July 24th, 2012 at 12:11 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
38 Studios’ former CEO is selling her home in Providence.
Residential Properties is listing Jen MacLean’s Boylston Avenue house for $849,000. The 2,834-square-foot, four-bedroom home on the city’s East Side was built in 2009.
MacLean and her husband purchased the house on Nov. 15, 2010, for $855,000, city records show. 38 Studios moved its headquarters to Providence the following April in exchange for a $75 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan.
MacLean, whose husband worked for 38 Studios in Baltimore, didn’t respond to a message asking whether she plans to remain in Providence once the home is sold. She stepped down as CEO in May but dated her departure to March.
(photo: Residential Properties)
June 15th, 2012 at 1:21 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Dan Primack, the plugged-in M&A reporter who writes Fortune magazine’s Term Sheet newsletter, offers four takeaways from the spectacular flameout of 38 Studios and Rhode Island’s $75 million loan guarantee in the new edition:
- Stop letting politicians play venture capitalist.
- If they insist on playing VC, they should share the risk.
- Dogma mixed with dollars can be toxic.
- Successful pivots are rare.
Primack also draws an interesting distinction between 38 Studios and Solyndra, the bankrupt Obama-backed solar firm it’s been compared with by Republicans John Robitaille and Barry Hinckley. “Say what you will about Solyndra,” Primack writes, “but at least the company was required to raise private matching funds before getting federal dollars” – which 38 Studios never did.
At least one person who saw it all up close agrees with Primack. “Smart analysis,” former 38 Studios CEO Jen MacLean wrote on Twitter alongside a link to the piece. Read the whole article here.
• Related: Fortune’s Primack: No VCs said they’ve heard from Schilling (May 29)
May 23rd, 2012 at 12:12 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Two of 38 Studios’ top executives have apparently left the struggling company.
38 Studios CEO Jen MacLean, who’s been on maternity leave for the past two months, removed the title of chief executive from her LinkedIn profile on Wednesday and listed the date of her departure from the video game company as March.
John Blakely, 38 Studios’ senior vice president of product development, also revised his LinkedIn profile to show that he left the company this month, describing his work there in the past tense: “I was responsible for leading the 38 Studios development teams in Baltimore, MD and Providence, RI.”
MacLean and Blakely did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Blakely was still with the company as recently as Monday evening, when he joined Curt Schilling at a meeting of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation board to discuss the company’s cash crisis. He joined the firm in January.
(more…)
