TMZ has written the only tax story you’ll ever need to read. Rappers like The Game, Jim Jones, Bizzy Bone, and Daz Dillinger tell the site that they plan on trying to deduct expenses on their income tax filings for making it rain at strip clubs.
The logic is two-fold. First there’s the write-off Read More
It’s been said that if Sex And The City were still on the air, Carrie would be dating a startup dude. (For related theories on how George Costanza would deal with Snapchat, please see @ModernSeinfeld.)
Lucky for Lena Dunham that her Brooklyn-based take on entitlement coincides with the rise of New York’s nouveau tech riches. We already saw boho babe Jessa slum it with a square venture capitalist. (Factcheck on his “Steal My Sunshine” mash-up, though: In real life, VCs are much more partial to posting indie rock or dad rock on their Tumblr. And we’re sorry to report you probably picked the same song of the year.) Read More
If you thought it was impossible for Dennis Rodman’s basketball diplomacy tour of North Korea to get any more ridiculous, then you must have blocked out all of 1999.
Mr. Rodman, who is there with a VICE correspondent for a show about North Korea that will air on HBO later this year, already exposed his obliviousness. “Hopefully, it’ll be some fun,” he said of putting on a show for local kids. As Wired pointed out, “‘Fun’ is in short supply in the world’s last remaining Stalinist dictatorship.”
But his exit interview veered from just ignorant to offensively delusional. Palling around with dictators has never been so literal! Read More
Hats off to the evil geniuses at The Verge, who have managed to merge two of Betabeat’s great preoccupations: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and singer Taylor Swift. (How long before the inevitable rumors begin?!?!) Behold, “I Knew You Were Trouble (Ballmer Edition),” which we prefer to think is what Bill Gates hums to himself while jogging: Read More
Around this time last February, New York magazine wondered whether the golden age of ideas, sorry idea conferences, would leave “the clusterfuckoisie” without the uplifting epiphanies they paid so dearly to experience firsthand. “Might there be a cap on the number of interesting ideas in the universe?” asked Benjamin Wallace.
But the DAVOS-TED-Summit Series circuit has come back with a rejoinder in the form of rockstar-venture capitalist Bono (still listed as “Bono Rockstar” on Crunchbase, for those of you keeping track at home) who took the stage this afternoon in Long Beach. Read More
Stars: they’re just like us! Getting chastised by photo sharing apps for posting supposedly inappropriate content.
Madonna posted a letter to her Instagram today that she received from the Instagram team. The letter warns her that some of her photos have violated the company’s community guidelines, and reminds her to abide by Instagram’s rules, such as not posting nudity or illegal content. It advises her to delete the offending content or else her account may be shut down. Read More
The legendarily reclusive Thomas Pynchon, author of Gravity’s Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49, is set to publish a new novel titled Bleeding Edge in September. And what weird corner of Americana has Mr. Pynchon chosen for the subject of his latest opus? Why, Silicon Alley, circa 2001, during “the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom Read More
Good news for tech bros who still have a soft spot for their jam band past: everyone’s favorite musician from high school is now joining Justin Bieber and Will.i.am in the angel investor game. Dave Matthews has backed SpotTrot, an ecommerce app that allows musicians to sell merch on mobile phones.
Hey, this almost makes your firedancer tattoo relevant again.
However broke the state of California may be, it’s also sitting on a treasure trove of unclaimed property that’s valued at over $6 billion. Holders like “corporations, business associations, financial institutions, and insurance companies” are required to report any unclaimed property annually to the state comptroller’s office. That means if you’ve forgotten about bank account contents or uncashed money orders, they’re sitting around with the comptroller. Read More
Earlier this afternoon, Gawker republished photos and a video of AlphaBoost CEO Matt Monahan drunk and naked during a vacation to India. The escapades were originally shared by Jesse Thomas founder of JESS3, a social media advertising firm.
Venture-backed startup founders are fond of booze-soaked jaunts to unwind from the pressure of crushing it, celebrating a big milestone, or just because they can afford to. The difference here is that Mr. Thomas graduated from ill-advised Instagram shots of popping bottles to sharing a video and photos of a stark naked Mr. Monahan cavorting on the beach, somewhere approaching blackout drunk.
And that Mr. Monahan got caught on tape at the same time that he’s trying to sell his company. Read More
