Bambi Francisco Leaves MarketWatch for Vator.TV
After a whirlwind of finger pointing regarding conflict-of-interest, respected MarketWatch journalist Bambi Francisco has decided to leave MarketWatch and work full-time on her incubator presentation company, Vator.TV.
Francisco describes the new company “as a little garage project that I started last year to help me vet startups’ pitches and to give exposure to those I’d invariably overlook as a columnist.” Francisco originally announced her involvement in January on her personal blog.
To see a snippet of Vator.tv in action, check out ContextWeb CEO Anand Subramanian’s presentation from the 2007 AlwaysOn Conference in New York City this past January.
According to Matthew Karnitschnig of the Wall Street Journal, the conflict-of-interest hubub begins with Francisco being allowed to “to invest in a Web concern that deals with Internet start-ups.”
There is some dispute on whether Francisco invested - or just started up the company herself. Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee suggests that Francisco admitted to starting up the company.
It’s also unclear exactly what MarketWatch Editor-in-Chief David Callaway was thinking when he apparently gave Francisco his approval on Vator.tv. Her commentary within articles on MarketWatch would potentially be beneficial to any startup mentioned (which is kind of what eventually happened - read on).
The inevitable blow-up began with a CNET article yesterday and has been additionally chronicled on Blogging Stocks, Matt Marshall’s Venture Beat and Mathew Ingram’s blog. (It hasn’t helped that former Rocketboom anchor and current ABC News reporter Amanda Congdon’s troubles have also been shining a light in the areas of conflict-of-interest recently.)
In her final article on MarketWatch yesterday, Ms. Francisco details the involvement of Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and manager of the $2 billion hedge fund Clarium Capital, who eventually invested in her Vator.TV.
Peter saw value in such a vetting mechanism (Vator.tv), and he asked if he could invest. I told Peter that it was just an experiment at the time. But if the platform reached 50 videos, then perhaps it was worth investing in. Peter currently owns less than 5%.
This was the nail in the proverbial coffin of Francisco’s MarketWatch career: Thiel’s other start-up investments include Powerset, which Francisco wrote about this past November and February in articles on MW (and covered here on the ContextWeb Internet Advertising Blog), as well as Facebook - also covered by Francisco and another instance of apparent conflict-of-interest.
Regardless, as Wired’s Adario Strange points out, this may still work out for the best for Francisco. Vator.tv is potentially a good idea and if the similar, conflict-of-interest episode suffered by Digg’s Kevin Rose “is any indication, Vator.tv could turn out to be one of the biggest video ventures to date.”
Updates: Stacy D. Kramer, PaidContent.org, Tony Hung, The Blog Herald.
-- John Ebbert
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