RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Sequoia, one of the giants in venture capital, sent ripples of shock through its portfolio companies and the rest of Silicon Valley earlier this week with an “RIP” summit.

The good times are over, may they rest in peace – and pieces.

According to our friends at VentureBeat, much of what Sequoia executives presented at the event was provided through a source. The materials ended up posted on the Net in the form of a PowerPoint slideshow.

It makes for riveting – and depressing – reading as Sequoia’s team walks entrepreneurs through how the world got into the global financial mess it now faces and what to do about it. The presentation is very detailed, with page after page of vivid data. Business leaders everywhere,...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Like a bolt from the blue, IBM gave global stock markets and especially tech stocks a shock of good news with an early release of quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.

With IBM shares plummeting to $90 and analysts warning that Big Blue was in trouble amidst the economic crisis threatening to flatten the world, Chairman Sam Palmisano came forth a week early to throw a lightning bolt like some corporate Zeus. Take that, doubters and naysayers!

Making the profit announcement even better, Palmisano affirmed IBM profit guidance at better than $8 for the year. The quarterly profit hit $2.05, better than the $2.01 analysts had forecast.

That’s good news for shareholders – and Big Blue workers. No doubt IBM’s more than 10,000 employees in the Triangle are breathing easier today about their jobs, portfolios and 401Ks.

Traders reacted immediately...

RALEIGH, N.C. — Scott Custer, chairman and chief executive officer of RBC Bank, pulls no punches when asked if the banking crisis is going to end any time soon.

“We didn’t get ourselves into this overnight,” Custer said in a stop at WRAL on Tuesday. So when can we expect a solution? Certainly not for a few months, and perhaps not for “a year or two,” he replied.

Only days after RBC celebrated the grand opening of its gleaming downtown Raleigh skyscraper, Custer was in a somewhat somber mood as he met with WRAL-TV anchor David Crabtree and real estate broker Frank DeRonja, Jr. of York Simpson Underwood for a live Webcast interview.

“This isn’t something that’s going to be fixed tomorrow,” Custer said at midday, even as Wall Street headed south another 500 points. “This is a worldwide situation. This will take months, if not years, to resolve.”
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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Have you heard the laughs coming from the gas pump every time you go to fill up? (That’s assuming, of course, there is gas to be had.)

Who’s laughing? Why the world’s oil suppliers. While Wall Street crumbles and our retirement plans disintegrate, the OPEC crowd and friends gleefully take 700 billion a year in greenbacks and build new economies.

Proof? On Monday, His Excellency Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem of Dubai announced the Emirates would embark on the building of a mega-city project to be topped by the world’s newest tallest building. The current No. 1 tower is still being completed near where its successor is to be constructed.

Dubai, flush with energy cash and a banking/business structure that is turning it into the world’s new Wall Street, will surround the Nakheel Tower with 40 skyscrapers up to 90 stories in height. (Nakheel is Arabic for palms or palm trees; Nakheel...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Try to put yourself in the cubicle alongside a Wachovia employee as you find out your company is being sold – again – for the second time in a week.

You open your e-mail Friday morning and – boom – there it is.

“To say the least, this has been an extraordinary week,” begins the e-mail from Wachovia Chief Executive Officer Robert Steel, “and last night an important development occurred: Wells Fargo & Co. and Wachovia signed a definitive agreement to merge in a transaction in which Wells Fargo will acquire Wachovia Corp. in its entirety without government assistance.”

Of course, the Wells Fargo deal turned out to be a great deal less “definitive” than Steel wrote. Before noon, Citi, which had agreed to buy Wachovia four days earlier, cried foul over the Wells Fargo deal. Now the ownership battle is in court.

How this matter will...