Q&A: Scott Olrich,...

Scott Olrich, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer at Responsys, discusses his company's expansion into Germany and how email marketing will evolve over the next year.

Q&A: Scott Olrich,...

Scott Olrich, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer at Responsys, discusses his company's expansion into Germany and how email marketing will evolve over the next year.

Apple’s COO Tim Cook Re...

Apple’s Steve Jobs has resigned from his position as CEO and Apple has just announced that COO Tim Cook has taken over as CEO. As COO, Cook was responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and plays a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace. Before joining Apple, Cook was vice president of Corporate Materials for Compaq and was responsible for procuring and managing all of Compaq’s product inventory. Previous to his work at Compaq, Cook was the chief operating officer of the Reseller Division at Intelligent Electronics. Cook also spent 12 years with IBM, most recently as director of North American Fulfillment where he led manufacturing and distribution functions for IBM’s Personal Computer Company in North and Latin America. Jobs will be Chairman of the Board of Apple and Cook will take a position on the board as CEO. Jobs actually submitted his resignation to the Board today and ‘strongly recommended’ that the Board name Tim Cook as CEO. In January, Jobs took an indefinite medical leave of absence from the company, and while he remained as CEO, Cook took on the day-to-day operations for Apple. Jobs’ previous medical history includes Pancreatic cancer as well as a liver transplant. In 2004, Jobs contracted Pancreatic Cancer, which he beat. Then Jobs underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and also made a full recovery. During Jobs’ absence in 2009, then COO Tim Cook took over Apple’s day-to-day activities. Check out my colleague MG Siegler’s analysis from January: A Few Thoughts On Apple’s 2011, Stock, Tim Cook, And The Future The full release is below: Apple’s Board of Directors today announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as Chief Executive Officer, and the Board has named Tim Cook, previously Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, as the company’s new CEO. Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board and Cook will join the Board, effective immediately. “Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple’s Board. “Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.” “The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO,” added Levinson. “Tim’s 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does.” Jobs submitted his resignation to the Board today and strongly recommended that the Board implement its succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO. As COO, Cook was previously responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and played a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace.

Square Adds Former U.S....

After adding Vinod Khosla to its board a few weeks ago, mobile payments startup Square is racking up another big name to its board of directors— Larry Summers. Summers served as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States from 1999 to 2001, and was most recently the Chief Economic Advisor to President Obama. Square says that it has created a new seat on its board for Summers. Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey said this of Summers joining the board: We are proud to have Larry join our board and we welcome his insight and decades of leadership to our growing company…Square is at a key point in our trajectory and we know Larry will contribute tremendous wisdom and expertise toward our continued success. In addition to his roles in serving the U.S. government, Summers was also the 27th President of Harvard University where he remained for 5 years. He joined the National Economic Council in 2009 where he served as Chief Economic Advisor to the President. Currently Summers is currently a professor at Harvard University. Whereas Khosla adds Silicon Valley technology and investment clout to Square’s board, Summers adds financial and government depth to Square’s board. It’s impressive for a payments company to have a U.S. former economic chief and Treasury head advising the company. The mobile payments company also received a vote of confidence from the finance industry with a strategic investment from Visa a few months ago. And an exec from bank J.P. Morgan Chase as well as a Visa exec are currently advisors to the company. Summers has actually invested and advised technology companies previously, including The Big Think. Summers is also on the board at Revolution Money. It’s no secret that Square is growing like crazy. And the company is also reportedly raising $50 million-plus in new funding at a whopping $2 billion valuation. Which brings up the question—did Summers get a baord seat because he invested in Square? CrunchBase Information Square Information provided by CrunchBase

Stealthy Startup SnapGu...

Talk about a happy birthday. SnapGuide , a stealthy mobile startup founded by Daniel Raffel and Steve Krulewitz , has raised a funding round totaling over $2 million. The round just closed today — which also happens to be Raffel’s birthday. Leading the round is Index Ventures (Mike Volpi will be taking a board seat), with participation from Atlas Ventures (Jeff Fagnan) and a number of angels including Dave Morin, Gary Clayton, SV Angel, and our own Michael Arrington. So what exactly is SnapGuide? Aside from the name, there isn’t much to go by on the company’s homepage, which has the tagline “show and tell made mobile”. But we did get a bit more information. In particular, Clayton’s investment is interesting — he’s the Chief Creative Officer over at Nuance, which is known for its powerful voice recognition software. Raffel isn’t sharing much about the company at this point, but he did confirm that SnapGuide’s apps include significant voice recognition capabilities. Raffel is best for being one of the original creators of Yahoo Pipes, and Krulewitz was on Google’s Chrome team working on Sync — both left their jobs last summer and began working on this project in February. The SF-based company is hiring. Disclosure: As mentioned before, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is investing in SnapGuide. You can find his investment policy here .