On The Money had been hearing word of a shift at the top at Google for weeks, but our sources — who spend plenty of time with the Googlers — were shocked that the kids took over the asylum so quickly.
One executive told The Post, “The feeling was [CEO] Eric [Schmidt] wasn’t punching the clock. “He was on every Presidential Commission.”
Schmidt is a founding member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He is also said to be pushing the President toward creating a new stimulus program based on green technologies and renewable energy, which Schmidt says can utimately replace fossil fuels.
Why the rush? Well Google has made little traction in Hollywood winning content deals for its YouTube property, and has similarly stumbled in tuning Google Music to the musical industry.
Several Silicon Valley folks are scratching their heads, however, about whether founder Larry Page is the right guy to be moving into the CEO’s chair.
Page, while a brilliant thinker, is admittedly not much of a people person.
Can an antisocial leader help Google head off Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg?
Claire Atkinson
Muni match
It’s the closest thing you’ll get to a Wall Street catfight.
Municipal securities pro Alexandra Lebenthal has called prominent financial analyst Meredith Whitney on the carpet over her negative calls on municipal bonds.
“She’s brilliant when it comes to housing, but I don’t think she has the same expertise or credentials when it comes to munis,” Lebenthal told Reuters in an interview.
Lebenthal, who has built a decades- long career in the municipal-bond market, takes issue with dire pronouncements made recently in public by Whitney de claring the muni market a ticking time- bomb set to face billions in losses.
Whitney, who has told The Post that opponents of her views “are entitled to their own opinion,” maintains her view that muni debt holders could see big losses resulting from defaults on securities issued by cities, towns and states to fund the construction of projects like roads, bridges and tunnels.
Whitney first grabbed the spotlight four years ago by making correct calls on Cit igroup during the beginning of the financial crisis. The analyst said that researching the complex balance sheets of financial firms is no different from analyzing municipal debt.
Lebenthal, however, disagrees and equates Whitney to a muni novice who’s way over her head.
“I would put any muni anal yst in a room with her — on TV, outside in the schoolyard — and see who comes out ahead,” Lebenthal said.
The Lebenthal/Whitney row comes a little over a week after bond boss Bill Gross re ferred to the bank analyst’s predictions of widespread car nage as “overblown,” in a Bloomberg interview.
Gross has made big investments in municipal debt.
For that reason, Whitney has suggested that some of her biggest critics on muni research have the most to lose, according to people she has spoken with privately.
At this point, Washington appears to be giving at least some credence to the notion that debt-laden states could present a big problem.
Indeed, lawmakers are said to be hashing over plans to allow states to declare bankruptcy — a move that would help relieve some of their debt obligations, and, potentially, wipe out bondholders.
Mark DeCambre
On the road
Billionaire hedge-fund guru Steve Cohen appears to have made it his New Year’s resolution to vanquish his previously steadfast image as a numbers-addicted recluse.
The founder of $12 billion hedge fund SAC Capital attended JPMorgan’s Alternative Investment Summit for asset-management clients on Friday, where he spoke on a panel alongside other high-profile hedgies: Lee Ainslie, founder of Maverick Capital, and Dinaker Singh, founder of TPG-Axon Capital, The Post has learned.
Cohen’s appearance coincides with news that he is bound for Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, where he can mingle with the likes of Bill Gates and Jamie Dimon, according to a list of participants on the forum’s Web site.
Cohen, who’s often described as a natural-born trader, started upping his public appearances last year while seeking to raise additional capital for his firm, which recently suffered its first-ever loss in its flagship fund, down 19 percent in 2008.
For the last two years the fund has rebounded, rising 15 percent last year.
Last year Cohen attended Morgan Stanley’s annual hedge-fund conference in Palm Beach and was featured in Vanity Fair.
His sudden interest in glad-handing also suggests he’s shrugging off news reports that he’s the target of a federal probe into insider trading.
Kaja Whitehouse