Tuesday, May 21, 2013
David Karp's Mother Gushes Over Her Million-Dollar Baby After Yahoo Deal
NEW YORK (AP) — As a teenager, Tumblr CEO David Karp would canvass
the streets of New York City's Upper West Side, offering to build
websites for local businesses. After his freshman year of high school,
the precocious, computer-savvy kid decided to drop out altogether to
devote more time to his passion for technology.
A few years later, Karp built Tumblr — the wildly popular blogging forum — from his tiny childhood bedroom, hunched over his laptop with bags of Tostitos. And on Saturday, the 26-year-old technology wunderkind returned home to inform his mother that, in a game-changing transaction, Yahoo was buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion.
"There were a few tears and lots of hugs, and a lot of excitement," said his mother, Barbara Ackerman. "This is something that he built — it's his baby — and it's emotional."
The deal was a transcendent moment for Karp, who created one of the world's busiest websites. It boasts 75 million daily posts and a user base that's loyal, young and hip. While Facebook has morphed into a mainstream social network where grandparents talk golf, Tumblr is still that little corner of the Internet where the cool kids hang out.
True to the company's laid-back, jeans-and-sneakers culture, Karp's wry sense of humor remained intact on Monday morning, when all employees were summoned to a meeting in Tumblr's New York headquarters. Cognizant of media reports that Tumblr was on the verge of a sale, everyone waited with bated breath as Karp kicked off the meeting with a tongue-in-cheek announcement: It was time to formulate a new "dog policy."
"We have gone above and beyond with our dog policy," he told them. "There is now one dog for every five people in the office at Tumblr at any given time. So we are needing to figure out a better bathroom situation."
With just six years of Tumblr's existence under his belt, Karp told The Associated Press that he still considers himself to be a green executive. But he's learning that he can no longer play the same role that he did in the early days, when he spent most of his time writing computer code.
"Now the team that I get to work with writes much better than me," he said.
Today he's the "chief motivator, the guy jumping around every week to make sure the employees are excited about the product we are building and the direction we are headed in," Karp said.
"He doesn't have a pretentious or egocentric bone in his body," said Steve Nelson, the head of The Calhoun School, a private institution Karp attended until the eighth grade. "He doesn't take himself too seriously."
A few years later, Karp built Tumblr — the wildly popular blogging forum — from his tiny childhood bedroom, hunched over his laptop with bags of Tostitos. And on Saturday, the 26-year-old technology wunderkind returned home to inform his mother that, in a game-changing transaction, Yahoo was buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion.
"There were a few tears and lots of hugs, and a lot of excitement," said his mother, Barbara Ackerman. "This is something that he built — it's his baby — and it's emotional."
The deal was a transcendent moment for Karp, who created one of the world's busiest websites. It boasts 75 million daily posts and a user base that's loyal, young and hip. While Facebook has morphed into a mainstream social network where grandparents talk golf, Tumblr is still that little corner of the Internet where the cool kids hang out.
True to the company's laid-back, jeans-and-sneakers culture, Karp's wry sense of humor remained intact on Monday morning, when all employees were summoned to a meeting in Tumblr's New York headquarters. Cognizant of media reports that Tumblr was on the verge of a sale, everyone waited with bated breath as Karp kicked off the meeting with a tongue-in-cheek announcement: It was time to formulate a new "dog policy."
"We have gone above and beyond with our dog policy," he told them. "There is now one dog for every five people in the office at Tumblr at any given time. So we are needing to figure out a better bathroom situation."
With just six years of Tumblr's existence under his belt, Karp told The Associated Press that he still considers himself to be a green executive. But he's learning that he can no longer play the same role that he did in the early days, when he spent most of his time writing computer code.
"Now the team that I get to work with writes much better than me," he said.
Today he's the "chief motivator, the guy jumping around every week to make sure the employees are excited about the product we are building and the direction we are headed in," Karp said.
"He doesn't have a pretentious or egocentric bone in his body," said Steve Nelson, the head of The Calhoun School, a private institution Karp attended until the eighth grade. "He doesn't take himself too seriously."
"Dexter" Season 8 premieres Sunday, June 30 at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime
A new "Dexter" Season 8 behind-the-scenes video goes in depth into some of the developments we saw in the intense full-length "Dexter" trailer Showtime released last week.
The new footage offers glimpses of new scenes from "Dexter's" upcoming final season and one major component of Season 8 will be Deb's struggle to come to terms with La Guerta's murder in lastseason's finale. "Dexter never meant to back her into choosing her brother over La Guerta," Michael C. Hall (Dexter Morgan) says in the video above. "I think she's going to be questioning whether she killed the right person probably for the remainder of her days," James Remar (Harry Morgan) adds.
"Deborah is hitting a low point, searching for her bottom," Jennifer Carpenter (Deborah Morgan) says in the video. The trailer showed Deb strung out on drugs, sleeping with a man who appears to be her dealer, getting arrested for a DUI and showing up at the police station, slurring that she "want[s] to make an official statement."
"I don't think Dexter spends a lot of time thinking about La Guerta's murder. He's confused by Deborah's reaction to it and her inability to move past it," Carpenter continues.
The new season starts six months after last season left off, the video reveals. "We find Dexter, on the one hand, telling himself that things are good, but there are a lot of problems, and the subterranean stuff is starting to bubble up," Hall says, as a scene of Dexter yelling at Harrison plays. Later, he chokes a guy sitting in his car in broad daylight.
"Anything goes this season. There's no safe zone. Anyone can die, and anything can happen," Aimee Garcia (Jamie Batista) says, as footage plays of Dexter, with a bloody hand, searching for a missing Harrison.
When it comes to the series' end-game, the cast keeps it vague. "What's gonna happen with Deb and Dexter? Is anyone else in the department going to find out about Dexter's secret? Could it be Quinn? Batista? Maybe all of us, or maybe none of us," C.S. Lee (Vince Masuka) teases.
Michael C. Hall closes the video by waxing philosophical about the ending. "This season is about what Dexter is going to leave behind. I have no idea how fans will react, hopefully they'll be leaning forward, and compelled by the story, but I imagine there will be a spectrum of experience," he teases.
"Dexter" Season 8 premieres Sunday, June 30 at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime
Brad Pitt's Family Has Made Him A Better Person:
Brad Pitt may be ... well, Brad Pitt ... but that doesn't mean his life isn't complicated.
In the new issue of Esquire magazine, the 49-year-old actor admits he's a little bit of a loner and has some trouble when it comes to forming friendships.
"I have very few friends," he tells Esquire. "I have a handful of close friends and I have my family and I haven't known life to be any happier. I'm making things. I just haven't known life to be any happier."
In actuality Pitt, who has six children -- Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne -- with his fiancee Angelina Jolie, 37, always wanted a big brood to fill that empty space.
"I always thought that if I wanted to do a family, I wanted to do it big. I wanted there to be chaos in the house," Pitt shares, adding, "there's constant chatter in our house, whether it's giggling or screaming or crying or banging. I love it. I love it. I love it."
"I hate it when they're gone," he continues. "I hate it. Maybe it's nice to be in a hotel room for a day –- 'Oh, nice, I can finally read a paper.' But then, by the next day, I miss that cacophony, all that life."
Before all the "chaos," Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston -- they divorced in 2005 after he met Jolie on the set of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" -- and has admitted in the past that he was his own worst enemy. Not only did he dabble in drugs, but he let his dreams and goals drift away from him. Pitt even confesses that he was just one paper away from earning his college degree.
"I'd get so far and then want to do something else. I mean, I'm two credits short of graduating college. Two credits. All I had to do was write a paper. What kind of guy is that?" he asks. "That guy scares me –- the guy who always leaves a little on his plate."
"For a long time I thought I did too much damage -– drug damage. I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing," Pitt adds to Esquire. "I spent years f**king off. But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity. It was a conscious change. This was about a decade ago. It was an epiphany -– a decision not to squander my opportunities. It was a feeling of get up. Because otherwise, what’s the point?"
Read more in the June/July issue of Esquire magazine, on newsstands May 28.
In the new issue of Esquire magazine, the 49-year-old actor admits he's a little bit of a loner and has some trouble when it comes to forming friendships.
"I have very few friends," he tells Esquire. "I have a handful of close friends and I have my family and I haven't known life to be any happier. I'm making things. I just haven't known life to be any happier."
In actuality Pitt, who has six children -- Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne -- with his fiancee Angelina Jolie, 37, always wanted a big brood to fill that empty space.
"I always thought that if I wanted to do a family, I wanted to do it big. I wanted there to be chaos in the house," Pitt shares, adding, "there's constant chatter in our house, whether it's giggling or screaming or crying or banging. I love it. I love it. I love it."
"I hate it when they're gone," he continues. "I hate it. Maybe it's nice to be in a hotel room for a day –- 'Oh, nice, I can finally read a paper.' But then, by the next day, I miss that cacophony, all that life."
Before all the "chaos," Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston -- they divorced in 2005 after he met Jolie on the set of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" -- and has admitted in the past that he was his own worst enemy. Not only did he dabble in drugs, but he let his dreams and goals drift away from him. Pitt even confesses that he was just one paper away from earning his college degree.
"I'd get so far and then want to do something else. I mean, I'm two credits short of graduating college. Two credits. All I had to do was write a paper. What kind of guy is that?" he asks. "That guy scares me –- the guy who always leaves a little on his plate."
"For a long time I thought I did too much damage -– drug damage. I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing," Pitt adds to Esquire. "I spent years f**king off. But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity. It was a conscious change. This was about a decade ago. It was an epiphany -– a decision not to squander my opportunities. It was a feeling of get up. Because otherwise, what’s the point?"
Read more in the June/July issue of Esquire magazine, on newsstands May 28.
Jay-Z is shutting down the rumors
Jay-Z is
shutting down the rumors that he’s about to become a father again. The
media and all of the blogs went crazy on Friday when the news broke that
the couple were expecting another child.
Bey took to her Instagram over the weekend to address the rumors and today Jay wants us all to know that his wife is not pregnant. Ebro Darden, the programming director of NYC radio station HOT 97 reached out to Jay over the weekend and offered his congratulations. Ebro said Jay replied and confirmed he and his wife of five years, Beyonce, are not expecting.
Guess we’ll have to wait another 6 months or so to know for sure!
The Mrs. Carter Show tour hits the U.S. next month and we will be on baby bump watch!
Bey took to her Instagram over the weekend to address the rumors and today Jay wants us all to know that his wife is not pregnant. Ebro Darden, the programming director of NYC radio station HOT 97 reached out to Jay over the weekend and offered his congratulations. Ebro said Jay replied and confirmed he and his wife of five years, Beyonce, are not expecting.
Guess we’ll have to wait another 6 months or so to know for sure!
The Mrs. Carter Show tour hits the U.S. next month and we will be on baby bump watch!
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in Oklahoma
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in
Oklahoma as the state recovers from a massive tornado that ripped
through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, killing dozens and flattening
entire neighborhoods.
Obama has ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts. Individuals and business owners affected by the disaster may apply for federal grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs.
The president promised federal assistance in a phone conversation earlier Monday with Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (FAL'-ihn). The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent a special team to Oklahoma's emergency operations center to help out and dispatch resources.
Below, the full declaration from The White House:
Obama has ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts. Individuals and business owners affected by the disaster may apply for federal grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs.
The president promised federal assistance in a phone conversation earlier Monday with Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (FAL'-ihn). The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent a special team to Oklahoma's emergency operations center to help out and dispatch resources.
Below, the full declaration from The White House:
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