Team TechTicker on Google's Chrome

Google's new browser is all anyone in techdom can talk about or think about today. (Except yours truly who's swamped with other stuff.) Here's a link to Walt Mossberg's Tech-Ticker write-up. He'll be on the show tomorrow to discuss.

Plus, Henry and Aaron talk about it in the video below. [Avid fans will note our new Scottrade sponsorship. Go team Yahoo Finance!]

My only side note amid the flood of coverage from every angle: Om had a nice write up on why Firefox isn't worried. I'd add to that that open source and Firefox die hards should actually be happy about this. Why? Two reasons: 1. There's been ongoing speculation that Google would buy Firefox at some point, given the cozy ad relationship of the two. Firefox has been outspoken that this wouldn't happen (see my video earlier this year with John Lilly below) and this move cements the idea that the two aren't eventually going to be one. Which leads us to reason no. 2: Google isn't doing this for the good of the Internet, it's doing it for its business and quest to discover another big revenue stream outside of paid search, ie, its ongoing war with everyone's no. 1 competitor, Microsoft.

That doesn't make Google bad in any way-- that makes them a good public company in fact. But if you believe in the mission of Firefox, Google risks becoming just another entrenched monopolist on the Web, making Firefox no less relevant, but hopefully lighting a fire under everyone to do better and innovate more.

[Warning: In the above interview, Henry goes insane at the end. Why Google's move suddenly means Mozilla should go public is beyond me! I think it's just the opposite! Its do-good, non-for-profit-ish strategy is now even more of a differentiator! Can you imagine how the stock would be selling off today if Mozilla were a public company? Those Wall Street guys and their one-track IPO minds!!]

Valley-Ho!

If there's one theme that I've thought about, talked about and written about the most over my career covering tech and finance it's the debate of whether you need to relocate to Silicon Valley to be successful. In my case, there's no doubt I've had a better career just by covering business in the Valley, so it's hard for me to believe anyone who wants to profit from the startup ecosystem wouldn't be more successful here. Over the years, I've read a lot of weak treatises that say Valley isn't all that great, ultimately coming off either bitter or just naive, but here is a pretty nice piece arguing against Valley relocation. Although, I'm still not convinced.

Impressive Feat by SAI

I'm very busy earning my three-day-a-week keep at Yahoo this way-too-early Monday morning, but I hope to carve out some time to go through Silicon Alley Insider's SAI 25 index today. It's a list of the 25 most valuable private digital companies. Folks, these things are hard to produce. For one thing, getting the real numbers can be an Oceans 11-heist-style feat of reporting. Plus, a private company is typically valued on its potential not its revenues-- or even more subjective, it's valued on what it's worth for others to put money in the company. (i.e. Facebook, Microsoft and that $15 billion valuation)

While Facebook is no. 1 on the list-- at $9 billion, not $15 billion-- there are some surprises.