A more successful exit for Pure Digital.  I met with these guys when they were still building a disposable digital camera.  The technology was always impressive even if the market assumptions have had to be reworked a few times.  Good to see they've found a profitable way to use it.  Anyway, let's look at the team behind this moderately successful exit. 

CEO: Jonathan Kaplan
CFO: Alan Henricks
VP Products: Ariel Braunstein
VP Eng: John Furlan
VP Mfg: Robert Evans
VP Mktg: Simon Flemmer-Wood
VP Sales: Mark Schuster

BoD:

Doug Spreng, Crescendo
Bruce Dunlevie, Benchmark
John Ball, Steamboat
Michael Moritz, Sequoia
Jeff Jordan, CEO of OpenTable, formerly at PayPal

Only three things to note.  First, most of the exec team has been remarkably stable.  Kaplan has lead them through a nubmer of diffeerent business plans and Braunstein, in a variety of positions, has developed a number of different products aimed at different markets.  Second the one spot which has been less stable, more of an ejector seat really, has been the VP Sales role.  Pure Digital has had more than its share of these.  Finally, I'd like to note the presence of a non-VC board member.  I don't know this board's dynamic, but I have seen such an addition to be very useful to others.  (Yes, Jeff is CEO of another Benchmark portfolio company, but I still think it could help.)

Unfortunate news from Light Reading as Hammerhead ceases operations.  As always, let's take a look at the team.  Here's the board whose leadership has lead Hammerhead to this pass. 

Rob Keil
President, CEO and Founder
Hammerhead Systems

Bob Conn
Managing Director
Enterprise Partners Venture Capital

Kevin Fong
Managing Partner
Mayfield

Adam Grosser
General Partner
Foundation Capital

George Middlemas
General Partner
Apex Venture Partners

Greg Rossmann
General Partner
Pequot Ventures

Michael Segrest
General Partner
Silver Creek Ventures

What's missing from that list is a couple of CEOs from the time between the founding in 2002 and now.  Rob Keil was there at the beginning and the end but in between the board found Joe Sigrist at Lucent's Edge Access Systems division for the CEO role.  Eighteen months later Peter Savage replaced Joe, who eventually re-emerged at Polycom.  Peter was the person steering this ship up until last May when Rob stepped in to try to find strategic options.  Either way, Hammerhead had a good run, just not quite good enough to survive. 

I ran across this the other day and found it sadly apt in these times.  I know lots of chief executives who aren't this way but I've met the kind described here too.  The artist's site is here.

Cool map graphic from the NY Times

Not sure that this gives us a lot of information except that it really, really sucks to be looking for work in Michigan right now.  Pittsburgh on the other hand, is looking better than I would have expected.