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Stephen Balkam: Sex.com To Be Auctioned: Hey, Bill Gates, How About Bidding on it?

by on March 10, 2010

One of the most valuable pieces of cyber-real estate is up for sale. According to Wired, sex.com will be auctioned on March 16 and the opening bid is a mere one million dollars. Do we really need another porn site? Can we make do with the estimated 1.3 million sex-related sites already on the web? Never mind the ever popular user-generated sites where folk upload last night’s activity for free without so much as a fee or password required. No, I think it would be an amazing piece of largess – not to mention an inspired acquisition – if Bill Gates and his Foundation, were to outbid everyone and snap up this heavily trafficked site. Then the smart folks at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation could convert sex.com into the world’s leading safe sex portal in an effort to stop the spread of HIV and the myriad of other sexually transmitted diseases, while also curbing the rise of unwanted teenage pregnancy. Whatever you think of online porn — whether you have a laissez-faire attitude or are an outright opponent of the stuff — the world wide web would not miss the disappearance of sex.com as a sexual shop front. What would be inspired would be the appearance of educated and fact-based messages, videos, tips and guides on how to have a wonderful and loving sex life being responsible and safe for you and your partner. Who better to deliver such a site than the man who presided first over the spread of the personal computer to every corner of the globe and who is doing his level best to give away his personal fortune, particularly to those corners where HIV/AIDS and other STD’s are so rampant. So come on, Bill, be a sport. $1M or thereabouts certainly won’t break the bank. Put a smile on our faces and a good feeling in our hearts. And, in the future, when kids land on sex.com they’ll get some real sexual education and tips that will keep them, their partners and, eventually, their own children safe. You know it’s the right thing to do.

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Stephen Balkam: Sex.com To Be Auctioned: Hey, Bill Gates, How About Bidding on it?

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Jesse Kornbluth: Tiger, Stand by Your Brand

by on February 20, 2010

James Carville likes to say that “No man stands so tall as when he stoops to kiss an ass,” but I think he was talking about a sensible way to deal with powerful but extravagantly stupid people. It’s different with corporations. Tiger Woods had no reason to apologize to me. Or you. If he felt the need to address the public, a simple statement would have sufficed quite nicely. But the stage-managing of this non-press press conference suggests that the rationale had less to do with the public than with Tiger’s business partners. The tip-off — as if one were needed — came the day before the TV event, when Elin Woods emerged from her manicured seclusion looking like a model for Nike Soccer Momwear. The only possible interpretation: Stand By Your Brand. The event itself lacked credibility. We know this because in every Wall Street trading room I polled, the guys guffawed at Tiger’s pledge to become a better man. Oh, he sounded sincere — having painted himself into a corner, he has only this one chip to bet on — and I think he was. But sincerity is not the issue. Nor is the skill of his therapists. The traders laughed because they know, as Chris Rock puts it, “A man is as faithful as his opportunities.” As long as he’s a house-husband, Tiger has none. Once he’s out on tour….. There’s no way that Elin Woods, mother of two, can tour with Tiger. The only way he can be assured of maintaining sexual sobriety? A handler. A minder. A nanny. Sending Tiger into the world with a 24/7 sex cop may successfully entomb him as a prisoner of desire. It may save his marriage. But, much more to the point, it will save the crazy huge profit Tiger generates for Nike. Tiger Woods may be the world’s greatest golfer, but in fifteen minutes of television, he forever established another identity — the bitch of Nike.

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Jesse Kornbluth: Tiger, Stand by Your Brand

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AIG Advances on Speculation Greenberg May Help Benmosche Rebuild Insurer

August 27, 2009

By Jamie McGee and Hugh Son Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) — American International Group Inc ., the insurer bailed out by the U.S., gained in New York trading on speculation the company may benefit from improved relations with former Chief Executive Officer Maurice “Hank” Greenberg . Robert Benmosche , named this month as the New York-based insurer’s fifth CEO in four years, told Reuters he contacted Greenberg after taking the job. Greenberg led AIG for almost four decades, building the company into the world’s largest insurer, before being forced out in 2005. “I want to get the benefit of his criticisms or his support,” Benmosche said, according to Reuters, which cited an interview with the executive in Croatia where he has a home. “The world may choose to vilify him. I think of him as having had some problems, but he can help us with the solutions.” Benmosche needs to retain customers and employees to maintain the value of assets the company is trying to sell to repay loans within the $182.5 billion bailout that was required to prop up the company after bad bets tied to subprime mortgages. He told Bloomberg last week he will sell units “only at the right time at the right price.” AIG advanced $2.12, or 5.6 percent, to $39.81 at 9:36 a.m. in New York Exchange composite trading. The insurer posted its first quarterly profit since 2007 on Aug. 7 and has more than tripled in the past month. Greenberg, who controls the largest privately held stake in the insurer, has said AIG’s best chance to repay the government is to rebuild the company, the approach Benmosche told employees he will take. Greenberg had said Benmosche’s predecessor, Edward Liddy , was unqualified for the job. ‘Bob Has All of That’ “Some, who had been there before, shouldn’t have been put in that spot,” Greenberg told Reuters. “In my judgment, they did not have the breadth, intellect or experience necessary. Bob has all of that,” he said about Benmosche. Benmosche was previously CEO of MetLife Inc ., the largest U.S. life insurer. Liddy had been CEO of Allstate Corp ., the biggest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer. To contact the reporter on this story: Jamie McGee in New York at Jmcgee8@bloomberg.net ; Hugh Son in New York at hson1@bloomberg.net ;

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