Expedia Worldwide president Scott Durchslag has abruptly resigned, according to media reports (first spotted at TechFlash).

GeekWire reports that a spokeswoman declined to say why Durchslag left Bellevue, WA-based Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) about a year after joining, and there wasn’t an SEC filing reflecting the departure before word got out, which indicates it wasn’t a planned exit. Durchslag previously was chief operating officer at Skype.

Expedia president and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will reportedly take over Durchslag’s duties, which were described on the company website as “managing the overall strategy and operations” for Expedia’s flagship online travel-booking business, including expanding worldwide and into new channels.

Khosrowshahi’s regular job is overseeing the entire Expedia portfolio of services, through a multilayered management structure that dates back to Expedia’s former days as an inside property of Barry Diller’s IAC holding company.

Expedia, one of the original dot-com success stories for the Seattle region following its spinout from Microsoft, recently broke its TripAdvisor business off into a separate, publicly traded company.

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RealNetworks, which recently installed a new CEO, is looking for a new financial chief. The company says CFO Michael Eggers is leaving effective April 15, via a filing with federal regulators (hat tip to John Cook at GeekWire for spotting).

Eggers has been at RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) for 14 years, according to the SEC filing—quite a tenure at a company that has been hanging around since the dot-com era.

RealNetworks CEO Thomas Nielsen, a former vice president at Adobe, took over the top job in early November. He replaced Bob Kimball, who had been at Real for about a dozen years and presided over a major restructuring period that included layoffs and the spinoff of the Rhapsody music joint venture.

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Seattle casual games company Big Fish Games has added a former Amazon.com vice president as its new chief financial officer. David Stephenson replaces Michael Vernon, who left BigFish in May to join fast-growing Seattle daily-deal startup Zulily.

Stephenson worked at Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) for 11 years, most recently serving as vice president of finance for the $15 billion North American retail division. He also previously worked for Procter & Gamble.

Stephenson’s e-commerce experience will certainly come in handy at Big Fish, which sells thousands of casual games online. Games are either produced in-house by Big Fish’s own studio, or by other developers who market their games through the site. The company also has moved into mobile and social games in recent years.

Big Fish raised about $83 million back in 2008, and earlier this year added ubiquitous angel investor Geoff Entress to its board. Casual and social games have become a hot sector recently, with Zynga’s explosive growth and Seattle studio PopCap’s recent acquisition by EA.

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One day after AdAge broke the news that Microsoft marketing chief Mich Mathews was leaving the company, All Things Digital has word that her counterpart at Apple also is moving on. So, whose resignation should we look for tomorrow?

In any case, here are the internal email announcements about Mathews’ departure, from Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner and Mathews herself. There’s nothing wild in the text—they’re very standard examples of the species—but Turner does provide some interesting context to Mathews’ 22-year run with Microsoft: “Mich started with Microsoft U.K. when we had only 4,000 employees globally and sales of about $800 million.”

True to her marketing background, Mathews puts it a little more conversationally: “I started here when Microsoft was the new, new thing and saw the company grow from its early success to the major global force in technology it is today.”

And since it’s big news, of course they slapped the blandest possible subject line on the email: “Announcement.”

—

From: Kevin Turner
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 6:33 PM
To: WW Sales, Marketing & Services Group; All FTE Worldwide Marketers
Subject: Announcement

After 22 years of dedicated and highly successful service to Microsoft, Mich Mathews has made the decision to retire from Microsoft, effective at the end of the summer. It is hard to capture in email the many contributions Mich has made to the company in this time – she has been an integral part in helping build and maintain some of the greatest brands in the world, and has helped evolve our marketing capacity in times of incredible change in the communications field.

Mich started with Microsoft U.K. when we had only 4,000 employees globally and sales of about $800 million. She came to the U.S. when she was asked to start Microsoft’s first corporate PR department. In that and subsequent roles she helped shape and build our brand from those early days right up until today, making it one of the most powerful and admired brands in the world.

She helped the company through good times and through the more difficult days with her winning ways and innovative methods, earning the respect of Billg and Steveb, who asked her to head central marketing at our company.

As Chief Marketing Officer, she has helped launch multiple versions of Windows along with hundreds of other successful products. She built a global marketing machine able to communicate … Next Page »

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Seattle-based business software company Varolii has a new president and chief executive: Former Microsoft general manager David McCann. He replaces Nicholas Tiliacos, who was with the company for 10 years. Varolii makes tools for text messaging, voicemail and email that help businesses reach customers and employees. It was founded under a different name by two MIT grads and has an office in the Boston area. Like many companies, Varolii’s fortunes have reflected the troubles in the broader U.S. economy in recent years. In 2008, Xconomy’s Bob Buderi wrote about Varolii shelving plans for an IPO that had been expected to raise up to $86 million. The company also laid off unspecified numbers of workers in early 2009 and late 2010. Varolii says it now has about 250 employees nationwide, and some 450 clients, including big players in banking, wireless, and healthcare.

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[Editor's note: This post was co-authored by Peter Rothstein, President of the New England Clean Energy Council.]

Over the next 10 years, over $1.7 trillion will be invested in clean power projects across the globe, according to recent projections from the Pew Charitable Trusts. That estimate is if nothing changes to strengthen our clean energy policies. Under a more aggressive policy scenario, Pew projects global investment of $2.3 trillion in this decade. Clearly, the clean energy industry is poised for tremendous growth.

New England has emerged as an early mover and hotbed of clean energy innovation, and is well positioned to grow into a global leader in this industry. This success is owed in large part to the strength of our universities, which serve as an incubator for tomorrow’s technologies. For the technologies of the future to become the technologies of the present, they must be shepherded into the market by experienced entrepreneurs and executives as innovative as the technologies themselves. There is often a gap, however, between innovative and early-stage clean energy companies and the executives who have both knowledge of the industry and seasoned experience to raise financing, scale the product, and take it to market. Even established clean energy companies and investors cite top-level recruitment for executive positions as an on-going issue.

Our region—and the greater Boston area in particular—is the home for world-leading research institutions and has no shortage of talented, experienced entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. The trick is helping these successful innovators transition from sectors like IT or biotech into clean energy.

To that end, the New England Clean Energy Council (of which one of us is President) has partnered with the Boston University School of Management (of which one of us is Faculty) to offer a certificate program entitled Leading Clean Energy Ventures which offers a deep dive into the technologies and business of clean energy, and which begins this month. To address the lack of repeat entrepreneurs and seasoned executives in the clean energy sector, this program targets successful individuals who are eager to transition into the clean energy sector. We based Leading Clean Energy Ventures on the Clean Energy Council’s signature Fellowship program. Combining the Clean Energy Council’s knowledge of the sector with the world-class faculty and resources of Boston University, we have evolved that novel education model into an effective and timely program.

Clean energy is our future. If our region and our nation hope to capitalize on the massive opportunity represented by clean energy—and to do so in time to save our climate—we must embrace new means of attracting and developing truly innovative clean energy executives and entrepreneurs. In the face of accelerating climate change we simply do not have the luxury of doing it any other way. To fuel a robust New England clean energy economy that can compete with global leaders like China and Europe, we must build a skilled workforce well versed in clean energy. Our aim is to offer a new generation of clean energy capitalists the knowledge and the tools they need to capture a $2.3 trillion opportunity.

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Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners has become more active in backing companies in the healthcare IT arena over the past several months, announcing two significant investments since September. Because this sector is so hungry for capital to fund new ideas, I thought it would make sense to chat with OpenView partner George Roberts about what it takes for health IT companies to raise dollars from his firm.

It should come as good news to health IT entrepreneurs that OpenView is interested in investing in their industry. The venture firm, founded in 2006, goes way beyond writing checks for its portfolio companies. When needed, the firm also helps the companies it funds create marketing strategies, optimize plans for their potential exits, and recruit executives. All this would seem shallow if the firm didn’t have people like Roberts, who helped build Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) into one of the most profitable technology companies in the world during his years as a senior executive of the Redwood City, CA-based firm.

Roberts, who ended his 13-year tenure at Oracle in 2003 and joined OpenView in April 2007, doesn’t seem to get caught up in the latest technology fads. There’s more below about what he is looking for from potential portfolio companies. And the proud Wisconsinite is definitely not the VC you want to hit up for money if your business plan resides on a bar napkin. (Read on for his comment about how his firm would have approached Mark Zuckerberg during the Facebook CEO’s Harvard dorm days).

However, OpenView has plenty of money for new investments, Roberts says. In the Q&A that follows, I tried to solicit information and tips from the VC that any health IT entrepreneur might want to know when considering whether to pitch the firm.

Xconomy: What is OpenView looking for while considering investments in health IT firms?

George Roberts: What we’re looking for are what we call expansion-stage companies in the health IT space. That includes companies with $2 million a year in revenue and up to $20 million in annual revenue. We also look for companies that are growing by 100 percent a year to 30 percent a year depending on their size and stage. These are companies that operate in large markets and have an opportunity to get to at least $100 million in revenues. Our belief is that companies that can get to that size, and that can get reasonable market share in their space, can command much better exits or an opportunity to go public.

X: What is OpenView not looking for health IT companies?

GR: We’re looking across the … Next Page »

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Every once in a while, I sit down with a businessperson who brings a unique perspective to a huge global trend—and helps me see things in a profound new light. In this case, that person is Kelly Jo MacArthur, and the global trend is the explosion of social media and its broader impact on corporations.

MacArthur was the former general counsel, senior vice president, and chief of staff at Seattle-based RealNetworks—and she also did a stint at Linden Lab, creators of the virtual world Second Life—so she has her digital media and Internet technologies down cold. A 10-year veteran of Real, she left the company in 2007 and has been focusing on consulting work with startups, big companies, and other organizations across the fields of social media, networking technologies, cleantech and sustainability, traditional media, and arts.

We were talking recently about the future of companies like Twitter and Facebook, and what struck me was the way MacArthur thinks of social media as an inevitable—and inherently predictable—evolution of communication technologies on the Internet. That means smart entrepreneurs and executives should be able to anticipate how all of this is affecting societal behavior, and what the new opportunities will be. What’s more, she’s finding that these technologies are forcing big companies and organizations to completely rethink their core strategy and value proposition—indeed, their very existence.

Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation:

Xconomy: So what are you hearing from companies out in the field?

Kelly Jo MacArthur: In my own work as a strategic advisor to CEOs, various boards, and executives on their corporate strategy, the inevitable conversation is, “What should we be doing with social media?” I’m not a marketing person—they work with their advertising and marketing agencies—but it leads you to the conversation that each business, especially in more traditional, entrenched industries, should be thinking about how they’re relevant in the future. And how we as citizens and consumers are demanding more, and also participating more, in the offerings and opportunities that these businesses have.

There’s a huge opportunity, no matter what business you’re in, if you’re constantly thinking ahead about how we as societies are shifting. Versus focusing on, “Should I be using this tool, or should I have a Facebook page?” You should be using these tools for your … Next Page »

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Last week, we reported that Microsoft is moving Windows Azure, its cloud computing platform, into a new business unit called the Server and Cloud Division, as the company gears up to offer a paid cloud service early next year. Azure now falls under the authority of Bob Muglia, president of the company’s Server and Tools Business. By Friday, though, I was hearing deeper rumblings around town about this reorganization: namely, whether it signifies the end of Ray Ozzie at Microsoft.

Here’s why people are talking. Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, has been the public face of Azure (and its main driving force) for the past year or so. Moving the development team to a product group in Muglia’s domain makes some observers think Ozzie has lost influence over the cloud platform, which has been a big part of his mission at the company. One former Microsoft executive told me that this re-org comes on the heels of Ozzie losing a power struggle over Windows Live to Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows Division, earlier this year. And multiple sources say Ozzie continues to commute between the Seattle and Boston areas.

“People keep waiting. ‘When is Ray going to have impact?’ Unless you’re here full-time and have Bill and Steve’s ear, it’s tough to be successful,” the former Microsoft exec said, referring to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. This source went on to say that Ozzie’s “power and influence is gone. At Microsoft, it all comes down to power politics…If you don’t have product groups working for you, what power do you have?”

Ozzie joined Microsoft in 2005 when his company, Beverly, MA-based Groove Networks, was acquired for a rumored price of around $200 million. (One person in the know told me that Bill Gates “overpaid” just to get Ozzie on board.) He was thought to be Gates’s successor. When Microsoft acquired Groove, Gates was quoted as saying, on a conference call, “I thought about ‘Could we ever hire Ray and his team?’ for a long, long time. So it’s a big, big day for me that this is finally taking place.”

Let’s be clear about one thing: Ozzie is a software developer’s God. He worked on VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet) and helped create Lotus Notes and Groove Virtual Office (collaborative software), among many other technologies. He is widely respected in the computing world, and nobody I’ve talked to is questioning his skills or smarts.

But some, including Mark Anderson from Strategic News Service, are saying (or implying) that the aggressive and argumentative culture of Microsoft executive life has been a poor fit for Ozzie’s talents, and that he might leave. This seems plausible, given what I know about the dog-eat-dog nature of Microsoft VP turf wars, and how they often turn out.

A Microsoft spokesperson did not reply to my request for information last week about Ozzie’s broader role at the company and his direct reports. But a PR firm did respond to a Redmond Channel Partner blog post which raised some similar questions about the Azure re-org. Here’s what the PR firm said, on behalf of Microsoft:

“In short, as chief software architect at Microsoft, Ray is responsible for oversight of the company’s technical strategy and product architecture. Ray’s role isn’t affected by this change. Ray will continue to be very involved with Windows Azure; however, as Microsoft prepares to begin billing customers for the service in February, it makes sense that Windows Azure would move from an advanced development project under Ray’s oversight into a mainstream business in a product group at the company (with full marketing, sales, etc., support).”

Whether or not this is the full story—and we have no indication from Microsoft that it isn’t—it seems unlikely that Ozzie will leave the company anytime soon. It’s still fairly early in his tenure. Perhaps he will continue to oversee the deployment of Azure at a different level. Or perhaps he will transition to another role that Microsoft isn’t talking about yet.

Just last May, Ozzie spoke at a Technology Alliance luncheon about his mission at Microsoft. “Craig [Mundie] and I have interesting roles in that we took on most of what Bill did. Everything I do is through influence and partnerships. I am more inwardly focused, and I work with the product teams,” Ozzie said. “I’m trying to drive alignment and synergy based on what will happen in this product cycle and the next one.”

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We’ve all been wondering how the Adobe layoffs, reported earlier this week, may affect the Seattle area—especially given the slew of other recent cutbacks in the local tech industry. Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), which is headquartered in San Jose, CA, has a strong presence in Seattle. As of recently, it employed some 500 people, focused on product development, operations, and advanced technology and research, at its Fremont offices.

Well, one prominent executive who’s leaving the company locally is Bill McCoy, Adobe’s general manager of ePublishing Business. McCoy is Adobe’s main e-book person. He made key contributions to Adobe’s PostScript and PDF technologies, and his team has helped lead projects like Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions, and Adobe InDesign. He’s on the board of the International Digital Publishing Forum, and has been heavily involved in the EPUB standards movement. (You can read more about McCoy at TeleRead.org.)

In a blog post this week, McCoy said he’s leaving Adobe “in the near future” to pursue other opportunities yet to be determined. “I will be taking a little bit of time off, but there is no doubt that I’ll continue to be involved in the future of digital books, especially where that future intersects with web standards and open source,” McCoy writes. “I believe that Adobe will continue to play a critical role as an enabler of interoperable solutions, but I also believe that the community needs to stay vigilant to ensure that for-profit corporations don’t just talk the talk about being open, but also walk the walk.”

It sounds like Adobe is overhauling its efforts in the area, as its competition with Amazon and other e-publishing companies heats up. In a blog post, Adobe said it “has made the decision to expand its investment in digital publishing, creating a new organization focused on delivering products to increase digital revenue opportunities for book, newspaper and magazine publishers. This organization will combine the efforts of Adobe’s eBook business responsible for the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions, and PDF and EPUB authoring support in Adobe InDesign with Adobe’s digital newspaper and magazine efforts.” The company added, “We are particularly excited about what we have in store for 2010. We plan to further our reach to emerging mobile reading platforms to allow readers to read anywhere, on any device.”

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Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) announced today it has rolled out its WiMax wireless broadband service in 10 new cities, including Bellingham, WA, and Boise, ID. Also on the list are eight cities in Texas, including Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, and Waco. The new markets join Las Vegas, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Portland, OR as WiMax hubs. Yesterday, Clearwire also announced two new executives who are helping with the WiMax deployments: Erik Prusch, chief financial officer, and Teresa Elder, president of strategic partnerships and wholesale.

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As we reported in February, the New England Clean Energy Council extensively revised its executive retraining fellowship program in preparation for its second year. Most notably, the council decided to recruit twice as many people as last year. But it also said it would expand its focus beyond former CEOs to people from other levels of business, and that it would recruit not just New Englanders but also a few executives from outside the region.

Today the official list of selectees for the 2009 fellowships leaked out—so we’re getting a look at the people the Council sees as the potential next generation of energy entrepreneurs.

The 12-week fellowship is designed to introduce executives with experience in other industries, especially information technology, to the special factors that make building energy startups tricky—from technological hurdles to the regulatory environment to community siting issues.

Notable names on this year’s list include former Atlas Venture partner Ahmet Ozalp, Athenahealth founding CTO Bob Gatewood, former Macromedia and Adobe executive David Mendels, former Black Duck CEO Doug Levin, and Bill O’Farrell, who co-founded and led both SpeechWorks and OpenAir.com.

Here’s the full list:

Michael Bayer—co-founder, RPM Communications, Maynard, MA

Jeffrey Carbeck—chief scientist, Nano-Terra, co-founder, Arsenal Medical, Boston

Brian Cohen—former CEO, SPI Dynamics, Atlanta, GA (acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2007)

Maureen Ellenberger—founder and former CEO, auctionPAL, Waltham, MA

Brian Fitzsimons—founder and co-CEO, DeskNet, Jersey City, NJ

Bob Gatewood—founding CTO, Athenahealth, Watertown, MA

Elena Grinev—former vice president of service delivery, Akamai, Cambridge, MA

Brad Hafer—managing director, Minuteman Advisory Partners, Bedford, MA

John Hanratty—founder, Ampient, Cambridge, MA

Todd Hasselbeck—CEO, Common Voices, Boston

Marni Hoyle—former vice president of marketing, ProfitLogic, Cambridge, MA (acquired by Oracle in 2005)

Ken Jones—co-founder and former CEO, WaveRx, Waltham, MA

Douglas Levin—former CEO, Black Duck Software, Waltham, MA

Patricia Meisner—co-founder, Redtail Solutions, Westborough, MA

David Mendels—former senior vice president and general manager of the Business Productivity Business Unit, Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA

Stuart Nixdorff—vice president of business development, OutSmart Power Systems, Needham, MA

William O’Farrell—co-founder and former CEO, SpeechWorks, Boston, (acquired by Nuance in 2003); co-founder and CEO, OpenAir (acquired by NetSuite in 2008); former CEO, Public Display, Providence, RI

Mike O’Neill—former vice president of Military/Aerospace & Communications Products, ON Semiconductor, Phoenix, AZ; former general partner, Kodiak Venture Partners, Boston.

Ahmet Ozalp—former partner, Atlas Venture, Waltham, MA

Tandhoni Rao—founder and former CEO, Radiospire Networks

Paul Sereiko—president and CEO, Airsprite Technologies, Marlborough, MA

Peter Vandermeulen—founder, BlueShift Technologies, Andover, MA

Peter Vicars—CEO, NewStep Networks, Toronto, Ontario

Jeffrey Weiss—venture partner, Point Judith Capital, Providence, RI

Lorraine Wheeler—co-founder and CEO, Actual Software, Andover, MA (acquired by Palm in 2000), co-founder, Zeemote, Chelmsford, MA

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Wakonda Technologies, a Woburn, MA-based startup developing highly efficient solar photovoltaic products, says that Peter Borden has joined the firm as executive chairman. Borden was previously an executive at Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT), a Santa Clara, CA-based provider of products and services for advanced materials manufacturing. Wakonda relocated from upstate New York to Massachusetts after closing a $9.5 million Series A round of venture financing last year.

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Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:MIPI), based in Cambridge, MA, says that its board of directors has made John Babich its CEO and Anthony Martin its non-executive chairman of the board, among other leadership changes. Babich had served as interim chairman and CEO since September 2008, when the board of directors decided to replace former CEO David Barlow, whose resignation from the board was announced last month.

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These days, mergers and acquisitions are an increasingly important part of corporate strategy. But when one company acquires another, a lot of things have to happen to make the deal right. In fact, most mergers fail—and most of the time, it’s not because of the strategy behind the deal or the negotiation process. Instead, the key to making the deal right is successfully integrating a company after a merger.

That’s according to Moni Miyashita of IBM (NYSE: IBM). A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Miyashita, the managing director of mergers and acquisitions integration at Big Blue. Heading into the new year, I figured Seattle-area companies—and tech companies in general—could use a fresh perspective on deal integration.

Miyashita, who is based in Armonk, NY, knows a thing or two about the topic, given that IBM has spent more than $15 billion on acquiring 70-plus companies while she’s been at her post. Miyashita says her team is currently supporting the leaders integrating some 17 companies into the IBM machine. “She has institutionalized the M&A capability within IBM,” says Eddie Pasatiempo, a partner at The Clarion Group based in Kirkland, WA (and an Xconomist).

Some quick background before I get to Miyashita’s M&A lessons. Mergers and acquisitions are at the core of the growth strategy of IBM, which in the past several years has divested some of its hardware portfolio and has made strategic acquisitions in software and services. Since 2004, IBM has bought more than 40 software companies while getting proceeds from divestments such as the $1.8 billion sale of its personal-computer division to Lenovo. (IBM hasn’t made many acquisitions in the Northwest, but it did buy Bellevue, WA-based Vallent in late 2006, and Beaverton, OR-based Sequent back in 1999.) “We’ve used acquisitions to help transform our company,” Miyashita says.

As I understand it, successful integration requires taking the time to … Next Page »

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Seattle-based Entellium said it has filed for bankruptcy protection today, as it prepares to sell off its assets. In October, the software company’s top two executives, Paul Johnston and Parrish Jones, resigned and were charged with fraud. The filing says Entellium has $37.7 million in assets and $12.7 million in liabilities. Its creditors are listed as Ignition Partners, WestRiver Capital, Malaysia Venture Capital Management, Middlefield Ventures, Sigma Partners, and Silicon Valley Bank. Financial software firm Intuit, based in California, has made an offer to buy Entellium’s assets.

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Map and list updated Dec. 19: Want to know where your favorite VC gets his or her morning latte? How about where tech and life sciences entrepreneurs gather to network and discuss ideas? If you’re looking to rub shoulders with the technological elite—or if you’re just looking for a quiet cafe to have a meeting or get some work done—you’ve come to the right place.

Here at Xconomy Seattle, we’ve been keeping track of the coffee hotspots around town favored by the tech-business leaders we talk to and write about every day. We thought it would be fun to share what we’ve found, both as a list and as an interactive map you can click around on (see below). In many cases, we’ve met the innovators or investors in their favorite haunts and sampled the local beverages. In other cases, we’ve gone by what they told us. But this is in no way a comprehensive list. We’d love to hear from you about where you like to go, where plans get hatched, and where tomorrow’s deals are being discussed. We’ll update the list as we go.

It may be cliché to say the Seattle innovation scene runs on coffee, but it seems to be true. One of the amazing things about the region is the sheer number of great cafes and places to gather, talk, refuel, and recharge. There’s something for everyone, from the quiet elegance of Caffe Fiore on Queen Anne Hill to the casual charm of Louisa’s on Eastlake to the hustle and bustle of Espresso Vivace near downtown. Not to mention the old reliables, Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Tully’s (especially on the Eastside—what’s with the dearth of independent cafes over there?).

View Larger Map

And behind every great cafe is a great story. Take Trabant Coffee & Chai, known for its strong espresso, tasty drip coffee, and spicy teas. The Pioneer Square branch is a personal favorite of Dan Shapiro, the co-founder and CEO of Ontela—and there’s an interesting reason why. In early 2006, Shapiro says, he was one of several entrepreneurs pitching their companies at a Keiretsu Forum angel investor meeting downtown. “We were singing for our supper,” he says. The guy in front of him was pitching a $12,000 drip-coffee maker, and he had coffee samples for everyone (Shapiro was too wired to try any). The panel asked the coffee guy questions like, Aren’t you just going to compete with Starbucks? Why wouldn’t Starbucks just do this? He replied that Starbucks’ leaders were too set in their ways, and the only way they’d do it is if they saw it in action.

The guy was Zander Nosler of the Ballard-based Coffee Equipment Company. His machine was called the Clover, and sure enough, he was right. His 11-person startup was bought last March by Starbucks, which now has Clover machines in several-dozen stores in the Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Boston metro areas. So what does this have to do with Trabant? The local coffee shop was a key early customer of the Clover, buying the machine in the spring of 2007. “Every time I go there, I feel like I’m supporting the local startup scene,” says Shapiro.

There are many more stories, but we won’t get to them today. Instead, we present our first pass of the Greater Seattle Coffee Cluster: an alphabetical list of cafes (50 and counting), and some of the notable people you might run into there. If you’ve got a favorite spot, or a story to pass along, please do comment below or drop us a note at editors@xconomy.com. Then again, you might want to keep your local treasures to yourself…

Belle Epicurean
1206 4th Ave, Seattle, WA
Recommended by Megan Muir of DLA Piper for its pastries, good coffee, and confidentiality.

Caffe Fiore
224 W. Galer St, Seattle, WA
Martin Tobias of Kashless is known to arrive for meetings here on his Segway. Also the favorite of Paul Thelen of Big Fish Games and Bill Bryant of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Caffe Ladro
600 Queen Anne Ave North, Seattle, WA
Paul Thelen of Big Fish Games also lists this institution as one of his likes. … Next Page »

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