Business

The Giant Bikini Woman of Peoria, Illinois

I was pleased to discover this morning that the giant fiberglass bikini woman still stands tall in Peoria, Ill., lording over a grimy industrial strip where I first saw her on a bitterly cold day in 1996. Travis Alber's photo best captures the scene. The tire company she calls home has named her Vanna Whitewall, but she began life as one of several Miss Uniroyal women in 1968. Her description on the company's web site provides her dimensions (though they might want to check the math): ... (read more)

2006/08/29

Cry Me a News River, Dave Winer

Dave Winer boasts about earning millions in revenue last year by blogging. Over in another part of the tech blogosphere they're having a discussion about blogs that make big money. I still think Scripting News has the record there, by a wide margin. Last year we did $2.3 million in revenue. Expenses? One salary (mine) and about $1000 per month in server costs. A few thousand for contract programming. Pre-tax profit? Millions. His claim to have made seven figures blogging is a stretch, since ... (read more)

2006/08/23

Warren Buffett Won't Spoil His Kids

Jacob Weisburg of Slate has written a nice fan letter to Warren Buffett for giving bajillions to charity, but he gets carried away at one point: There's a human and personal dimension to this as well: Buffett didn't want to cripple his own children by raising them to expect a free ride. As he pointed out in response to a question Monday, people at his country club who complain about the debilitating effects of welfare should recognize that they're creating a cycle of dependency by giving their ... (read more)

2006/06/29

Jerome Armstrong Pushed Second Stock

I've been trying to pin down MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong's stock-related activities in 2000, when the SEC alleges that he touted a Chinese Linux company called Bluepoint on Raging Bull without disclosing that he'd received $20,000 in stock from the company's management. Though Armstrong's message board postings related to Bluepoint are no longer available on Raging Bull, I found dozens of messages on the InvestorsHub site in which he promoted a related company before a merger, never revealing ... (read more)

2006/06/26

Home Depot's Board Dodges Shareholders

All but one of Home Depot's 11-member board of directors was a no-show at the company's annual meeting Thursday, where several proposals questioned the huge executive compensation paid to CEO Robert Nardelli. Nardelli was the only board member present at the meeting, which ended quickly because he didn't give the customary speech and took no questions from the audience. In a statement prepared in response to this article, the retailer said that, although its approach to the annual meeting this ... (read more)

2006/05/27

Home Depot CEO Builds Huge Nest Egg

I own some Home Depot stock, so I'll be casting 30 of the 2.1 billion votes at the 2006 annual meeting Thursday. The proposals are usually dull, but there's a nice snarky one this year about excessive executive compensation that blasts company CEO Robert Nardelli: In our view, senior executive compensation at Home Depot has been excessive in recent years. In each of the last three years, CEO Robert Nardelli has been paid a base salary of more than $1,800,000, well in excess of the IRS cap for ... (read more)

2006/05/22

Zing Went the Strings of My Employer

I was an employee of the Zing interactive TV company in Denver that went belly up in 1995 a day after the product launched. Since then, the company's name and zing.com domain have been used for an online ad service, photo sharing site, and -- now -- a new Web portal. Hope springs eternal. ... (read more)

2002/10/25