Sivaramakrishnan used to be lead information scientist at AdMob. She holds a doctorate in Information Theory from Stanford University.

Zynga will be valued at about $7 billion based on 699.3 million shares understanding. This would put Zynga’s valuation at close to Electronic Arts, which is hovering at about $7.65-$7.8 billion. Zynga makes money from selling virtual goods on social games such as FarmVille, CityVille, and Words With Friends. Zynga has about 230 million monthly active users and they have a close-knit relationship with Facebook. Some financial analysts believe that Zynga is rushing their IPO before tech stocks take a major plunge.

Zynga was founded in 2007 in San Francisco by Mark Pincus. Pincus named the company after his dog Zinga. Zynga recorded a profit of $27.9 million on revenues of $597.5 million in 2010. In the first 9 months of 2011, Zynga hit revenues of $828.9 million. Even though Zynga’s revenues are growing, their number of daily active users has fallen two quarters in a row. Zynga currently has 2,500 employees.

The proceeds from the IPO will go towards working capital. About $83.6 million will be spent to satisfy tax withholding obligations that is related to stock of current and former employees. They also plan to use a portion of the proceeds for charitable causes through Zynga.org. In the sale, Zynga will have three classes of shares: Class A, Class B, and Class C. Pincus owns Class B shares and all of the company’s Class C shares. After the IPO, Pincus will control 36.2% of the company voting power. Pincus will not be selling any of his shares in the IPO. No other executives plan on selling stock either.

Some of Zynga’s venture capital investors will be selling their stock, including Institutional Venture Partners, Union Square, Foundry, and Avalon. Google will be selling 1.7 million shares. Kleiner Perkins will not be selling any of their stock.

[AllThingsD]

This was Jive’s revenues for the years ending:
2008: $16.9 million
2009: $30 million
2010: $46.3 million
First 9 months of 2011: $54.8 million

This was Jive’s net losses for the years ending:
2008: $11.3 million
2009: $4.8 million
2010: $27.6 million
First 9 months of 2011: $38.1 million

At the time that Whitman became CEO, Fishback did not know what that meant for her as a board member. Fishback e-mailed Whitman after she became CEO of HP to find out what this meant for Zaarly. Within 20 minutes, Whitman said that she was canceling everything on her plate to focus on HP – except Zaarly.” Fishback also said that Whitman picks up all of his phone calls on Saturdays. Whitman is a strategic advisor at Kleiner Perkins so Fishback was able to get a meeting in with her after the company started to prepare for raising a round of funding.

For security purposes, Zaarly will require a verification option for users that want to prove that they are trustworthy. Zaarly will also have buyer and seller reviews.

The Nest Learning Thermostat uses artificial intelligence to report when to turn down the heat and when to increase the air conditioner so that you don’t waste money. You can also communicate with the Nest Learning Thermostat using your mobile device.

Fadell thought of the the thermostat idea when he was building a green home in Tahoe. He was very involved in the design of the house and wanted it to be as beautiful as the products he worked on at Apple. When the architects showed him the option for thermostats, Fadell thought all of them were ugly.

“What was wrong with them?” said Fadell in an interview with Wired. “They were ugly. They were confusing. They were incredibly expensive. They didn’t have half the features you would expect for a modern thing. None of them were connected, so they didn’t talk to each other. I wasn’t able to remotely control them. In Tahoe, you want to be able check on the temperature of the house or turn it on before you get there. Because it’s really cold in the winter. I couldn’t do any of that, and I was like, Why is this?”

Thermostats had not changed much in many decades and the most popular thermostat was the Honeywell Round. The Round was designed by Henry Dreyfus in 1953.

“Thermostats are made by very large companies with no incentive to innovate,” said Fadell. “Their customers are contractors or HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air conditioning] wholesalers, not consumers. So why spend to make them better? It’s a good business.” Fadell estimated there are about 100 million homes in the U.S. and each one has between one and two thermostats, which means that there is about 150 million thermostats in homes out there. In commercial spaces, there is about another 100 million thermostats. And every year 10 million thermostats are sold in residential spaces.

One of the first engineers that Nest Labs hired was a cell phone engineer named Shige Honjo, a program manager for the iPhone. “Think of all the air conditioning that runs in empty houses — it wastes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and that’s Alabama alone!” said Fadell when he was pitching another early employee named David Sloo.

Some of the investors in Nest includes Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Intertrust, and Generation Investment Management. Through Generation Investment, Al Gore is an investor in Nest Labs. Gore was inspired by a demo that Fadell gave at TED.

Waze started in 2009 and has free apps on the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7. The app has turn-by-turn directions and uses user data for building maps. Waze users are reporting a traffic jam every 4.2 seconds.

Waze said that the company plans on expanding internationally. Waze has seen some accelerated growth in Spain, Mexico, Malaysia, and Brazil.