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DiggA few details have emerged about Ted, who has granted a few interviews, while guarding his anonymity. He told one blogger that he has five startups under his belt. On TheFunded, Ted describes himself as a "modestly successful venture-funded entrepreneur." Once upon a time, he "experienced a bad funding situation and wanted to help others avoid a similar fate." Interestingly, he thinks TheFunded will "bring some transparency to the venture funding world," which, he notes without irony, is "largely governed by secrecy." Lastly, he's Angelina Jolie.
OK, that's a stretch. In reality, some believe Ted is really Jason Calacanis. The CEO of Mahalo.com Inc. certainly has never shied away from attention, but then he's not exactly known for his discretion. Calacanis has publicly denied being Ted (although, perhaps milking the drama until the last drop, he responded coyly to my e-mail queries and with posts on his Web site only that he is "getting ready for a really interesting night").
Others think Ted is serial entrepreneur Kevin Rose, who, while clever enough to have come up with the idea, seems fairly occupied with Digg Inc., Revision3 Corp. and Pownce. Other candidates for Ted-hood include Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media, who's shown a talent for skewering VCs on Valley Wag.
And then there's Evan Williams, founder of Twitter, Odeo and Blogger (the parent company of which, Pyra Labs, was sold to Google Inc. in 2003 for undisclosed terms). Williams had a bad enough funding experience to buy out Odeo from his VCs earlier this year. Of the four, he seems like the best bet for Ted-ness. But he emailed me late Thursday, pointing out his Twitter post, which says he's on a nonstop flight to Tokyo.
There's also a tonge-in-check theory from Infectious Greed blogger Paul Kedrosky, who posits that the father of TheFunded is actually "Gravity's Rainbow" author Thomas Pynchon. Kedrosky tells Tech Confidential he thinks T.E.D. stands for "The Entrepreneurial Diaspora." (Pynchon didn't respond to e-mail messages ... not that we have his e-mail ... or have any idea how to contact him. Wherever he is.) My personal theory is that Ted is someone who's been mostly under the radar ... until now.
David S. Rose, chairman of the investment group New York Angels, concurs. "I am close to 100% sure that it's someone I've never heard of." While interested to learn who is behind the site, Rose admits, "Frankly, I enjoy the mystique!" - Mary Kathleen Flynn
See Oct. 29 post on TheFunded from Tech Confidential
For more on Jason Calacanis see December 2006 post from Tech Confidential
For more on Kevin Rose see January Tech Confidential special report
For more on Nick Denton see Jan. 12 post from Tech Confidential
For more on Evan Williams see Feb. 20 post from Tech Confidential
For more on "Ted" see PEhub, Inc.com and HipMoJo.com
So, what do you make of someone like Kevin Rose, who's running Digg Inc., Revision3 Corp. and Pownce? Now that's what I call multi-tasking! :)
Mary Kathleen Flynn
Senior Editor
The Deal & Tech Confidential
The Funded has been really useful in sorting out the right VC's for our venture,some postings are weak but most are excelent,this article: http://www.springwise.com/retail/new_instant_print_kiosks/ to date had over 75,000 hits on our web site, plus thousands of applications for master country, territory rights etc.
It is amazing that while Adeo Ressi being paid and funded to run a company, he had the time to start and operate this venture. Any entrepreneur or executive at a startup knows that to be successful you need to give all your time, energy, and focus to building the company. The fact he was doing this on the side is acknowledgment he was cheating the company, the company's employees, and his investors.