Venture Capital is Happening Here

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Vinod Khosla and his Khosla Ventures took part in one of the biggest venture capital funding rounds of the year, joining some investing giants in backing WeatherBill to the tune of $42 million.

The San Francisco-based WeatherBill has developed a technology platform that enables the pricing and purchasing of weather insurance using global weather simulation modeling and local weather monitoring systems.

The recent funding was the company's second round of venture capital.

Khosla Ventures and Google Ventures joined previous investors NEA, Index Ventures, Allen & Co., First Round Capital, Atomico and Code Advisors.

WeatherBill said it will use the money to support "aggressive" product and sales expansion in the United States and internationally. Products pay out automatically based solely on measured weather conditions, requiring no claims process and no waiting for payment, according to the company.

"With a firm belief that technology can create new markets and address vital global challenges, Khosla Ventures immediately recognized the potential of WeatherBill to fundamentally change the risk profile of the global agriculture industry," said Khosla, founder of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Khosla Ventures. "WeatherBill is one of those rare companies that has the leadership and vision to apply new technology to an ancient and daunting problem — weather's impact on agriculture. Now WeatherBill can help farmers globally deal with the increasingly extreme weather brought on by climate change."

"Global agriculture production is more than $3 trillion per year, and it is at risk today from extreme weather conditions, as evidenced by the recent droughts in Russia and China and extensive flooding in Australia, which have decimated global commodity supplies," said David Friedberg, CEO and co-founder of WeatherBill. "More than 90 percent of crop losses are due to unexpected weather and climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. Dedicated to addressing this global concern, WeatherBill is applying the use of our technology platform to become the first company to provide every farmer, from the developing world to the technologically sophisticated, with a simple and effective solution for removing weather-related risk from their financial profile, in order to support and ensure the sustainability of the global food supply."

Source: IndUS Business Journal Online. March 7, 2011

Peninsula Cities Face Uphill Battle in Trying to Join Forces over High-speed Rail

Source: By Mike Rosenberg, mrosenberg@bayareanewsgroup.com

Tired of being a national "laughingstock" on high-speed rail, a splintered group of San Mateo County cities is joining to form a lobbying effort they hope will put them on equal footing with San Francisco and San Jose.

San Mateo, Burlingame, Millbrae, Redwood City and South San Francisco have already banded together to form the San Mateo County Rail Corridor Partnership. Officials in Belmont and the county supervisors have also expressed interest, while other cities are set to discuss joining the effort.

The officials behind the idea think the county's 12 cities along the Caltrain line can relay their concerns about California high-speed rail to the state and federal governments more easily as a unified group. The problem is that many of the cities -- even the ones that have joined -- don't necessarily agree on many aspects of the massive project, which could run along the Caltrain line later this decade.

While leaders in Burlingame are fighting to slow down the project, for instance, their neighbors in Millbrae are pushing for the rail line to come to town as quickly as possible.

Burlingame Mayor Terry Nagel, one of the group's founders, acknowledged they may not be able to get every city along the tracks to join or agree on many controversial areas. But she argues the cities are helpless by themselves.

Nagel said the seeds of the group's founding were planted in a fall meeting between officials from several Peninsula cities and

"They basically told us we're not going to get any money for high-speed rail or transportation because all our cities do is fight," Nagel said. "One of them said we were the laughingstock of Washington, D.C., because of our constant bickering. They were saying cities have to work it out."

Extra federal funding is key because cities fear they will have to pony up for local parts of the project, such as rail crossings, and will almost certainly need more money to bury the tracks underground, as several cities want.

The cities say they also have had virtually no luck pleading their case with the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The authority declined to even study -- let alone implement -- a key part of the project local cities want, namely tunneled tracks.

Some cities simply may not fit in a larger coalition, however. Atherton and Menlo Park, for example, have sued the state to reverse its decision to run the high-speed railroad along the Caltrain line, but the new partnership group is pushing to "accept" the route.

"Our voice can get lost, when we join with all the (San Mateo County) cities," Menlo Park Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson said at a meeting this week to discuss the new group.

Menlo Park Mayor Rich Cline added that the group "doesn't make sense."

"It's another overlapping group of talking heads," Cline said. Nonetheless, he said Menlo Park's full council will vote on whether to join the group.

Yet there is some common ground. San Mateo Public Works Director Larry Patterson recently asked San Mateo County cities for a list of their high-speed rail concerns, and he found each jurisdiction's problems fell into five categories: track alignment, adjacent property impacts, land use and economics, traffic and construction.

Patterson, who is leading the coordination between cities, said one goal of the group is to make peace between the various cities, a process that is typically difficult regardless of the issue.

"But we need to find a way to do that," Patterson said. "We don't want to be lost in the shuffle. I think we make the task much more difficult if we try to do it as individual cities."

Bloomberg Launches West Coast Show from San Francisco

Bloomberg News’ San Francisco team is launching a new one-hour show. Called “Bloomberg West,” the show will focus on technology news with a Silicon Valley angle on business information.

It will air weekdays at 3 p.m. Pacific time and then again at 8 p.m. It’ll will be available to 250 million people worldwide who have Bloomberg TV.

Bloomberg has 65 reporters and editors in the local bureau, up from 32 in 2007, and plans to add five more soon. The bureau itself has about 250 employees.

The new show is hosted by Emily Chang, formerly with CNN in Bejing, and Cory Johnson, who was most recently a hedge fund manager and was CNBC’s first Silicon Valley correspondent.

Bloomberg’s new show will cover the impact of Bay Area companies including Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Twitter Inc.

Johnson told the San Francisco Chronicle that “New York media looks at things they don’t understand as numbers and trades and stock charts. We don’t care if a company made their numbers or missed their numbers. We care what that tells us about the business and the technological changes that the company may be succeeding at or failing at.”

Source: Bloomberg News, by Robin J Phillips on Feb 28, 2011

Menlo Wants to Stop Traffic at Santa Cruz and Elder

$291,000 in traffic signal changes coming to intersection near school

Source: by Sandy Brundage, Almanac Staff

The Menlo Park City School District and the city will each chip in $120,000 to add a new traffic light at the intersection of Santa Cruz Avenue and Elder Avenue, and take away a pedestrian signal in front of Hillview Middle School at that intersection.

The lighted, in-pavement pedestrian signal will shift to the corner of Santa Cruz Avenue and Olive Street.

The city will spend an additional $15,000 for staff time and $35,000 to create a right hand turn lane from Elder Avenue to Santa Cruz Avenue.

First things first, though. At the request of the City Council at its Feb. 15 meeting, Menlo Park will also spend $1,000 to create a "keep clear" zone in front of Atkinson Lane, a residential street that intersects Santa Cruz Avenue about a block from the school.

During the meeting, three Atkinson Lane residents expressed concern about traffic problems worsening if the city installs the traffic signal, saying it's already hard to pull in and out of their driveways.

"I do know that if we want to get into our driveway on Atkinson we're stopping all the traffic behind us and we can't go, because the cars are in front of our street," Anny Levin told the council. "Traffic is much more dangerous at that particular intersection than where it is now (on Seymour Lane)."

The residents asked the city to postpone the changes until it knows whether there truly is a problem with the current arrangement.

Data provided by the Menlo Park police department shows five accidents occurred at intersections around Hillcrest Middle School during the past two years. Three happened at the juncture of Santa Cruz Avenue and Olive Street, while Elder Avenue and Atkinson Lane had one each where those streets joined Santa Cruz Avenue.

Engineering services manager Chip Taylor told the council existing traffic issues would already benefit, and that waiting could make the problems worse. "The student population is going to slowly increase over the next four to five years," he said. "It takes time to get a signal in place, so if you wait until you see the problem, it could be six to eight months before you can get the signal installed."

The school district would like to see the changes made sooner rather than later since it plans to use bond money to pay for its half of the costs, Mr. Taylor said, and hopes to have construction start by May 2012.

The council unanimously approved the changes, as well as creating a "keep clear" zone as soon as possible.

Atherton Apparently Not on Obama's Circuit, but Woodside May Be

Rumors that President Obama would be stopping by Atherton during his Bay Area visit today (Feb. 17) are apparently unfounded.

However, there are other reports that he might make a stop in Woodside. If so, that could result in the closing of parts of Interstate 280 near or during the rush hour.

The White House says the president is due to arrive at San Francisco International Airport at 5:45 p.m. and will meet with business leaders at 6:45 p.m. at an undisclosed private residence.

With respect to Atherton, Police Chief Mike Guerra said that no roads would be closed off in the town and no presidential visit is in the cards.

He said that, in connection with the president's visit, one police officer from Atherton's force would help staff a police unit in Redwood City or Millbrae as part of a mutual aid agreement with other Bay Area jurisdictions.

Below are the guests expected to dine with Obama tonight. Many are residents of Atherton or Woodside:

- John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- Carol Bartz, president and CEO, Yahoo!
- John Chambers, CEO and chairman, Cisco Systems
- Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
- Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO, Oracle
- Reed Hastings, CEO, NetFlix
- John Hennessy, president, Stanford University
- Steve Jobs, chairman and CEO, Apple
- Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO, Genentech
- Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google
- Steve Westly, managing partner and founder, The Westly Group
- Mark Zuckerberg, founder, president, and CEO, Facebook

Source: Almanac Online

Facebook friends Menlo Park

Facebook is moving and hiring

Source: BBC, dot.Maggie, Maggie Shiels
09:20 UK time, Wednesday, 9 February 2011

A year and a half after cutting the ribbon on its Palo Alto HQ, Facebook has just unveiled plans to quit that complex and move six miles up the road to Menlo Park to a home that will house the social network's expanding employee base.

With a workforce of around 2,000, two-thirds of which are in the Bay Area, Facebook is busting at the seams. That is very evident when you walk around the place with people always milling around, the cafeteria's always brimming with employees and the overcrowded car park.

The world's biggest social network, which celebrated its seventh birthday last week, is growing like a weed and predicts that this year will see their hiring department working overtime to fill new posts.

There are 3,700 parking spaces at the new campus and room for 3,600 people, reporters were told during a news conference to unveil the new premises. When questioned, David Ebersman, chief financial officer admitted the company is planning to "add people". While he refused to be drawn on precise figures he did say "Facebook is growing 50% a year in terms of headcount and our growth plan is to continue hiring in the Bay Area."

The new digs which were built between 1993 and 1995, was Sun's corporate HQ until Oracle bought it for $7.4bn in 2010. The campus takes up 57 acres, has nine sprawling buildings and totals about one million square feet.

Facebook said it has also purchased an adjacent 22-acre tract that is connected to its new campus by a tunnel for possible future development.

Facebook did not say how much this is all costing but said Menlo Park did not offer any tax breaks to entice the hot Silicon Valley company to its neighbourhood.

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