The King of Rollups. "Not everyone was nursing a sore head, however. Take Michael Mullarkey, for instance, a former Sony (SNY ) vice-president, who surveyed the struggling startups left high and dry by the ebbing tide of venture capital and decided that quite a few of the outfits gasping for air still had something to offer. His focus was on those with proprietary human-resources applications, which could be scooped up for pennies on the dollar."