Looks great on our Ikea coffee table. (Photo: Gentology)

There's not much we know about @GSElevator, the anonymous high-brow (bordering on despicable) Twitter account that supposedly shares lurid gossip from Goldman Sachs' elevators. Since 2011, it has racked up nearly half a million followers for giving normals a glimpse into the high-rolling, glitterati lifestyles of the assholic bankerbros at the vaunted company.

And since most of us are too poor to ever stride beyond the gold-plated columns of the House of Devious Practices & Ethics, we can at least now buy a snippet of it. The novelty Twitter account has opened a storefront on Gentology, a “celebrity-curated shopping club” for men only. Other popular celebrities on the website include Three 6 Mafia, Juvenile, and some kid named Tyler Baltierra from MTV’s 16 and Pregnant.

The first item for sale is a $3,000 premium leather Backgammon set, which is exactly something an investment banker would have on the coffee table of his yacht. @GSElevator’s creator told Betabeat that the idea of selling Goldman Sachs-themed items came from a supposedly hugely popular Christmas list that they shared on Twitter last year.

"I posted that because they were things that I liked and I was curious if I could get people to click on a link. 140,000 clicks later I realized that I had the power to influence," the thinkfluencer wrote to us. Other items going forward in the future will be "sexy, attention-grabbing" that fit @GSElevator's motif of highlighting the terribleness of the 1 percent.

The store's proceeds benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation, so at least you can write off that $3,000 purchase. There are more items planned for the store, but @GSElevator told us they'll be "exceptionally selective" and will not "compromise my integrity."

But can you put a price on integrity? And does it come in leather?

Photo: Cornell University

Cornell's NYC Tech Campus Scores Big Along with his wife, Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs, founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm, announced a $133-million gift to Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Monday to build and establish the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute (JTCII). The JTCII will be a part of Cornell Tech, the new technology campus of the Ivy League school located on Roosevelt Island that was heavily supported by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City of New York. The funds will go primarily to two-year graduate programs. Now if only they can find a more efficient way to get to the island that doesn’t involve a 40-year-old gondola.

Women's Lifestyle Site Earns Funding Women's lifestyle and finance website DailyWorth announced Tuesday that it added $1 million in additional Series A financing on top of the previous $2 million earned last year. DJF Gotham led the funding, which the company will use mainly to hire bring in new key new hires. Additional investors included Gabriel Investments, 500 Startups, Robinhood Ventures, Investors' Circle, Bullet Time Ventures, Patient Capital Collaborative, Joanne Wilson, Rebecca Saeger, Carol Chow, Diego Canoso, and Mark Censits.

Amazon Originals Actually Being Watched As we covered last Friday, Amazon is entering the original television business with the company's production arm Amazon Studios releasing 14 original TV pilots. AAnd it appears the shows are doing pretty well, even if some of them weren’t particularly entertaining:  8 out of 10 of the most streamed episodes across the Amazon Instant Video platform were original Amazon programs. The new TV shows are also averaging a 4 out of 5 rating on Amazon--though if life has taught us anything, it's that Amazon reviews aren’t always the most trustworthy.

Quantifying The Best Of The Web The Webby Awards announced a partnership today with Quantcast to bring Quantcast's web tracking technologies to the Webby award process. Quantcast will also specifically help the Mobile & Apps categories with deeper insights into mobile app usage by employing Quantcast’s new Measure for Apps program. Some of this year’s Webby Award nominees for Mobile & Apps are HBO Go, Google Maps, Mailbox, Netflix App, Waze, Lady Gaga’s Workshop and NIKEiD Mobile. If only Betabeat had a mobile app, we'd be in there for sure.

Investors Earn DoD Award Three New York employers, including investment firms Drexel Hamilton and Goldman Sachs, along with the New York City Fire Department, are semifinalists for the 2013 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award, given to companies that provide extraordinary support to their Guard and Reserve employees. Benefits that these companies have excelled at include setting veteran hiring goals, establishing military employee liaisons, providing childcare for deployed employees, arranging care package drives, and granting additional leave for military employees and family members before and after deployments. Now let's see if the tech startups start opening their doors like their investors are doing.

According to multiple outlets, investing giant BlackRock has agreed to buy an $80 million stake in Twitter in a deal apparently designed to give liquidity to early employees and in turn, provide the microblogging service some breathing room before it's more-or-less inevitable IPO.

If that sounds familiar, it's because about two years back, Facebook struck a deal with Goldman Sachs in which Zuck & Co. raised $500 million from the Wall Street bank formerly compared to face-sucking mollusk, providing the social media giant cash for acquisitions and hires, and a means to paying out early employees who might have otherwise lobbied for an IPO.

It's not apples to apples—Twitter's BlackRock deal doesn't raise cash for the company—but appears to buy Twitter time before an IPO. Per Dan Primack, who reports that the ability to sell shares is only open to about two dozen employees:

From Twitter’s perspective, the goal is to forestall employee agitation for an IPO. This is a particularly salient problem at the micro-messaging service, because it has taken a much harder line on secondary stock sales than did companies like Facebook.

Meanwhile, BlackRock's interest in Twitter seems to indicate that investment firms weren't so scarred by the Facebook fiasco that they're not willing to take another ride with a social media company. If the valuation in the deal—a reported $9 billion, up from more than $8 billion at the end of 2011—sounds more sober than the numbers tossed around in the run-up to the Facebook offering, maybe that's evidence that some lessons were learned after all.

And for those of you who keep track of such things, BlackRock is among the Wall Street firms to maintain a Twitter presence, though sadly, has yet to tweet any news of the deal.

Mark Zuckerberg ringing Nasdaq's opening bell on the day of Facebook's IPO. (Photo: CBS)

It's been an eventful year for Facebook stock: From an ill-fated IPO that cost market-makers millions to a share price that plummeted more than 50 percent from its offering price, and most recently, a $5 million settlement between the company's lead investment bank and a Massachusetts regulator, there's been hardly a dull moment in the Facebook's short life as a public company.

Through the tumult, one thing has remained consistent: The research arms of the Wall Street banks that led the offering have maintained a 'buy' rating on the stock. According to The Wall Street Journal, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have continued to recommend Facebook stock to investors—even as mutual funds run by those banks have unloaded Facebook shares:

Facebook's top underwriters aren't the only firms with an upbeat view of the company's future. Among the 33 firms that sold Facebook shares to the public in the $16 billion deal, 62% of the 208 analyst reports have urged investors to buy the shares, according to Thomson Reuters. None has suggested investors sell the shares.

At Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Goldman, the "buy" recommendations kept coming even as in-house mutual funds sold some of their Facebook holdings.

You can take that one of two ways: The banks really do maintain Chinese walls between their research and investment management divisions. Alternatively, that "the system is being gamed by the financial-services industry," as Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin told the Journal.

We're inclined to sympathize with both views. In either case, with Mr. Galvin still investigating the offering, we can expect that the twisted tale of Facebook's IPO won't fade away with the new year.

The Times has more details on the new funding round, which is said to value Spotify at about $3 billion:

Of the $100 million, half is from Goldman Sachs, and Coke is contributing about 10 percent. Another new investor, Fidelity Investments, is also said to be chipping in about 15 percent of the financing round, with the remaining quarter coming from Spotify’s existing investors, according to another person briefed on the deal. Both people spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was private.

Spotify, wich was founded in Sweden in 2006, raised $100 million from DST, Kleiner Perkins and Accel last year.

While word that Coke might be among the new investors in Spotify was reported last month, the soda maker's interest in streaming music surfaced as early as this spring, when it said it was working with developers on a Spotify app.

Mr. Aleynikov.

After a 2010 conviction in federal court for "theft of trade secrets," a year in prison, and the relief of an overturned conviction in February, Reuters reports that former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov is back in court today. This time, he faces state charges for the alleged theft of the code that underlies the firm's high-frequency trading system.

Reached for comment, Mr. Aleynikov's attorney Kevin Marino confirmed that his client is scheduled to be arraigned downtown this afternoon. Mr. Marino told Betabeat:

"Mr. Aleynikov spent a year in prison for a crime he was later determined to have not committed. It's difficult to imagine that the authorities would think if appropriate to pursue state charges against him arising out of the same set of facts, but apparently that's what they've chosen to do."

Reuters says:

The felony arrest warrant, dated last week and signed by an FBI agent, charges Aleynikov with "unlawful use of secret scientific material" and "unlawful duplication of computer related material."

UPDATE: The district attorney's office has released a statement, confirming that Mr. Aleynikov has been arrested and arraigned "on a felony complaint charging him with accessing and duplicating a complex proprietary and highly confidential computer source code owned by Goldman Sachs." Included is bit of explanation from DA Cy Vance regarding why bring the charges:

“This code is so highly confidential that it is known in the industry as the firm’s ‘secret sauce,”’ said District Attorney Vance.  “Employees who exploit their access to sensitive information should expect to face criminal prosecution in New York State in appropriate cases.”

Letter make Lloyd sad.

If there were a more visual element (perhaps a honey badger or LOLcat) attached to the "Why I Left Company X" genre, the meme would already be cresting to the top of BuzzFeed. Former TechCrunch employees may have thought they had the art of the bomb-throwing exit letter on lockdown, but over the last couple days, they've been bested by the their more corporate brethren.

Yesterday, Google's former engineering director James Whittaker accused the once-great innovation lab of devolving into an advertising machine. And today Goldman Sachs former executive director Greg Smith issued the most damning sayonara since Jerry McGuire. He started by decrying the toxic, profit-hungry culture, then revealed Goldman's pet name for clients ("muppets"), before going on to level charges of widespread "moral bankruptcy."

Those missives quickly spawned a parody ("Why I Am Leaving the Empire, by Darth Vader") and a spin-off (Mr. Smith's former intern at Goldman tried to jump into the fray.) Both "Greg Smith" and "Goldman Sachs" are already trending topics on Twitter.

The startup world—which never shies away from the world-changing rhetoric, even when it's being used to shill for American Express—couldn't have dreamed up a better recruiting strategy than Mr. Smith's 2,500-word explosion of righteous indignation.

Tumblr President John Maloney wasted no time tweeting it out to potential new hires:

Wall Street engineers - if that GS resignation letter speaks to you then just quit and join this booming magical NYC tech startup community

— John Maloney (@JohnMaloney) March 14, 2012

One new Tumblr engineer let him know that he'd already gotten the memo:

@JohnMaloney I left GS and started at Tumblr last Monday. — Bryan Irace (@irace) March 14, 2012

Buzzfeed's own Ben Smith noticed how quickly startups were glomming on to coopt the rage to their advantage:

Certain lack of sympathy for disgruntled Goldman types: "Deal with it or leave and open an Etsy store." thereformedbroker.com/2012/03/14/how… — Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) March 14, 2012

Dan Frommer wondered how quickly the VCs would pull their checkbooks:

"Why I Quit Google/Goldman" form letter generator startup raises seed round in 3, 2…

— Dan Frommer (@fromedome) March 14, 2012

To be fair, New York startups have been using the finance sector's moral decline as a recruiting tactic since well before Occupy Wall Street. This just codifies it—and gives them a URL to point to during an interview. In the end, Betabeat is more inclined to take Anthony De Rosa's view on things:

Goldman made insane profits while the economy melted down, but a resignation letter got your attention?

— Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) March 14, 2012

Of course, we'd hasten to add an asterisk about Goldman's role in ushering in that meltdown in the first place.

OwnEnergy

We thought it would be fun to get off the beaten path for a second and cover a tech company doing stuff outside the consumer web. This morning Brooklyn's OwnEnergy announced it will develop a large wind farm to power more than 9,000 homes across Pennsylvania.

Like so many interesting tech projects in New York these days, OwnEnergy is the brainchild of a former Wall Street worker. Jacob Susman worked with Goldman Sachs for several years, helping to guide the companies investment in wind energy. 

In early 2007 (nice timing) he left with the goal of creating community based wind energy, investing his family's personal savings in the project.

OwnEnergy worked with local farmers in Pennsylvania, "“We’re the Sixth generation of Yahners to farm and live in the Patton community,” said Marty Yahner.  "When I learned that a wind farm would be developed here, I was excited by the prospect, but wanted to make sure it would work for me and my neighbors.  By taking this Community Wind development approach, OwnEnergy enabled us to get comfortable with the many aspects of the project, while getting involved in a more meaningful way and sharing in the profits.”

Ok, that's been your slice of industry diversity for the day. Wonder what Groupon has been up to lately.

Snap Interactive CEO Cliff Lerner - image via We Are NY Tech

There is a conventional wisdom among web startups building social services for consumers. Build the product first, focus on perfecting it for your users, get as big as possible, then figure out how to monetize. It's the story behind Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare.

But what if you went about things from the opposite direction. Snap Interactive has their holiday party last night at their offices in the west 30s. There flagship product is Are You Interested, a dating app that began life as one of the first apps on the new Facebook platform back in 2007.

"I won't lie to you, user experience, design, those have not been our focus. We optimized for revenue and growth. Now we have those thing on cruise control, we can start to work backwards on building a great product." said Cliff Lerner, Snap's CEO. 

The other unique thing about the company? They aren't VC backed, in fact they are already public, as a penny stock. The company actually went public in 2006, a year before they launched Are You Interested on Facebook.

Being public means quarterly statements, and Snap just reported record third quarter revenue of $5.09 million, a 198 percent increase over the same time last year. This is partly thanks to Facebook's launch of its apps platform on mobile in October, which helped Snap to a 30 percent increase in daily logins.

"At first, not having raised venture was hurting us, because it made it tough to get covered in the tech press or expand rapidly," said Mr. Lerner. "But now, being a public company is really helping. The hiring environment in New York is so competitive, being able to offer developers stock in a public company that they can easily trade has become a big weapon for our HR."

At a time when startup employees seed Zynga clawing back stock options and shares in recent IPOs like Groupon plummeting, the opportunity to have stable, liquid equity in a public company is increasingly attractive

Betabeat covered Snap back in January, when the Goldman Sachs sale of Facebook sent Snap's stock rocketing up an astonishing 1000%. They followed this with an $8.5 million private placement, and have actually increased their amount of available capital since. They moved into a bigger office and have been hiring like mad.

Why haven't we been covering this company more closely? To be honest, we were snobs. It seemed to us like a spammy Facebook app and the poor design was a kind of a turn off. They aren't connected to the startup scene or any big name local investors.

But after spending time with their developers last night, we're interested to see if they really can engineer a meaningful startup in reverse. "We have always tried to align ourselves with Facebook. So at first that meant virality. Then later it meant the news feed. Now it means the timeline, telling a story, focusing on the depth of data," said Mr. Lerner. "We got here by focusing on that extra ten cents, by trying to get that user to come back tomorrow. Now we care less about that. We want to make sure the user is coming back, not tomorrow, but in six months."

Lloyd Blankfein likes this.

Networked Insights, a startup that helps marketers make media buys by analyzing cues from social networks like Facebook and Twitter, has raised a $20 million round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. That's the same Goldman division that shopped around private shares of Facebook before media attention and government scrutiny forced them to take it back. In Networked Insights's case, the Facebook connection is indirect. The company's SocialSense platform looks at social data to help brands like Kraft, MTV, and Samsung figure out cost-effective media buys on TV, mobile, or social. But to differentiate from competitors like L.A.-based MarketShare, which also raised this year, AllThingsD reports that Networked Insights' "pitch is that it’s particularly good at picking up cues from Web users on sites/networks like Facebook and Twitter."