Think you have a hot startup idea? Write it down and you could net a little funding.

Bang Ventures from New York is offering $15,000 U.S. for startup CEOs to get their ideas off the ground. "You Be The VC" Candidates start by submitting applications outlining their plans for a new internet startup. These will be judged by handpicked professionals in the startup field to guarantee unbiased results and ensure that funding goes to best idea seen in the public's eye. There are no limits as to the number of ideas that CEO's can submit, just as long as they are in by the deadline of December 2007.

Voting begins March 2008, with the $15,000 prize money, temporary relocation expenses to Cambridge, MA, and living expenses being handed out upon final vote submissions. Winners of the "You Be The VC" campaign will also be able to utilize Bang Venture's support network, resources and materials.

[via killerstartups]

There's an assumption on most people's part that corporate CEOs are visionary, set the tone and direction for their respective companies, tend to focus on big picture items, while the worker drones attend to the minutiae.

Usually, this image is maintained when you see the CEO in action, their every word listened to intently with head bobbing appreciation by others lucky enough to be in their presence. CEO's have very important people trailing them, at their elbow, trying to get their "face" time with the big guy/gal. CEOs always seem to be in a rush.

CEOs have minions who attend to the details of their hectic lives. They have executive secretaries, who also have secretaries. They have grips who make sure their luggage or whatever is always at hand. They have personal chefs, a trusted chauffeur, and so on. They travel extensively.

There's a mystique surrounding the CEOs office and workers gossip relentlessly about the CEOs going ons. Who's in favor, who is out of favor, who is going to get canned, what the board of directors may think and how they will vote, etc. The inner circle hang out in the executive secretary's office vying for "just five minutes" with el jefe.

CEOs make gobs and gobs of money for the fabulous jobs they do. We know they're important. We know others think they're important. We're just not sure what they really do.

Well now the picture is getting more transparent for the rest of us. In addition to snooping on individual board of director members and influential members of the media, CEOs also find time to snark online at their competition using pseudonyms in online forums.

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey used the pseudonym "rahodeb," to jab and make disparaging comments about his rival competitor Wild Oats and others. Earlier this year, Whole Foods agreed to buy Wild Oats for $565 million, or $18.50 a share.

(No, rahodeb is not an ancient Egyptian's king name, it is however, a variation of Mr. Mackey's wife's name, Deborah).

Rahodeb posted over 1,394 entries on Yahoo Finance stock forums over the past eight years. Those postings came to light this week as part of the FTC lawsuit to block Whole Foods' takeover of Wild Oats. Below is a March 29, 2006 example of one of them.

1. Re: RAHODEB'S SELL ON OATS AT LOW 2/24 - The only thing time has told us about OATS is that it has lost $81 million in 19 years and $33 million over the last 3 years. You continue to ignore these facts. Why is that?<br><br>The stock is up on takeover speculation and nothing else. The company still stinks and remains grossly overvalued based on very weak fundamentals. The stock is up now, but if it doesn't get sold in the next year or so it is going to plummet back down. Wait and see.<br><br>You're also right that I have no shame. Why should I?

For the most part the posts themselves are not exceptional but for the fact they are written by Whole Foods' CEO. This fact does make them distinctive and sad at the same time. You would think a CEO's judgement would be more intact.

Now we know what CEOs do. We just thought they made better and more brilliant decisions than they often do.

In a recently leaked story on a PR news site, Yahoo has announced its first deal since the CEO swapping fiasco. GigaOm's Liz Gannes caught sight of this timing error on an Associated Press story that could have Yahoo in the front of the line for the online obsessive sporting fan.

Under Jerry Yang's command its business as usual, and Yahoo is moving along by acquiring the hard core sporting site Rivals.com. The company charges between $10 and $100 per month to over 185,000 subscribers for their subscription based service, and with 2.57 million visitors last September alone, this site will be racking some coins in for Yahoo.

The Yahoo sports section is second only to ESPN.com's, and it looks like this move could be the one they are looking for to push them over the top in this vertical. The purchase price for Rivals.com is not being disclosed.

Big news on the Yahoo front as Terry Semel officially departs from Yahoo. The news came down the pipes on Sunday when Terry made the announcement.

Through a conference call this afternoon, Jerry Yang went over the details including the management changes. Jerry Yang will be taking over the CEO position, and Sue Decker as the President. Terry wanted to leave sooner rather than later as he said that Yahoo has had a difficult and challenging year.

Supposedly Terry will be keeping his role as chairman and consult the company on an ongoing basis. Although we aren't sure how that will play out as even though Terry had helped Yahoo through the .com bust, quarter profits were nothing special for many years since, with Terry, of course, continuing his outrageous yearly pay.

DLS has the scoop on a hot new Jangl feature that has just sprouted up today, a way for users to call anyone online at anytime without knowing their phone number.

If you know someone's email address, but not their phone number, it's now possible to talk to them through Jangl. Michael Cerda CEO of Jangl sees this as a way to virtualize the phone number, making them as disposable as email addresses. The new JanglService now gives people a great, and virtually inexpensive way to chat by phone in 31 countries worldwide at the moment.

The service is simple to use, users start by inputing an email address on Jangl's homepage to get connected. A phone number will be displayed with a private local number for you to call them on. The first call you make will be to a voice mail system that Jangl will deliver to the recipient via email. Once the message is received, the recipient will get a local number to call and connect to you. This all allows for a secure and safe personal number.

This new service from Jangl works on any phone and is free during the beta period, with currently no news as to the future cost of this feature, besides carrier and local airtime charges.

Jangl also has another cool feature called "Call Me". This lets people connect by phone through a safe number by appending an email address to the end of http://callme.jangl.com.

BusinessWeek is running a great interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The interview covers a ton of ground, beginning with Google's YouTube acquisition and ending with Vista. In between, Ballmer talks about the Web 2.0 valuations and "Bubble 2.0," the business transition from Xbox to Xbox 360, Microsoft's recent high-profile hires, Bill Gates' impending departure, Microsoft's competition, and, of course, the Zune. Vista is a disappointingly small part of the discussion, but it's still worth a read if you're interested in what Microsoft is up to.

The CEO of Flock, the hyped social browser that some say didn't really live up to its hype, has just left the company Wednesday to build another company. The move by Bart Decrem is being treated like it was a planed move. Bessemer Venture Partners has stated that this development has been anticipated since the day the company was started. Flock launched at the beginning of August, with a ton of hype, but most users seemed to be unsatisfied with the social browser, and didn't shake up the browser world as was intended. It should be interesting to watch how this shakes up the company. This could be a move that get a bunch of extra PR, and expand the user base.

I had tried out this browser shortly after it was launched, and preferred to stick with my beloved Firefox. Does anyone actually use Flock as their default browser?

[Via Mashable]

Apple announced yesterday that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has joined the ranks on Apple's Board of Directors. "Apple is one of the companies in the world that I most admire," said Eric Schmidt. "I'm really looking forward to working with Steve and Apple's board to help with all of the amazing things Apple is doing." Likewise, Steve Jobs praised Schmidt, saying, "Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google, and we look forward to his contributions as a member of Apple's board of directors."

Just imagine the outcomes in the marketplace now that these extra ties have been made between Google and Apple. These two companies full of innovation and market domination can together create some very cutting edge products and services--I wonder what Microsoft thinks about this news.

Sun Microsystems CEO and founder Scott McNealy is stepping down after 22 years of leading the company. McNealy will be assuming the role of chairman and "chief evangelist," while Sun president and COO Jonathan Schwartz will be taking over as CEO. McNealy says he's been working to get Schwartz into the driver's seat for a decade, but that he didn't want to hand over the company during t fast-moving dot-com boom nor before the company was stabilized after the bust. Sun's stocks saw an 8.6% increase in after-hours trading following the announcement.

Jeremy Hague, Skylook's CEO, was kind enough to give me a little time and answer some questions this weekend. Ever since I'd mentioned Skylook a while back I was fascinated by his company, and the space where they operate (as a plug-in to two popular desktop apps). Skylook, for those who don't know, uses Outlook to manage your contacts, IM, voicemail, appointments, etc. in Skype, but also fully integrates recording of Skype conversations into Outlook. It's a convenient and natural extension of both apps, and quite frankly I can't give it justice in words. You have to use it. It's cool.

So in light of Skype's acquistion by eBay, and the general state of desktop apps in general, I wanted to ask Jeremy his take on all this and more... Read the full interview after the jump.