Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Gideon Yu

Former Facebook & YouTube CFO Gideon Yu Leaves Khosla To Become CSO Of The San Francisco 49ers

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:53:34 +0000

Gideon Yu is one of the most prolific investors and executives in the technology sector. He is currently serving as a General Partner at Khosla Ventures, but he will soon become the Chief Strategy Officer for the NFL San Francisco 49ers. Before that he was the Chief Financial Officer of both Facebook and YouTube. Yu also worked as a partner at Sequoia Capital.

Before YouTube, Yu worked as the Treasurer and Senior Vice President of Finance at Yahoo! When at Facebook, he oversaw the $375 million investment round from Microsoft and Li Ka Shing. At YouTube, he negotiated the $1.65 billion sale to Google. And at Yahoo!, he oversaw more than 30 acquisitions and investments including Alibaba.com, Overture, Flickr, and Delicious.

During his stint with Khosla Ventures, he put together investment rounds in Square, Meebo, and Hunch. Yu will remain on the board at Square and Meebo. Yu is leaving Khosla because he said that venture capital isn’t really for him.

[BusinessInsider]

ScoreBig Raises $14 Million In Series B

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:28:42 +0000

ScoreBig is a website that offers discounts on sports, concerts, and theater tickets for their members. The company has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by U.S. Venture Partners. Bain Capital Ventures participated in this round of funding. This gives ScoreBig a total of $22.5 million in funding.

ScoreBig was founded by Adam Kanner (former NBA exec) and Joel Milne (former founder of SeasonTicket.com). Kanner is the CEO of ScoreBig and Milne is the COO/CTO. ScoreBig helps people sell off left over ticket inventory. Some of ScoreBig’s individual investors include Gideon Yu, Shari Redstone, Michael Bronner, and Finn Wentworth.

[TechCrunch]

Meebo Raises $25 Million In Funding Led By Khosla

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 07:16:53 +0000

Web based instant messaging service Meebo.com has raised $25 million in funding. Khosla Ventures was the lead investor in Meebo and Khosla partner Gideon Yu will become a board observer.

This is Meebo’s Series D round of funding. Sequoia Capital and DFJ also participated in this round. This brings Meebo’s total round of funding to $60 million.

Vinod Khosla said that he is interested in how Meebo is making websites more social through their web-based toolbar. Meebo is introduced a new website check-in service on the toolbar soon.

Meebo makes money through ad-sharing deals with publishers. About 87% of their advertising partners in 2009 had returned in 2010. The Meebo Bar also has a 1% click-through rate.

[AllThingsD]

Khosla Ventures Hires Gideon Yu

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:09:48 +0000

Gideon Yu is the former chief financial officer at Facebook. In late March, Yu had suddenly quit and it was uncertain where he was headed to next. According to a source with TechCrunch, Yu has joined Khosla Ventures as a General Partner.

Yu was previously an SVP in Finance and Yahoo! and he was also the former CFO of YouTube. Before joining Khosla, Yu worked for a short while at Sequoia Capital. He was one of the main reasons why Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Khosla recently raised $1 billion in a fund to invest in various startups in the mobile, Internet, science, and clean-tech sectors.

Facebook Hires David Ebersman As New CFO

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:29:59 +0000

In late March, Facebook’s former CFO Gideon Yu had quit. The rumor about why Yu left was that he was not getting along with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. An internal memo went around that Facebook was looking for a CFO that has more experience with a public company.

This is where former Genentech CFO David Ebersman comes in. Genetech is a biotech company that was bought out by Swiss company Hoffman-La Roche for $46.8 billion on March 26, 2009. Genentech is also an investor in 23andMe, a genetics company that was started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife. Ebersman worked at Genentech for 15 years, but Hoffman already had a CFO making his job much less important.

Below is the full press release from Facebook that AllThingsD was able to get their hands on:

PALO ALTO, Calif.–June 29, 2009–Facebook today announced that David Ebersman, the former executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Genentech, the pioneering biotechnology firm recently acquired by Roche, will become the company’s chief financial officer.

Ebersman will report to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. He will oversee Facebook’s finance, accounting, investor relations, and real estate functions. He also becomes a part of the company’s executive management team, which directs all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Ebersman will formally start in September 2009.

“We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech’s CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook.”

“After meeting with Mark and the rest of the team, I was thoroughly impressed with everyone’s drive and sense of purpose to help people connect and share,“ noted Ebersman. “Mark is constantly pushing the company forward and he’s assembled a world-class team that is achieving remarkable results both for its users and as a business. I’m excited to join this effort and this new industry.”

Ebersman worked at Genentech for nearly 15 years. He served as the firm’s executive vice president and CFO from 2006 through April 2009, when Roche Group acquired the company. Prior to joining the company’s finance organization, he was senior vice president of Product Operations. He joined Genentech as a business development analyst. Previously, he was a research analyst at Oppenheimer & Company Inc.

Facebook CFO Gideon Yu Quits

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:57:38 +0000

Facebook CFO Gideon Yu is stepping down from the company. In the past, Yu worked for YouTube, Yahoo!, and NightFire Software. Facebook announced today internally that the company is looking for a new CFO that has experience with a public company.

Even though the company announced that they are looking for a more experience CFO, several sources within the company believe that Yu left out of a bitter relationship with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“At Facebook, you’re either with Mark or you’re not,” stated an AllThingsD source. “And, if you’re not, you leave.”

In another internal memo, Facebook confirmed that the company is not in any sort of financial weakness and needs to raise more funds. The company said that their revenue growed 70% in 2009 and EBITDA profitability this year. The company plans on being cash flow positive in 2010 and is getting closer to a potential IPO.

Many former Google executives were hoping for the company to have an IPO or sell to a larger company like Google or Microsoft. Microsoft expressed interest in acquiring Facebook in the past, but the social network turned it down. Yu and former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta were instrumental in getting Microsoft to outbid Google in the company at the $15 billion valuation.

Where will Gideon Yu end up next? Since he’s moving around some of the top different Silicon Valley, who knows maybe he’ll end up at Twitter.