Dead Serious
After years of playing music for fun, Roger McNamee says he's dead serious about making his new band Moonalice work as a business. Until then, he's a rock-and-roll sugar daddy. For one show alone, he chartered a jet and paid for 10 rooms in a four-star hotel.
Rock Stars of Tech
Elevation's general partners prep for their annual meeting. From left: Marc Bodnick, Bret Pearlman, Bono, Fred Anderson, and McNamee.
McNamee the Mentor
Over the past 25 years, McNamee has cultivated a reputation as an intellectual provocateur, a man who can see around corners. He has mentored scores of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and befriended a generation of industry leaders, including Steve Jobs.
Facebook and Roger
One of McNamee's newer friends is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "He clearly cared about the impact of the things we build as opposed to just making money in the short term," Zuckerberg recalls of McNamee's advice not to sell Facebook in the summer of 2006.
The Sounding Board
Bill Gates says he's always been impressed with McNamee's foresight and "his ability to anticipate how key technology trends can disrupt entire industries and create new markets and new opportunities." When Gates was working on his first book, The Road Ahead, in the early '90s, he recalls, "Roger was a great sounding board for many of the ideas I wrote about."
Bono Through the Dead
It was via the Grateful Dead (left) that McNamee met future Elevation partner Bono. The Dead had been selling music, concert tickets, and T-shirts directly to fans on the internet and was interested in creating a broader platform that would allow other artists to do the same. The Dead approached U2 as a potential partner. McNamee spent months discussing the idea (which would later be shelved) with Bono.
All in the Band
Hot Tuna, including Moonalice's Jack Casady (left) and McNamee's guitar teacher Jorma Kaukonen (right).
