The theme of Stanford University's Asia Technology Initiative India Program 2005 Conference, to be held in August, is 'The Idea of Silicon Valley in India: Feasibility, Lessons and Trends'. The objective of the meet is to analyse the key components of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship and their applicability in an Indian context from the perspective of related opportunities, barriers and experiences. The tracks to be covered in the meet include Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs: Insights, Advice, and Parallels covering the thought processes of these two groups in Silicon Valley and in India and promoting discussion between the two camps on the...