No, not Rolling Stone — the other mag cover.
Bloomberg Businessweek’s eye-catching and extremely phallic cover making fun of hedge-fund managers is already making waves in the industry.
Last week, the New York Hedge Fund Roundtable held a panel in Midtown to debate the worthiness of funds.
It wasn’t long before the popular but somewhat rude image cropped up in a heated exchange between Simon Lack, a well-known hedge fund skeptic, and Troy Gayeski, senior portfolio manager at SkyBridge Capital, the hedge-fund investment shop founded by Anthony Scaramucci.
“Were you on the cover of Businessweek last week?” Lack asked Gayeski at one point. “No,” Gayeski responded to laughter from the crowd of about 100 industry professionals, including members of the New York Society of Security Analysts.–Kaja Whitehouse
Light entertainment
Miral Kotb may be a very good dancer, but she appears to have two left feet when it comes to finding angel investors.
The Egyptian-born former Bloomberg software engineer is looking for a financial partner to help expand her dance show “iLuminate,” which was featured on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” and is now playing off-Broadway at New World Stages.
The stage production is a showcase for the technology Kotb developed to light up costumes to be in sync with hip-hop music, thanks to wearable laptops.
Kotb has funded the entire development of her invention and the stage production herself with savings from her job at Bloomberg.
The 34-year-old Kotb came up with the idea while attending Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in 2009, and by the following year Chris Brown was the first celebrity to wear iLuminate technology; the Black Eyed Peas followed suit.
By 2012, Kotb was on the radar of Google CEO Larry Page, who asked her to open the Google IO Meeting last June. The show even performed at the White House and at several corporate events for Samsung, Mini Cooper and RedBull.
Amazingly, iLuminate’s stage show isn’t sponsored by any corporation either. Kotb told On the Money: “I’m looking for assistance to take it to the next level. It isn’t something I’ve actively pursued yet.”
Kotb adds: “The company was a startup, and I put all my personal savings into it. I really believed in it, but it’s a hard product to talk about and I knew people wouldn’t fund it based on what I imagined.” That’s why she brought it to reality herself.
“I see the future for iLuminate with performances all around the world,” she says. “It’s a universal show, maybe we do ‘Alice in Wonderland’?”–Claire Atkinson
Munn of the hour
Olivia Munn, the star of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” is a self-professed geek.
Munn, 33, says most women these days, especially those in their 20s and 30s, recognize the importance of technology and new media.
Munn spoke Thursday at the L’Oréal USA Women in Digital Next Generation Awards in New York, which presented awards to three young female entrepreneurs in digital technology, from a group of 1,600 nominations.
Munn told the crowd she was honored to be there supporting other women. “You hear a lot about how women don’t support others — mean, salacious stuff. But from my perspective women need to lift each other up and support each other.
“The No. 1 goal is for everyone, especially women, to reach their full potential and not look at it as a fight in a male-dominated work force.”
Munn says she keeps her head down and just tries to do great work.
L’Oréal VP Rachel Weiss said the company chose Munn because “we want to show you can be a geek and still be chic.”
The winners will help create technology for L’Oréal USA and pilot a program with one of the company’s brands. One will get a $24,000 scholarship.
The winners were Heather Marie, whose 72lux allows digital publishers to sell products featured in editorial articles; Kelsey Falter, whose Poptip software platform can take surveys over social media; and Sukhinder Singh
Cassidy, founder of Joyus, which is an online video shopping experience for women.
Guests included Carolyn Everson, Facebook VP of Global Marketing Solutions, and Karin Klein, head of investing activities for Bloomberg Beta.–Julie Earle-Levine