A few random rumblings from around the tech community today:
—Some notables from the Seattle startup scene are heading to Las Vegas next week to compete in the World Series of Poker. Dave Schappell of TeachStreet, Andy Liu of BuddyTV, Davis Bae of the Bae Law Group, and a few others will be bringing it on at the Rio Hotel & Casino against thousands of competitors. It’s $1,500 buy-in, no-limit Texas Hold ’em (probably better odds than raising money from a VC these days). Schappell says his money’s on Liu to go the farthest.
—Luis Salazar of Bellevue, WA-based GMI (he’s also an entrepreneur-in-residence at Voyager Capital) published a children’s book in February called Chin and the Magic Stones. The story is about the adventures of a young boy and his dog in the town of Kirkland. The book has been moving up the Amazon.com charts, and recently made its publisher’s top ten bestseller list (iUniverse).
—Jeff Lawson, co-founder of Twilio, is moving from Seattle to San Francisco next week. That means Twilio, the cloud-based phone service that raised venture funding in March, is shifting the majority of its operations to the Bay Area (where two of its founders are). “I’ve been hiring and building the company more and more in SF,” Lawson said in an e-mail. “But we’ve still got a couple people who’ll continue to work from up here.” Here’s hoping Lawson and his team keep their strong connections to the Seattle community.
—As if to balance that news, Gaurav Oberoi, co-founder of Bill Monk, has returned to Seattle from the Bay Area, as TechFlash reports. Oberoi is working with his business partner Chuck Groom on a stealthy Web startup here. Groom and Oberoi apparently left San Francisco startup Xmarks just last week.
