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10/13/2004: "Zombie-movie eerie."

Vivato's CFO quit yesterday, Having a CFO depart in the middle of raising money is not the typical strategy for the startup-CEO. Typically the startup CEO seeks to inspire confidence in the mind of the institutional investor by presenting a picture of stability and solid foundations.

Raj only joined Vivato in early April. His departure six months later is a sign of deep decay at the heart of the organization. CFOs don't just quit. They're not granted that luxury. When a CEO and BoD hire a CFO, they want someone who will be there long-term. Its often monts or years before they find another position.

Not that the revolving door to the executive suite is anything new at Vivato.

In Feburary (2004!), Vivato announced three new executives. By August, none of the three was working at Vivato. Siavash Alamouti exited when he would not bow to Stalter's demands of how the product must work. (Frankly, what Stalter wants is impossible.) My understanding is that Siavash was treated in a very unprofessional manner during his exit. This is typical of Stalter's dealing with anyone around him. Intel picked Sivash up about as fast as possible. He is now CTO at their wireless broadband division. Roth was, quite frankly forced to resign. Placed in corporate Siberia and left to rot. Mark Tyre tired of the bullshit, and went back to Cisco. With Tyre's exit, I expect most of the sales team (the team that Mark built) to set sail for calmer waters. While these guys were all "part" of Vivato for a long time (Siavash joined before I did, while both Tyre and Roth joined about the same time as I), none of them lasted longer than 6-7 months reporting directly to "Killer Don".

And last March, Vivato announced Kevin Ryan has been appointed vice president of marketing and business development. Yet Kevin is nowhere to been seen on the management board, and on September 22, Stalter announced that Chris DeMarche now has the title of "senior vice president of marketing & business development", so its likely Kevinturn in the gualg. We know he's still there, because he's quoted in Time today (see below).

And now this mess. Time has written an alter to Stalter's Ego. It is such crappy journalism that Glenn Fleishman immediately labeled it "uninformed" and refused all further comment.

Here are a few fun facts.

1) Stalter is using my old TiBook. The Apple Powerbooks are legend for their poor 802.11 performance. It's a wonder he's getting any coverage at all.

2) The HoopFest referred to in the article predates Stalter by months. The man who did 99% of the legwork for that (Martin Brewer) is now at WaveLink.

3) Brian Town, pictured in one of the photos, got cut in the last round of layoffs. Maybe he can take comfort in getting to be in "Time".

4) The reporter didn't take a notebook to a story about a 100 block "HotZone". What kind of reporting is that? The kind you can buy. Nothing says "puff piece" like a reporter failing to test the very thing he was sent to report on.

But the part I loved best is when it call came back to parking.


Next come the parking meters. Soon, a parking attendant who writes you a ticket in Spokane will also be able to run your plates to see whether your car is hot. And when your time runs out, the fancy wi-fi-enabled parking meters will be smart enough to page a meter cop, so you will get all the parking tickets you deserve.

and later in the article:

Parking in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., is so tight, it took 45 minutes of circling the block before I found a space. I spent that time doing a thought experiment: What if Vivato lit up my neighborhood with wi-fi? Then you could have curbside sensors that page your car the instant a spot opens up ... maybe a heads-up display on the windshield, showing a map of where the perfect spot is.

I ran this idea past the folks at Vivato. They love it. But won't everybody converge on the same prime spot as soon as it frees up? Not if you fork over extra to get notified, say, 30 seconds earlier. "You pay a premium for that!" says Kevin Ryan, Vivato's V.P. of marketing and business development, his eyes gleaming with invisible wi-fi light. "You're the platinum customer!" There you have it. The future of free urban wi-fi looks bright. It just might cost a little more than we thought.

I've written about the tie-in with Spokane's Nazi Parking Policy before.

By their own admission, Vivato have sold "a few hundred" units of the first gen product aka "Little Joe".
They sold a few hundred Little Joes, but not nearly as many as they needed to sell.

They've got $67M of VC funds sunk into the company. The last round was $45m. Do the math. How does a company that has:

1) replaced the CEO (with ZERO positive effect)
2) washed out the ENTIRE exec team. TWICE!
3) Failed to show appreciable customer demand for the technology

manage to raise any money at a valuation of over $100m? At the most there is a down round coming. The more likely scenerio is total failure.

Pssst, for those of you watching at Vivato, its time for another layoff.

Will the last person to leave Spokane please turn off the lights?