07
October
2004
|
16:26 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Tech Watch:Dave Galbraith’s penthouse party off Alamo Square was the place to be the other night

Mr GigaOm himself was there (although I missed his Om-ness, he had left by the time I’d arrived, fashionably late of course.) And spotted in the corner, on the patio was Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger, who had just left Google the day before, (acquired by Google in early 2003) “I’m just going to take some time off for now, take it easy,” Evan said.


Dave Galbraith, co-founder of MoreOver, just finished up a project with Max Levchin, former CTO and co-founder of PayPal. Dave’s not talking about his next venture just yet, but I’m working on him.


As for Max, he’s has been busy with his MRL Ventures incubator, and I’m hearing rumblings, and it’s not Mount St. Helens.

The first rocket is on the launch pad, and it’s going to be an interesting project.


At PayPal, Max really understood how to leverage the power of viral marketing, and the first launch out of the incubator, I’m hearing, is that it will use viral marketing techniques in a similar way. More will be revealed soon…


I met Max earlier this year, I interviewed him for a Financial Times article on what happens to a company that is taken public, he gave me some great quotes:


What did you do to celebrate PayPal’s IPO? “A few of us went off to a Palo Alto diner and had a bubbly burger, it’s a $100 cheese burger,” Max said.


Damn, a hundred dollar burger? “Yes, it’s a regular cheese burger that comes with a bottle of Dom Perignon.”


Various leading VCs have been seen dropping in on Max in his South of Market incubator, from time to time, just to say hi, ask about his dog (a beautiful dog by the way.) And also try and sneek a peek at his whiteboard, offer to wax and clean his car, take his dog for a walk.


Hey, Max is just 28, and he isn’t finished yet, I'm not surprised the VC's want to hang around. He landed his PayPal bounty when he was just 26. And as co-founder, the $1.5bn sale of PayPal to Ebay, has set him up nicely.


Stay tuned, more on Max, more on MRL, more on Galbraith penthouse party…and how much is an original blogger T-shirt worth? (I’m feeling like a society gossip columnist for the geek elite!)