Mr. Nguyen

A day after we learned about a lawsuit alleging Color CEO Bill Nguyen inflicted "emotional distress" on an employee with a guy sporting a Glock, Color has announced it is shutting down. The news posted at the top of the company's website is succinct: "Alert: We hope you've enjoyed sharing your stories via real-time video. Regretfully, the app will no longer be available after 12/31/2012."

As PC Magazine notes, regardless of what kind of craziness went down in Color's offices, the app held little interest for potential consumers:

Nevertheless, the app simply failed to gain much traction with users, with reviewers often commenting that Color appeared to be an app trying to solve a problem that didn't seem to exist. The New York Times famously asked, "What if you threw a $41 million party and nobody came? A start-up company called Color knows how that feels."

Color has had an eventful history for a company that only launched last year. As AllThingsD reported last month:

Color had started out as a social discovery product with $41 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and Bain Capital, then pivoted to a Facebook-connected silent video app, and most recently had scored a deal with Verizon to distribute a live video app on Android phones that launched in May and showed early signs of going well.

Color

After raising that $41 million in early 2011, the app partnered with Reese Witherspoon and the film Water for Elephants to help boost its cred. In May of 2011, it launched with a refreshed UI as an "elastic social network" before pivoting to the Android live video app.

Last month, rumors swirled that the company was shutting down, then that Apple was swooping in to the rescue with a deal to buy Color for a price in the "high double-digits" (millions, natch). The reality, it appears, is that Apple paid a lesser price—$2 to $5 million, per AllThingsD, to "acquihire" the company's engineering team.

Color kept its intellectual property and technology, and was believed to have $25 million in the bank. Those assets are now being wound down, Business Insider reports, with the company returning an undisclosed amount of funds to investors. The report of funds going out to investors came from Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney representing former Color employee Adam Witherspoon in Mr. Witherspoon's lawsuit against the company.

Color's CEO Bill Nguyen left the company back in September, reportedly to go on a long vacation. "I do this historically," he told TechCrunch at the time. "I take off for a little while and I vacation. It’s nothing new or exciting. The roles of founders and CEOs is to get everyone engaged and give opportunities to people. And when things haven’t worked out as expected, the best way for me to recharge is to go on sabbatical.”

Color Labs hasn't publicly responded to Mr. Witherspoon's lawsuit, but the timing of its shutdown may be response enough.

This is a breaking story and we will update the post as we learn more.

Mr. Nguyen, looking innocuous. (Photo: flickr.com/scobleizer)

The long saga of Color, the ill-fated, infamously over-funded photo-sharing startup, just gets weirder and weirder. After rumors swirled that it was shutting down for good, the company's assets were acquired by Apple; now, TechCrunch reports that former employee Andrew Witherspoon (who was laid off) is suing both Color and former CEO Bill Nguyen for a host of shocking reasons, including "intentional infliction of emotional distress."

If even a handful of the accusations in this complaint are true, there's been major misbehavior happening at Color Labs. And if Mr. Witherspoon has made them up, well then he missed his calling as a novelist.

TechCrunch has a copy of the lawsuit, which is currently being filed in a Santa Clara court. And it makes for crackerjack reading:

Ngyuen, with the acquiescence of Color's board, consisting of several prominent venture capital investor firm representatives, created an extremely hostile, unsafe, and harassing atmosphere at Color, including bringing an armed crony into the workplace to threaten and intimidate employees cooperating in an investigation into Nguyen's financial and other improprieties.

The complaint alleges that Mr. Nguyen had a friend who worked at the Office of the Inspector General and, consequently, carried a gun. According to the complaint, Mr. Nguyen "bragged to Color employees--including Plaintiff Witherspoon and Indelicato--that Dunphy was able to put employees who crossed Nguyen on no-fly lists, have those employees' credit ruined, and was otherwise able to get those employees into other types of trouble."

That's bad enough, but the complaint adds that one day when this friend came into the office, gun fully visible, "Defendant Nguyen asked Steffens [an employee] if she had seen Dunphy with his Glock handgun. When Steffens answered affirmatively, Defendant Nguyen revealed to Steffens that Dunphy 'was the guy I'm going to use to put Alyssa (Solomon) [an employee who brought to light potential financial improprieties] into federal prison.'"

But that's just the most shocking of the claims in the suit. It's far from the only one. The complaint alleges that Mr. Nguyen "hurled expletives at Color employees as a form of intimidation, telling an employee in a meeting with others that 'I will fuck you in the ass, that's the stupidest fucking idea I've ever heard.'" The complaint also claims that he once invited the entire team to listen in as he fired a sobbing employee over the phone.

The picture the complaint paints of the relationship between Mr. Witherspoon and Mr. Nguyen is the stuff of which mediocre literary novels are made. The supposed reason for the break between the two, whose families were once close enough to vacation together in Tahoe? A falling out between their elementary-school-age sons:

"The conflict between their sons caused a strain in Plaintiff Witherspoon and Defendant Nguyen's relationship, as Nguyen and his wife Amanda blamed Plaintiff Witherspoon's son for the lack of agreement between the boys," says the complaint.

This is like a Dear Prudence letter.

Nguyen told another cofounder of Color, former Chief Financial Officer Alyssa Solomon, that Witherspoon's son was a "wimp" and "uncoordinated" and that Nguyen did not want his children to socialize with Witherspoon's son.

And if that wasn't enough: "Defendant Nguyen insinuated that the misbehavior of Plaintiff Witherspoon's son was due to Plaintiff Witherspoon's failings as a parent."

Frankly, it's starting to look like the most money anyone's going to make off this company lies in selling the rights to a tell-all later optioned by the Coen Brothers.

Map-maker, Map-maker, Build Me a Map! If Tim Cook's mea culpa wasn't enough to demonstrate how hard Apple is scrambling to fix its iOS 6 mapocalypse, then how about its last ditch recruiting techniques to find Ruby developers? Mojo Talantikite, a cluster engineer at Engine Yard in New York City, said he (and a number of his technically talented friends) have been hit up by Apple recruiters recently.

The recruiter's LinkedIn inquiry mentions "Maps" specifically:

"We are looking for a passionate Ruby coder to have a HUGE impact our Maps, Flyover, Geo and Siri teams in iOS. I've read about your work on Heroku's infrastructure. Is it a good time for you to chat?"

My, What Colorful Balls You Have Startup perks tend to veer toward the infantile. Between the snacks, slides, and nap pods, managers might as well try to wipe your nose when you sneeze. But newly-married Elepath founder Jakob Lodwick actually committed, procuring the ball pool of your childhood dreams for Elepath's San Francisco "studio." At least that's what we thought based on his recent Instagram offering. However, on closer inspection, an antimated gif from Elepath's blog reveals the ball pool is less Chuck E. Cheese and more kiddie pool. Things on the Internet, it seems, may be smaller than they appear.

Cussing For a Cause Last week Tech4Obama hosted an evening in New York with serial entrepreneur and current CTO for Obama for America Harper Reed. Next to the guest list--heavily studded with Silicon Alley stalwarts like Soraya Darabi, Rachel Sklar, and Betaworks' Andrew McLaughlin and investor Pedro Torres Picon--the invitation loudly warned "THIS EVENT IS CLOSED TO PRESS." Now we know why. Apparently the bearded Mr. Reed has quite the mouth on him. But doesn't he know reporters love that shit?

Colorblind We're still not really sure what Color was launched to do, but it got $40 million in funding to do it. The app subsequently became the archetypal overfunded startup representing tech's hype bubble (even inspiring a fake pitch deck!). Color treaded in the wave pool for a bit before pivoting to a new idea altogether.

Now, TechCrunch reports that Color may be experiencing an executive level shakeup, with sources saying CEO Bill Nguyen will be taking a step back from from day-to-day operations at the flailing company. In his stead, an "executive committee" has been assembled to take over his responsibilities.

Mr. Nguyen apparently hasn't shown up to the office in two months, leading sources to conjecture that he's "probably either in Tahoe or Hawaii.” (Ugh.) An ominous Quora post from January of this year wondered why Color had shuttered its Palo Alto office, but CNET journalist Casey Newton responded that the company said they'd "hung some paper up to cover its windows while they do some work inside." Hmm, engineers do have some weird working habits.

Of course, a question about why Mr. Nguyen left Color immediately cropped up on Quora and was quickly answered with a cringe-worthy response. "After the disastrous pivot from the initial (fairly brilliant, but poorly implemented) photo sharing concept, it was really only a matter of 'Nguyen, not if'."

Sigh.

Digging K-Pop Looks like Digg cofounder Kevin Rose is officially a fan of the "Gangnam Style" hype. Mr. Rose posted a photo on his Instagram of a little bobble head Psy doing the infamous horse dance, sharing a photo of his Psy laptop decal shortly after. Try to ignore the awkward comment about "open condom style," below.

(Photo: Instagram)

Business Tattler Henry Blodget proudly outed Verge's editor-in-chief today, tweeting, "Josh Topolsky reads Business Insider!" But the real question is: does he hate read it?

As always: Overheard a juicy tidbit about impending departures or imminent acquisitions? Dying to dish about startup blunders or frothy financing? Holler at your girls: tips@betabeat.com

A lot users who tried Color had a horrible first experience, since the whole point is to see photos being shared by folks around you, and very few people were using the app.

CEO Bill Nguyen said the technology is what justifies the big raise. We would have an easier time swallowing that, if they weren't already using celebrity PR stunts to push the product. This weekend Color partnered with 20th Century Fox to promote the premier of Reese Witherspoon's new movie, Water for Elephants.

"With such a big following of Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, people will be camping out just to get to the front of the barricades," Color co-founder Peter Pham told the Hollywood reporter, comparing the app to a visual Twitter. "It'll give you a really good sense of what it's like from the fan's perspective. It's not the high-def professional cameraman taking the photos perched in a specific spot."

So heads up all you lazy, near-sighted or unfortunately short Reese Witherspoon fans; this is your chance to experience blurry cell phone shots of your favorite celeb without spending hours and hours camping out next to the Zigfield. Can't you imagine using this app every day?