Private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners is not interested in a Twitter deal, Fortune reported.

Silver Lake was reported to have "considered" teaming up with venture capitalist Marc Andreessen for some kind of a deal to buy Twitter, according to a report by The Information on Sunday. The report sent Twitter's shares popping as much as 12% at one point in Monday trading.

The original report said that it was unclear if any deal talks were currently active, but noted that one possible scenario would involve a PIPE deal (Private Investment in Public Equity), in which private investors acquire a slice of a publicly held company, like Twitter.

But according to Fortune, which cites an anonymous source, Silver Lake has no interest in acquiring "even a slice" of the social-media site.

Twitter's stock is down more than 66% from its 52-week high, as the company struggles to boost its user growth. The company's declining stock has sparked speculation that it could become a takeover target.

SEE ALSO: Here are all the Twitter execs who have left during the comeback effort

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Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen has sparked an internet firestorm with his comments on colonialism. (We first saw the spat on Re/code.)

First, some context: India's regulator recently blocked Free Basics, a service from Facebook that provides free internet access to parts of the internet.

Depending on whom you talk to, this is either a great thing — some internet is better than none, get the next billion online, etc. — or highly suspect, threatening to created internet ghettos of sorts for the poor while the rich get the full web.

After heated debate, the Indian regulator TRAI announced it fell into this latter category. Strict net-neutrality rules have been introduced to the country, and Free Basics in India is no more.

On Tuesday night Andreessen joined the debate, tweeting that "denying world's poorest free partial internet connectivity when today they have none, for ideological reasons, strikes me as morally wrong."

Benedict Evans, another partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Andreessen's venture-capital firm that is also known as A16z, added sarcastically that "it's a terrible thing to offer people with no money the choice of something for free."

Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Vikram Chachra then replied, "That sounds like justification for internet colonialism."

Andreessen responded: "Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?"

Twitter users responded angrily to the since deleted tweet, taking it as a defence of aspects of colonialism and a reflection of modern Silicon Valley's alleged paternalistic instincts toward India.

Balaji Srinivasan, a board member at Andreessen Horowitz, has come to Andreessen's defence. "This is obvious to anyone who has >140 characters of context, but [Marc Andreessen] is *OBVIOUSLY* pro-capitalist and anti-colonialist. He's helped the careers of countless Indians in tech when others were fulminating about H1Bs [visas]."

Andreessen has said that "for the record, I am opposed to colonialism, in any country" and that he will refrain from discussing "Indian economics or politics" in the future.

On Wednesday, the VC tweeted: "I apologize for any offense caused by my earlier tweet about Indian history and politics. I admire India and the Indian people enormously."

On Wednesday, Facebook issued a statement distancing itself from Andreessen, with a spokesperson telling Business Insider that "we strongly reject the sentiments expressed by Marc Andreessen last night regarding India."

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is speaking out against the comments of board member Marc Andreessen, who infuriated people on Twitter on Tuesday night over what he said about the social network's "Free Basics" program in India.

Free Basics provides limited internet services at no cost to people in developing countries, and after Indian regulators blocked the program, Andreessen criticized the country's decision on Twitter.

When entrepreneur and venture capitalist Vikram Chachra replied that it sounded like Andreessen was justifying "internet colonialism," Andreessen responded in this now-deleted tweet:

Although he later apologized, Facebook still clearly felt the need to distance itself from that perspective.

"We strongly reject the sentiments expressed by Marc Andreessen last night regarding India," a representative said.

Zuckerberg added on his Facebook page that he "found the comments deeply upsetting."

Critics of Facebook's Free Basics program say that it creates a ghettoized version of the internet for poor people. Motherboard's Derek Mead even compared it to internet colonialism last year, writing that it lets Facebook shape people's introduction to the internet.

Andreessen apologized for his comments on Tuesday evening, and issued a second apology on Wednesday:

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Marc Andreessen, the Facebook board member and prominent venture capitalist who last week found himself in hot water after making controversial comments about India on Twitter, has fallen silent on the social network.

The last tweets that Andreessen sent were on February 10.

In a series of messages that day, he apologized for comments he had made the night before about colonialism in India, and said that he was "a huge admirer of the nation of India and the Indian people, who have been nothing but kind and generous to me for many years."

The absence of Andreessen's tweets has not gone unnoticed — he's usually very active on the social network. He has nearly 500,000 followers and he's tweeted almost 90,000 times.

He's not on a total break from Twitter, however. He's still "liking" tweets, and there's even a Twitter account thatretweets messages he's liked.

The dust-up that seems to have prompted Andreessen's Twitter break occurred last week while Andreessen was having a discussion on Twitter about the Indian government's blocking of Free Basics, a Facebook service that provides some free internet services. Free Basics is meant for people who have never had access to the Internet before. But the Indian government ruled that it violated the concept of net neutrality, which says that all internet traffic must be treated equally.

Andreessen didn't agree with the ruling, and wrote in a Twitter reply to his colleague Benedict Evans, and Vikram Chachra, another entrepreneur and VC, that "Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?"

Facebook, where Andreessen is a board member, issued a statement distancing itself from his comments. Mark Zuckerberg also wrote on his own Facebook page that he "found the comments deeply upsetting, and they do not represent the way Facebook or I think at all."

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Some are questioning whether the "move fast and break things" motto of Silicon Valley may be going too far.

In the past six months, startups have come under fire for moving fast and breaking government regulations.

Zenefits, an Andreessen Horowitz investment, is now the poster child of the company that skipped over critical steps in its quest for growth, and it finds itself with a new CEO and a mandate to reform its company culture.

On stage at the Startup Grind conference in Redwood City, California, on Wednesday, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen declined to talk about Zenefits specifically, but he continued to advocate the move-fast mentality.

"This is not a business for the shy," Andreessen, a cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, said. "This is not a business for passive. This is a business for the aggressive."

Zenefits was its own situation, but the move-fast mantra has worked and will work for other companies, he insisted.

Facebook, another investment, is the obvious example of a company that used the phrase as its motto— and it turned into a $300 billion business that reaches a billion users every day. Being aggressive is something companies, not just startups, need to be doing so they don't get disrupted themselves, he said.

"There is a real art form to it, and a real science," Andreessen said.

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On a recent episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, Ferriss spoke with Marc Andreessen, cofounder of and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Andreessen is one of the most influential technology investors; before launching Andreessen Horowitz, he helped create the Mosaic internet browser and cofounded Netscape.

On the podcast episode, Andreessen shared some insights into the process Andreessen Horowitz uses to decide whether to make an investment.

What they're looking for, Andreessen said, is a "great" investment, as opposed to merely a "good" one. A good investment might have solid founders and a solid product — but nothing really stands out as special, and the company probably won't go anywhere.

A great investment, on the other hand, captures their attention. It might have lots of problems, too, "but there's something at the core of what it is that's really special and magical," Andreessen said.

If one general partner feels that a company would be a great investment, they can pull the trigger — even if there isn't a consensus from the rest of the partners. In fact, if they relied on consensus, Andreessen said, they "would only invest in the good ones as opposed to the great ones, and then [we] would fail as a firm."

That said, the team still takes pains to make sure that the general partner who believes in the investment is making the right decision.

"It's the responsibility of everybody else in the room to stress test the thinking," Andreessen said. Sometimes they'll create what he called a "countervailing force" made up of people designated to argue the other side.

Andreessen noted that he and Ben Horowitz, the other founding partner of Andreessen Horowitz, consistently use this method on each other: "Whenever [Ben] brings in a deal, I just beat the s--- out of him. And I might think it's the best idea I've ever heard, and I'll just, like, trash the crap out of it. And I'll get everybody else to pile on."

If at the end of that pile-on, the person is "still pounding the table saying 'No, no, no, this is the thing,' we'll say 'OK, we're all in, we're all behind you,'" Andreessen said. "It's a disagree-and-commit kind of culture."

Andreessen Horowitz's decision-making methods are backed by science: Recent research suggests teams that can engage in healthy debate are the most successful, compared with teams with high levels of interpersonal conflict and teams without any conflict at all.

Whether you're part of an investment firm or another business team, you can probably replicate Andreessen Horowitz's process. It's a question of recognizing that the best ideas won't necessarily be the ones that draw unanimous support — but that every idea requires rigorous analysis before execution.

Listen to the full podcast episode »

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Marc Andreessen has two words of advice for startups: Raise prices.

In a recent interview, "The 4-Hour Workweek" author and tech investor Tim Ferriss asked Andreessen what words he would put on a billboard to reach the greatest number of people.

The legendary investor said that he's actually considered hiring a skywriter to write "raise prices" so startups across San Francisco would see it.

Andreessen said:

The No. 1 thing — just the theme and we see it everywhere — the No. 1 theme with our companies have when they get really struggling is they are not charging enough for their product. It has become absolutely conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley that the way to succeed is to price your product as low as possible under the theory that if it's low-priced everybody can buy it and that's how you get the volume.

It's a problem called "too hungry to eat."

"They don't charge enough for their product to be able to afford the sales and marketing required to actually get anybody to buy it. And so they can't afford to hire the sales rep to go sell the product," he said.

If startups can't sell anything, then they again start lowering prices to bring in more volume. But at that point, Andreessen cautions that it becomes only a race to the bottom.

"It just makes the problem worse. And so, probably the single number one thing we try to get our companies to do is raise prices," Andreessen said. "By the way, it's like, 'Is your product any good if people won't pay more for it?'"

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As the champions of "software is eating the world," Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz announced on Friday that it has closed its latest fund: a whopping $1.5 billion.

Founded in 2009 by VCs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the venture firm has now grown to more than 125 people. Its investments include big hitters like Lyft, Airbnb, Slack, and Pinterest.

The new fund, Fund V, will continue to invest in seed, early-stage, and mid-stage tech companies — if they fit the firm's "software is eating the world" model.

The new fund is the same size as the firms' last two funds, the most recent of which was raised in March 2014.

Scott Kupor wrote in a blog announcing the fund:

The market opportunity for successful new technology businesses is bigger than ever. New startups are being created every day, driven by the significant expansion in market size as well as fundamental enabling innovations: Besides cloud, mobile, and full-stack approaches, there are more breakthroughs than ever before in machine learning, deep learning, and AI.

SEE ALSO: How one small design tweak rocketed this startup to No. 1 in the App Store

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Marc Andreessen, cofounder of the high-profile venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Facebook board member,  and legendary tech investor, thinks that Microsoft's $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn is just the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, Andreessen says, he says that there are more merger and acquisition deals in the pipeline now than there have been for years.

"We see more deals kind of in consideration or in negotiation now than we have in probably four years," Andreessen said at the Bloomberg Technology Conference in San Francisco. "Most [venture capitalists] would probably agree with that,"

Overall, Andreessen says, the system works. Good companies are still finding funding, and even companies with good products or teams are getting acquired at high prices — like LinkedIn's sale to Microsoft. It's not that the money has vanished, it's just that it's going towards businesses that are working.

"I don't know there's anything that unusual about what's going on right now," Andreessen says.

In fact, as a corollary, Andreessen says that a lot of venture-backed companies that are hunkering down today are getting ready to go public, and "I do think there will be a lot more IPOs in '17 and '18." To that end, Andreessen Horowitz has actually established a consultancy to counsel its investments on IPO readiness.

The reason for the sudden wave in acquisitions, Andreessen says, is that a lot of big companies spent the last 3 or 4 years "watching the drama" as startups rose, fell, and rose again. Rather than jump in, they wanted to see which way the market was turning.

"There were a lot of deals, a lot of acquisitions that should happen that just didn't happen," Andreessen says.

Now, especially with venture funding drying up amid a softening of the larger financial markets, those big companies are starting to swoop in and buy the best startups they can.

Importantly, that's not just tech companies doing the buying: "Non-traditional buyers" like GM and retail brands like Bed Bath and Beyond are buying up startups now, too, Andreessen notes.

And the LinkedIn deal is a good thing for nascent startups because "it does eliminate a lot of guesswork as to what these companies are worth," he says.

SEE ALSO: With LinkedIn and the Xbox, all of Microsoft's wildest dreams are coming true

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When Bloomberg's Emily Chang asked all-star investor Marc Andreessen in an onstage interview why he was voting for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the US presidential election, he paused, and then answered with a question.

"Is that a serious question?" asked Andreessen.

He supported Mitt Romney in 2012, and has been fairly outspoken on Twitter about his libertarian pro-business views on many issues, so the question wasn't totally out of line.

Andreessen's comments came at the Bloomberg Technology conference in San Francisco. After the laughter died down, Andreessen gave a more serious answer, limited to his specific perspective from the tech industry.

It comes down to four reasons, Andreessen says: He prefers Clinton's stances on science, free markets, trade, and immigration.

That last one is especially important to Silicon Valley, Andreessen says. A vast number of startups are founded by immigrants to the US, and immigration reflects an important source of talent and leadership for top tech companies.

Trump's controversial views on limiting immigration would fly against that, should he win the presidency.

"The idea of cutting off the flow of immigrants into Silicon Valley makes me sick to my stomach," Andreessen says.

Still, he says, he's not totally enamored with how President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have handled science and innovation. For instance, Andreessen says, it's largely been Democrats pushing back against GMO foods, which chills innovation around food science.

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Silicon Valley is historically a boy's club. Women make up just 6% of decision-makers in venture capital firms, and it's difficult for female founders to find funding.

One top venture capital firm is helping to change the landscape. On stage at the Bloomberg Technology Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, legendary venture capitalist Marc Andreessen announced women make up 55% of staff at his firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Even more impressive, 10% of employees are African American and Latina women. The Menlo Park, California-based firm employs 130 people.

Andreessen says closing the gender gap in tech is as much an opportunity for his firm as it is for women everywhere.

"My approach on it is, there is a lot of talent in the world. There is a lot of talent both inside and outside the US. There's a lot of talent across genders. There's a lot of talent across ethnic background, religions, every possible dimension you can think of," Andreessen said at the conference.

"If you don't have access to the best talent, if you confine yourself to a certain part of the talent landscape ... then you're just not getting the best people," he said. "You're not going to build a high-quality company."

In spite of the firm's strong diversity numbers, there are currently no female general partners, which is the highest position.

In a 2015 interview with Fortune, Andreessen chalked up the firm's missing female partners to a lack of interest from potential candidates. He and cofounder Ben Horowitz once offered the role to a female tech executive who turned them down five times. It wasn't the first time.

"I think this is true in other firms, and I think this is true at the CEO level as well, is when you talk to female CEOs, they get so many offers," he told Fortune. "Because there are so few and the need is so intense, they get so many offers, that they’re just drowning in opportunity."

The solution may be fostering female tech talent earlier in the pipeline. Andreessen Horowitz has partnered with outside organizations like Girls Who Code, which teaches girls computer science skills.

The firm hopes the companies it invests in will adopt a commitment to diversity. Andreessen says the firm encourages founders "very seriously" to consider gender balance.

"One of the things that has become clear, at least to me, is there's no cookie cutter approach to this," Andreessen says. "Every company has to develop an organic sense of itself and how it's going to go about doing this."

Disclosure: The author is in a relationship with an Andreessen Horowitz employee.

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I live and die by my to-do list.

Jotting down everything that needs to get done is often the very first thing I do when I sit down at my desk in the morning.

It helps me to feel focused, organized, and like I have a decent plan of attack for my day.

But, despite the fact that my planner has the capability to make me feel like some sort of productivity prodigy, it also has a sneaky way of swooping in and making me feel downright unaccomplished.

You know the feeling I'm talking about, right? You start your morning by scribbling down all sorts of different tasks and projects — you feel motivated and confident that you're about to put them all to shame, despite the fact that (in reality) it would likely take you three days to complete everything you’ve written down. You're blinded by your own optimism.

Suddenly, the end of the workday creeps up, you glance down at your beloved list, and over half of those items remain completely untouched. "What the heck have I been doing for the past eight hours?" you ask yourself in between sobs and sighs.

You're left feeling frustrated, discouraged, and disheartened.

Unfortunately, this situation is all too familiar to most of us. Yes, in some cases, writing your to-dos down is great for keeping you on track. But, there are also far too many times when it only serves to make you feel plain ol' crappy. Even if you put in a solid day's work, you're forced to focus on all of the things that you didn’t manage to get done — and you completely forget about anything you actually did get accomplished (particularly if it wasn’t on your calendar to begin with!).

This is a trap I've fallen into far too often. So, needless to say, I was intrigued when I read an article about the anti to-do list — a productivity concept established by Marc Andreessen. And, as I'm sure you could guess, I was all too willing to jump in and give it a try.

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So, what is the anti to-do list?

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, I can't blame you. I was too until I stumbled across that article. Basically, this strategy works backwards from its traditional counterpart. Rather than writing down things you need to do, you write down the things you've already done — whether they’re big projects or little action items.

By implementing this method, you end your workday with a list of all of the things you accomplished — rather than a daunting roster of all of the things that are still left to do.

The whole thing sounded simultaneously encouraging and terrifying. On one hand, I liked the idea of focusing on the positives. But, how could I possibly function without my to-do list? I'd never tried to make it through a day without one, and I was certain the entire experiment (which I decided to implement for one entire workweek) would be a recipe for disaster.

However, surprisingly, nothing too detrimental happened. And, the whole process actually illustrated a few helpful lessons. Here are three major things I learned by using only the anti to-do list, and kicking my tried and trusted list of duties to the curb.

1. I don't trust myself enough

As I mentioned, the mere thought of forgoing the standard approach was enough to break me into a cold sweat. It was the crutch I leaned on to get me through my day, and I was sure that neglecting it as soon as I sat down at my desk would result in my career crashing down around me Independence Day-style.

I think we all have the tendency to react this way. To-do lists have become such an oft-repeated element for productivity, that the idea of not making one entirely sounds like a surefire way to get nothing done.

But, if there's one thing that this experiment made clear, it’s that I don’t trust myself enough. Even though I was letting go of the plan that I had become to rely on so heavily (in favor of creating a list of my accomplishments instead), I was still able to move throughout my day and my workload with relative ease and efficiency. And, nothing terrible happened, to boot.

No, I didn't have that trusty roster sitting right next to me on my desk. But, with the combination of my inbox, my calendar, and — gasp! — my very own brainpower, it really wasn't too difficult to keep track of what needed to get done.

2. It's important to celebrate wins

Alright, perhaps this lesson is a little too predictable, given that it's the entire point of the experiment. But, it was significant — so, I figured it was worthy of note.

With a traditional to-do list by my side, I usually ended the day in an emotional funk. The days when I managed to cross everything off it were few and far between, which led to a lot of feelings of inadequacy when the end of my workday rolled around. Even if I spent the entire past eight hours whizzing around like the Tasmanian Devil, it still never quite seemed like enough.

So, it's no wonder that this is one of the key benefits of the anti to-do list. It forces you to reflect and think of all of those things — big and small — that you did manage to accomplish. Whether it was something that I had set out to get done or a fire that cropped up and needed to be put out, I could wrap up my workday feeling like I had made great use of my time — rather than constantly feeling like I came up short.

While this feeling obviously helped me to head into my evening without a crabby attitude, I was surprised at how much it impacted my productivity as a whole. Day after day, I sat in front of my computer feeling driven and encouraged, instead of feeling this weight of everything that was left unaccomplished pushing down on me.

In turn, this actually made me more productive. The cliché sentiments you hear time and time again are actually true — your overall attitude and outlook can really improve your efficiency and your motivation.

From the winding freeway that links Silicon Valley with San Francisco, the giant Mode Media sign gracing the company's headquarters was a hard-to-miss proclamation alerting passing drivers to an internet success story with a rich, $1 billion valuation.

But last week, on the 11th floor of the gleaming building, the mood among employees was sour.

Those gathered in the office and patched in through a crackly teleconference suddenly learned that they had no more jobs, no more health insurance coverage, and no more access to the company email system. Mode Media, founded in 2003 and once known as Glam Media, was shutting down. Oh, and please hand in your laptops on the way out.

People were stunned and shocked, and the management team's final Q&A session with the troops didn't help.

Someone asked about severance, one former Mode employee recounted. John Small, the COO, simply responded: "There is no severance. There is no Cobra. There is no company."

"They didn't give us sh--," said another Mode employee.

The end of Mode, which raised over $200 million in funding and was once on track for an initial public offering, stands as one of the biggest implosions of the current tech boom and a reminder of how swiftly the good times can come to an end.

There is no severance. There is no Cobra. There is no company.

Even now, as the company's assets are being liquidated by a restructuring firm, many company insiders, including numerous executives, say they are in the dark about what is happening. The company has not filed for bankruptcy protection, and calls to HR by staffers are not being returned.

According to more than a dozen people interviewed by Business Insider, the story of Mode's demise is less of an out-of-the-blue collapse than the culmination of a long-running struggle against a changing market and bitter infighting that pitted a flashy, smooth-talking founder against increasingly wary overseas investors.

Hubert Burda Media, the German firm that poured $45 million into Mode as recently as last year, was very influential in convincing the board to shutter the company, according to multiple former Mode executives. In the months leading up to that point, though, questions about seemingly inappropriate spending by Samir Arora, cofounder and longtime CEO, plagued the company, while layoffs and management changes left the organization in disarray.

Lavish lifestyle

Arora started the company in 2003 with a list of accomplishments already under his belt. The India-born entrepreneur had worked at Apple in the early 1990s and founded NetObjects during the first dotcom boom, creating a seminal web development company that IBM acquired for $150 million.

The idea behind Mode Media, which first gained attention as Glam, was to create an online hub for editorial content produced by freelance bloggers at minimal cost. Glam's content was targeted at women. And Glam combined the content with an ad-serving network that reached a constellation of partner websites, allowing Glam to claim massive reach. In 2015, the company said in a press release that it had "over 400 million monthly users worldwide."

But as the market shifted to programmatic ad serving, in which online ads are bought and sold on automated exchanges, Mode's business began to suffer.

So Mode began trying to reinvent itself as a company that made its own "advertorial" content, especially videos and native ads. And Arora was leading the charge, with expensive initiatives including launching a printed restaurant guide and videos featuring famous chefs.

Mode's revenue had reached about $100 million annually by 2015, but growth had stopped and the company was losing about $10 million a year, according to one former executive.

All the former employees we spoke to described Arora as having a smooth, salesmanlike personality. He could charm a room and make you believe in whatever his vision was. A penchant for fancy suits and a seemingly lavish lifestyle left an impression on the rank-and-file as well, and rumors circulated about Arora's extravagant personal expenses and his use of company property like houses in the Hamptons and in LA.

When Arora and Burda Media began to clash over the direction of the company in 2015, Arora's lavish lifestyle became a focal point. Mode's board of directors, at Burda's urging, initiated an audit that included the expenses Arora billed to the company, according to two former executives. The audit covered things like the company houses.

"Any reasonable person would think it was unreasonable," one former exec said. "Homes in the Hamptons and LA, I don't see how you would use it for business use. It's impossible."

The audit ultimately cleared Arora of any improprieties, a person familiar with its outcome told us. But the episode underscores the atmosphere of mistrust pervading the company and the power struggle between Arora and Burda.

Even though Burda Media was a minority investor that did not technically control the company, the firm gained enough influence on the board to throw its weight around, according to several sources. In April, Arora was ousted as CEO by the board of directors — a move that many sources said was orchestrated by Burda.

In an emailed statement, Burda said that Arora left the company "by Board Resolution in April 2016." Arora declined to comment.

Marc Andreessen, the internet pioneer who created the web browser and joined Mode's board in 2011 after selling the social network Ning to the company, also left the board in March. Andreessen declined to comment.

Meet the new CEO

Jack Rotolo, a longtime Mode exec, was tapped in April to replace Arora as CEO. He had Burda's backing. But that didn't make his job any easier.

"Jack was put into a really difficult position," a former exec said. Every time the team turned around, it uncovered another problem regarding the finances and the future.

But still: "No one had any confidence in Jack's leadership ability." He wasn't right for the job, another said.

A wave of layoffs in June, in which 30 people lost their jobs, caused more turmoil.

There was barely any communication. "Senior, senior people in the company were just called into the room with HR and given a packet," a former employee said. "I didn't even see Jack." HR contractors rather than full-time people did the actual firing, the employee said.

Rotolo did not respond to requests for comment.

Despite the layoffs and several high-level departures following Rotolo's promotion, no one in leadership gave any hints that the company's future was in question.

True, a plan to file for an IPO that began in 2013 had quietly been put on the back burner. But some explained it away as a reflection of a difficult IPO market, or a view that the cost of building the financial infrastructure necessary to go public was better spent elsewhere.

Another former executive told us that the view inside the company was that the IPO was more of an attempt by Arora to get attention for the company, which was not ready to go public.

Then all of a sudden, in the third week of September, it all came crashing down.

What went wrong

"The general consensus of the employee base is that there was mismanagement of finances," said one former company executive.

But the simplest explanation in the eyes of many is that Burda had lost faith. The firm refused to invest any more money into Mode and ultimately orchestrated the shutdown, according to several insiders.

Burda said in a statement that Mode was shut down "due to its lack of economic prospects" and "drastic changes" in the US advertising market that made it "impossible" to find new investors:

"Mode Media's most serious challenge was the rapidly declining relevance of display advertising in the US. The management didn't succeed in developing further the original business model or to create a promising perspective for the company. Burda and the other investors continuously supported the company. However, the ruptures of the US advertising market were not likely to allow for an improvement of the situation."

Burda noted that Mode had been seeking new investors since fall 2015 with the help of Goldman Sachs. "The request for more capital could not be satisfied," the firm said. As a result, "the management of Mode asked for an ABC — an assignment for the benefit of creditors — in September 2016," it said, referring to an out-of-court alternative to bankruptcy in which a company's assets are sold quickly.

Mode retained Sherwood Partners, a restructuring firm based in Mountain View, California, whose website lists specialties such as ABC shutdowns that it says can be done with "less notoriety than with a bankruptcy."

But there are already questions about one of Mode's main assets: Ning, the social network founded by Andreessen, which Mode acquired for $150 million in 2011. A post on Ning's site last week said that Cyndx, a company led by Mode board member Jim McVeigh, has "entered into an agreement with Mode Media to take over the operations of Ning."

According to one person with direct knowledge of the matter, Cyndx is one of several companies that have put in bids to acquire Ning, but no deal has closed yet. It's expected to close by the end of the week.

Frantic emails

The shutdown decision appears to have happened with almost no notice — even for senior management.

The day after the shutdown announcement, one Mode manager of an overseas office described receiving frantic emails from headquarters requesting immediate transfer of all funds and assets back to the US.

"It was the most unprofessional, unethical experience imaginable. [A] confirmed catastrophe," another exec said about the shutdown. "It's so catastrophically unethical. No one can believe it."

It's so catastrophically unethical. No one can believe it.

Bloggers who relied on Mode's ad network quickly complained on Twitter that they were unable to access their dashboards and that they were still owed significant fees for past work.

How a company that raised more than $200 million suddenly went bust is a question that many are still trying to answer. It's possible that during Mode's years of operation the company burned through a lot more than the $10 million it lost in 2015. Or that the $100 million in revenue Mode once generated has severly declined this year amid the changing ad market. The extent of the creditors, which are likely to emerge soon and to which Mode still owes money, may provide some answers.

Angelica Malin, a blogger who runs About Time Magazine, said her Mode login portal, where she could normally track things like how much revenue she was meant to receive for her work, gently mocked her with the message "Try again in 5 minutes" anytime she tried to access it.

She's not hopeful that she'll recover any money. "I don't think we'll go out chasing it. Would spend more on the lawyer than I'd make, probably," she said.

SEE ALSO: The meltdown at one of Silicon Valley's hottest young VCs could lead to more investigations, source says

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Silicon Valley investor and prolific tweeter Marc Andreessen has abruptly abandoned Twitter, deleting all his tweets after writing: "Taking a Twitter break!"

Andreessen, cofounder of buzzy venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, is well-known for his constant Twitter presence, sending stream-of-consciousness tweetstorms and retweeting messages about tech, economics, and politics, at all hours of the day.

With nearly 600,000 followers, he is one of the tech industry's most prominent tweeters. "It’s like a tube and I have loudspeakers installed in every reporting cubicle around the world,"he enthused in a profile of himself for the New Yorker in May 2015.

But the Netscape cofounder has now apparently changed his tune. To hazard a guess, the departure doesn't seem to be permanent: He hasn't outright deleted his account, and his now-solitary tweet frames it as a "break."

Andreessen, who sits on Facebook's board, has taken a break from Twitter before. In February 2016, after he became embroiled in a row over Facebook's Free Basics internet program and colonialism, he stopped tweeting for weeks. 

In June, the Twitter tech community was rocked by another high-profile departure: Sam Altman, president of startup accelerator Y Combinator. Altman was more explicit about his reasons for leaving, arguing that"the platform rewards negativity and snark. There are occasional attacks on me and a lot on my friends. Outrage does too well on Twitter." (He has since resumed tweeting intermittently.)

Andreessen's Twitter hiatus comes amid rumours that multiple interested parties are looking to buy the social network— among them Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. The reports have pushed Twitter's stock to its highest in nearly a year, and it is currently hovering at around $22.60 per share.

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Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen gave a long interview that Vox published Wednesday about artificial intelligence, but the most interesting part was actually about something different: the bifurcated US economy.

From Silicon Valley, the economy looks great. Tech wages are plump, housing prices are skyrocketing, and construction cranes are everywhere, while the five most valuable companies in the US are related to tech: Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook.

But in much of the country, wages are stagnant, good jobs are scarce, and people's paychecks are being eaten up by skyrocketing prices.

Overall, growth is sluggish and interest rates have been close to zero for eight years. What's going on?

Andreessen argues that there are actually two economies side by side, and the poorly performing one is dragging everything else down.

Prices are dropping rapidly in some industries: consumer electronics and computer gear, food, and media.

People look at these changes and blame innovation for killing jobs or shipping them overseas and then blame the economy's sluggishness on those lost jobs.

But as Andreessen pointed out, prices are rising rapidly in other sectors: mainly healthcare and education. He believes these rising prices cancel out the benefits of technological innovation, making the entire economy sluggish.

Why are these industries so slow to innovate? Because, as he puts it:

"You've got monopolies, oligopolies, cartels, government-run markets, price-fixing — all the dysfunctional behaviors that lead to rapid increase in prices. The government injects more subsidies into those markets, but because those are inelastic markets, the subsidies just cause prices to go up further, which is what is happening with higher education."

So in Andreessen's view, the answer is to set markets free — by eliminating government-enabled distortions on one hand and busting up monopolies or oligopolies on the other. Then, he said, lowered prices should lift all boats.

He also disagrees that increased automation will kill jobs. Rather, he thinks it will increase the need for people to provide higher levels of service than the machines can do. His evidence: There are more retail clerks and bank tellers, even as those industries get more automated.

Read the whole interview here»

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I’m a compulsive note-taker.

I have recorded nearly every workout since age 18 or so. Roughly 8 feet of shelf space in my home is occupied by spine upon spine of notebook upon notebook. That, mind you, is one subject. It extends to dozens.

Some people would call this OCD, and many would consider it a manic wild goose chase. I simply view it as the collection of my life’s recipes.

My goal is to learn things once and use them forever.

That’s why I wrote my new book, “Tools of Titans,” which is a compendium of recipes for high performance that I gathered for my own use.

In this exclusive first look, I wanted to share some of what I learned from one of the smartest investors in the world: Marc Andreessen. If you’re not familiar, Andreessen is a legendary figure in Silicon Valley, and his creations have changed the world. Even in the epicenter of tech, it’s hard to find a more fascinating icon.

Marc co-created the highly influential Mosaic browser: The first widely used graphical web browser. He also co-founded Netscape, which later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. He then co-founded Loudcloud, which sold as Opsware to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion.

He’s considered one of the founding fathers of the modern Internet, alongside pioneers like Tim Berners-Lee, who launched the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and early HTML standards.

This makes him one of the few humans ever to create software categories used by more than a billion people and establish multiple billion-dollar companies. Marc is now co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, where he has become one of the most influential and dominant tech investors on the planet.

Here’s some of the wisdom he shared with me about the keys to a successful business.

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Lesson #1: Raise prices

This was Marc’s response to “If you could have a billboard anywhere, what would it say?”

He’d put it right in the heart of San Francisco, and here’s the reason:

“The number-one theme that companies have when they really struggle is they are not charging enough for their product. It has become conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley that the way to succeed is to price your product as low as possible, under the theory that if it’s low-priced, everybody can buy it, and that’s how you get to volume,” he said.

“And we just see over and over and over again people failing with that, because they get into a problem called ‘too hungry to eat.’ They don’t charge enough for their product to be able to afford the sales and marketing required to actually get anybody to buy it. Is your product any good if people won’t pay more for it?”

Lesson #2: Don’t fetishize failure

Here’s what Marc says about failure:

“I’m old-fashioned. Where I come from, people like to succeed … When I was a founder, when I first started out, we didn’t have the word ‘pivot.’ We didn’t have a fancy word for it. We just called it a f---up.

“We do see companies that, literally, every time we meet them, they’ve pivoted. Every time, they’re off to something new, and it’s like watching a rabbit go through a maze or something. They’re never going to converge on anything because they’re never going to put the time into actually figuring it out and getting it right.”

Lesson #3: Apply the ‘nerds at night’ test

How does Marc look for new opportunities? He has dozens of tools, but one of his heuristics is simple:

“We call our test ‘What do the nerds do on nights and weekends?’ Their day job is Oracle, Salesforce.com, Adobe or Apple or Intel or one of these companies, or an insurance company, or a bank. Or they’re a student. Whatever. That’s fine. They go do whatever they need to do to make a living. The question is: What’s the hobby? What’s the thing at night or on the weekend? Then things get really interesting.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has considered plans to go into government, according to court documents seen by Bloomberg.

The documents were filed as part of a shareholder lawsuit accusing Facebook's board of failing to represent the best interests of those holding Facebook's common stock.

The lawsuit focuses on a change to Facebook's stock structure earlier this year. Zuckerberg holds a majority share of voting Facebook stock, giving him control of the company. But he wanted to be able to sell this off to fund his new philanthropy efforts — the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — without losing this control. (The Financial Times reports that the plaintiffs are accusing Zuckerberg of a "self-interested agglomeration of power.")

So Zuckerberg proposed creating a new class of shares for himself that would let that happen, and three board members were placed on a special committee to represent shareholders in the discussions. They were tasked with deciding whether Zuckerberg's request to sell stock but maintain control was fair to other shareholders. The committee eventually agreed to Zuckerberg's plan. The suit alleges that the plan diluted other shareholders' votes over the stock.

• SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg's interest in government puts his defense of Peter Thiel in a whole new light.

A Facebook representative declined to comment to Business Insider. A company rep told Bloomberg, "Facebook is confident that the special committee engaged in a thorough and fair process to negotiate a proposal in the best interests of Facebook and its shareholders."

One of the board members on the committee was Marc Andreessen, the Netscape cofounder turned Silicon Valley investor who runs the venture-capital fund Andreessen Horowitz.

Andreessen is specifically accused of a conflict of interest, with court documents reviewed by Bloomberg saying he communicated with Zuckerberg repeatedly while serving on the committee that was supposed to be making an independent decision about the stock.

Some of the texts sent between Andreessen and Zuckerberg have been made public in court documents — providing unusual insight into the inner workings of the social network's leadership.

One of Zuckerberg's motivations was apparently that he wanted to be able work in government while still retaining control of Facebook.

The documents reportedly say Erskine Bowles, one of Facebook board members on the special committee, was "worried that one of the concessions Zuckerberg wanted — to allow the billionaire to serve two years in government without losing control of Facebook — would look particularly irresponsible." (Bowles is a former White House chief of staff.)

According to copies of the texts seen by The Guardian, Andreessen texted Zuckerberg in March that the "biggest issue" was "how to define the gov't service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment."

"I think the biggest remaining issue is still around the government service,"Andreessen texted later.

"Erskine is just massively uncomfortable with you getting to low economic ownership and then going off on leave with no involvement by the board and retaining control,'' he said.

"We rediscuss it on every call ... I'm going to try to drag it over the line one more time. ☺ ''

"He's worried that it's the straw that breaks the camel's back on the optics of good governance."

"He's worried it's the thing people will point to on announcement and say 'what the fuck are you guys doing agreeing to this' Particularly since he thinks gov't service would require you to give up control of FB anyway and it's a moot point."

"My counter argument is that because it's likely a moot point let's just give on it and it will probably never matter."

Beyond that, the case is light on details as to what Zuckerberg's purported government ambitions entail — whether he had an elected role or an appointed one in mind, for example, or whether there was a possible area of focus.

Another of Zuckerberg's board members, Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel, also has a new appetite for public service. Thiel was one of the few Silicon Valley leaders to back President-elect Donald Trump in the run-up to the election, and he has now scored a position on Trump's transition team.

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Marc Andreessen's text messages to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are filled with smiley face emoticons and odd turns of phrase.

But that's not what some people find objectionable about the texts, which have come to light in a lawsuit over Facebook's plan to reclassify its stock structure and to create a new class of non-voting shares.

Facebook shareholders suing the company allege that Andreessen, an independent board member representing the company's stockholders, surreptitiously coached Zuckerberg through a multi-week negotiation process to win board approval for the stock change — something the stockholders argue is a major conflict of interest. 

The text messages obtained in the lawsuit show that Andreessen and Zuckerberg kept a constant, behind the scenes dialogue going while the negotiations took place. Andreessen was an early investor in Facebook through his VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and also invested in two companies acquired by Facebook, Instagram and Oculus.

"Our feedback is entirely intended to protect you and the company," Andreessen reassured Zuckerberg in one message.

Here's a closer look at the trove of messages, recently unsealed by the court and seen by Business Insider, which depict a chummy relationship between the two men and provide a revealing window into the goings-ons among Silicon Valley's elite players.

"Do you have any context?"

The day before Zuckerberg was to negotiate with the board's special 3-person committee (of which Andreessen was himself a member) in March, Andreessen asked Zuckerberg if he'd like "to talk tonight or tomorrow before 330."

During the following day of negotiations between Zuckerberg and the committee, Andreessen texted Zuckerberg live feedback on how to better sway the committee's thinking. 

"This line of argument is not helping :)," Andreessen wrote Zuckerberg at one point.  "They are both genuinely trying to get to the right answer," Andreessen added, referring to his two fellow committee members. "THIS is the key topic."

"NOW WE’RE COOKING WITH GAS," Andreessen then texted Zuckerberg in all caps. "I’ll push them on having a longer period at least for Sheryl and Chris. Don’t know if that’s helpful but.”

The negotiations centered around Zuckerberg's plan to sell off his highly valued Class-B shares so that he could fund his charity work while still maintaining his majority voting power at Facebook.

If the special committee found that the proposal undermined Facebook shareholders, Zuckerberg would have to find a different way to fund his philanthropy. Bloomberg first reported on the case and the text messages.

Before Zuckerberg talked to the special committee's chair, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, a week later, he texted Andreessen, "Do you have any context before I talk to Sue tomorrow?"

Andreessen replied that the "biggest issue" for the committee was a clause Zuckerberg had included that would allow him to serve in public office for two years without losing his control of the company. Or as Andreessen put it, “how to define the gov’t service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment.”

"The straw that breaks the camel’s back"

As the negotiations progressed, Andreessen texted Zuckerberg that he was "Making real progress now. All issues being worked. Sue and I feeling pretty good.”

On March 24, Andreessen wrote Zuckerberg, “We’re setting up a group call with you to go through all those details[.] I think the biggest remaining issue is still around the government service – after you sell down below 30% of your starting stake. But Sue and I have an idea for you on that. . . . Erskine is just massively uncomfortable with you getting to low economic ownership and then going off on leave with no involvement by the board and retaining control. We rediscuss it on every call. . . . I’m going to try to drag it over the line one more time. :)” 

“One quick thought is to push on why they proposed 2 years before and now don’t support it," Zuckerberg replied later. Andreessen then said, “Let me work on that :)"

"It’s in the zone of ‘Erskine thinks it’s an unforced error but may grudgingly support it at the end,'" Andreessen continued, referring to another special committee member. "He’s worried it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back on the optics of good governance. He’s worried it’s the thing people will point to on announcement and say ‘what the fuck are you guys doing agreeing to this’ Particularly since he thinks gov’t service would require you to give up control of FB anyway and it’s a moot point. My counter argument is that because it’s likely a moot point let’s just give on it and it probably will never matter.”

When the special committee approved the stock reclassification in mid-April, Andreessen cryptically texted Zuckerberg that, "The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river."

Zuckerberg asked, "Does that mean the cat’s dead?"

Andreessen then wrote, "Mission accomplished. :)"

Zuckerberg's power play

The shareholders suing Facebook in Delaware court collectively own over two million shares of the company and "seek to represent the interests of the 2.3 billion shares of Class A stock held by the public."

When reached for comment, a Facebook spokesperson said the company is "confident that the special committee engaged in a thorough and fair process to negotiate a proposal in the best interests of Facebook and its shareholders.” Marc Andreessen declined to comment through a spokesperson.

If they win against Facebook, Zuckerberg will have to find a different way to fund his commitment to give 99% of his wealth away before he dies. Facebook could also choose to settle the case outside of court.

In the meantime, Zuckerberg's desired stock reclassification is pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg's interest in government puts his defense of Peter Thiel in a whole new light

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These days, Marc Andreessen is one of the most prominent and well-respected venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, as well as a member of Facebook's board of directors.

But circa 1994, he was fresh out of school and serving as a cofounder at pioneering web software company Netscape Communications, which had just signed a $7 million deal with telecom giant MCI to help build MCI Marketplace, an early take on an Amazon-style online store.

On stage at this week's Google Cloud Next conference, Andreessen says the MCI Marketplace was "a big day for a startup company," and required them to work around the clock for six months to get it done and ready. Once it was done, he told one of their engineers to get it out to MCI.

"The next day, I get to work, I get the angriest phone call I think I've ever received," says Andreessen. 

Netscape "did not have a process for shipping software," Andreessen says — so the engineer burned the software to a CD and "put it in a Ziploc baggie" he had gotten from the kitchen, and put it in the mail.

"It was literally 'We paid you $7 million and you sent us a CD-ROM in a baggie,'" Andreessen recalls being told by his MCI contact. Andreessen does note, however, that it was a fresh bag, not used for a sandwich, so at least there's that. 

A 2000 profile of Andreessen from Wired sheds more light on the MCI/Netscape relationship: When the $7 million check first arrived, Andreessen was so excited that he went around showing it to each employee personally. Circa 2000, at least, he told Wired he regretted the deal: "[What] we didn't realize is that we were selling our soul."

Committing to MCI as a customer meant Netscape, with its limited resources, had to prioritize their needs over a wider customer base. "A big early customer owns you," Andreessen told Wired. In 1999, AOL purchased Netscape for about $10 billion, while Andreessen went on to other ventures.

You can watch the full video of Marc Andreessen, in conversation with Google chief internet evangelist and "father of the internet" Vint Cerf, here: 

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• Jeff Immelt was CEO of GE for 16 years
• He turned to Silicon Valley for advice on keeping GE relevant and competitive
• In an essay published by the Harvard Business Review, he credits much of his inspiration to a 2011 article by Marc Andreessen, and the book "The Lean Startup"

Over his 16-year tenure as CEO, Jeff Immelt led General Electric through the effects of both 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Along the way, he was always conscious of keeping GE relevant and competitive, and he turned to Silicon Valley for inspiration.

In a retrospective essay for the Harvard Business Review published weeks after stepping down as CEO, Immelt wrote that starting in 2009, he began making regular trips to GE's controls and analytics lab and to the Bay Area to absorb as much information as possible about his company's existing technology and how to take it to the next level. He met with CEOs like Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Salesforce's Marc Benioff to pick their brains.

Two pieces of writing popular in the Valley really resonated with him. "The two things that influenced me the most were Marc Andreessen's 2011 Wall Street Journal article, 'Why Software Is Eating the World,' and 'The Lean Startup' — Eric Ries's book, which I literally read in a day," he wrote.

Andreessen is one of the founding partners of the highly influential venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and his article was straightforward but prescient: The companies that are going to thrive are those that will embrace software; to have even a chance of survival over the next few years, all industries must learn from what is working in the tech sector.

Immelt wasted no time. "In 2011 we decided to hire Bill Ruh from Cisco to lead our industrial internet effort; to establish a major software center in San Ramon, California, that would support the transformation; and to insist from day one that we would infuse the effort with outside talent — our original goal was to hire a thousand software engineers," he wrote. "Those decisions have led us to where we are today."

"The Lean Startup" is the codifying of a theory first proposed by entrepreneur Eric Ries that essentially states that startups should experiment rapidly, dismiss failed ideas ruthlessly, and pivot to a new angle if the current iteration of the company isn't sticking. It instantly made waves in Silicon Valley, earning the praise of people like Andreessen and inspiring a generation of entrepreneurs.

When Immelt read the book, he imagined teams throughout GE behaving as lean startups. Immelt made the book required reading for managers at GE and brought Ries on as a consultant. Together they developed FastWorks, an initiative that built teams around the lean startup ethos. For example, in 2013, a team in GE Appliances was tasked with creating a new refrigerator model with cutting edge technology and design.

The first version was a flop, the second fared better, and a few models in, they found something that connected with customers. This happened in a year; previous product development cycles, where the goal was to have a product to ship as close to perfect as possible, lasted five years.

In his article, Immelt wrote that while stock price underperformed in his tenure, he was proud of how he tripled earnings and reinvigorated GE.

"It will take years for GE to fully reap the benefits of the transformations. But as I contemplate my departure, I love where the company is positioned," he wrote.

Read his full post at the Harvard Business Review »

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