OT but related to Google:
nytimes.com
First and Long — Very Long
By JOE NOCERA
Published: June 3, 2007
Bill Hambrecht is a rich old Wall Street guy who has made his money tilting at windmills and disrupting the establishment. “That’s what I do,” he says. “It’s fun.” Almost a decade ago, at 62, he founded WR Hambrecht + Company, whose fundamental premise is that companies don’t need to use Wall Street investment bankers — and pay their outrageous fees — to go public. Hambrecht + Company has since become so threatening to traditional underwriters that they often refuse to be involved in any I.P.O. in which his firm takes part.
And now, at an age when most people are well into retirement, he has decided to tackle the establishment again. This time, though, the establishment isn’t Wall Street. It’s the National Football League. Bill Hambrecht, you see, is starting up a professional football league. So far, he and his partner, Tim Armstrong, a senior executive at Google, have pledged $2 million each. They’ve hired a C.E.O. and a C.O.O., both of whom cut their teeth at the National Basketball Association. They’ve got a name: the United Football League. And they’ve lined up a wealthy, well-known businessman as their first owner: Mark Cuban, the billionaire who owns the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks. Like Hambrecht, Cuban loves nothing more than confronting the status quo. |
