In all the upheaval of the financial markets, it’s nice to see someone with a sense of humor.  My friend, Eric Jensen sent this to me today.  Get your picks into me.  The winner will receive Lehman or WAMU, your choice. 

Also interesting, is this this document on the "vanishing act" of investment banks.  It shows the time line and current state of affairs of the banking industry.  Scary.  Hang onto your hats everyone. 

Do you want a job?  Do you want to work in Boulder?  Do you want an all expenses paid trip out here to interview?

Do I have the deal for you…

Boulder is looking for great people to come join our startup ecosystem.  While many areas of the country are experiencing shrinkage in the job market, not us!  We have plenty of companies looking for great folks.

See our Foundry Group post for more information.

Amid the craziness of Wall Street, the U.S. auto industry, and Matt Millen finally being fired by the Lions, I received the most bizarre gift today.  EVER.  Clearly this is a sign that the world is ending.

In case you can’t tell, it’s a Barry F’in Manilow Pillow Case.  I mean, who really needs this?  Being the curious sort that I am, I found the official Barry Manilow merchandise site.  Some of my favorites were the "Infant Wear" and the Bobbleheads.  I’m totally excited for gift giving season now.  If you are on my list, watch out. 

The other day, I was chatting with a local venture capitalist who remarked that Foundry Group has received some nice press coverage during our first year of existence.  While true and absolutely appreciated, I am smart enough to realize that the press can turn on a dime.  Who is today’s darling might very well be tomorrow’s devil.

So the question became "how do you manage the press?" to which I my initial reaction was "you can’t really manage the press, but you can get to know them and understand their world a bit." 

While some people believe that the media (and in my world this means tech / VC / startup press) is evil and out to get them, I tend to think that they just have a much different job than I do.  The irony of the relationship is that each of us have different incentives.  For instance, if you have dirty laundry and want to keep quiet, that is when the press is most interested in writing about you.  If you have something wonderful to announce, normally it’s hard to get anyone to write about it, as "puff pieces" don’t win authors any accolades.  There are exceptions, but it’s a basic rule of thumb.

This doesn’t make them evil, rather they have a job to do and their job is acquiring eyeballs.  And, unfortunately, bad news sells. 

Over the years, as a group, we’ve both been praised and punished and with some years under my belt, I’ve become much more mellow about both good and bad treatment.  It’s just part of the industry.

If there are two pieces of advice that I’d give, they would be first, get to know some of the people in the media and second, email is your best friend. 

I’ve spent some time with several of the "usual suspects" in the tech media and for the most part thought they were smart,  nice and certainly not mean spirited.  Folks like Dan Primack take their jobs very seriously, really do research their topics and have even become contributors to our industry with events like peHUB across America.  That being said, I’m sure Dan will be the first to call me out should he think that I’ve done anything "noteworthy."

Others such as Russ Garland and Dave Barry at Dow Jones spend a lot of time developing free educational panels for folks in our industry including VCs and entrepreneurs, alike. 

By getting to some people, I’ve found that I’ve mellowed about their jobs and at least know that they aren’t "out to get me" as some others fear.  Some of them are actually fun to have a beer with, even.

My largest criticism about the press are misquotations.  That is why email is your best friend.  I’d suggest having as much of your exchanges as possible over email unless you have a relationship with someone that you really trust.  I can’t even being to tell you the extent to which "reputable" news sources have misquoted folks that I know.  I’ve never known is this is just sloppiness or something more nefarious, but it’s something that everyone should be aware of. 

In summary, they have a job, you have a job, sometimes you are both aligned, but not usually.  Get to know them as people, be smart and you’ll have a better platform in which to interact with them. 

If you are a Colorado voter, you have a very important choice to make this Fall on Amendment 55.  You will be asked approve an amendment to the state’s constitution effectively ending "at will" employment arrangements.

From the Faegre law firm:

"Colorado voters are being urged to approve a constitutional amendment this fall that would drastically change the at-will rule of employment in the state.

Amendment 55—recently approved by the Colorado secretary of state for addition to the November 4 ballot—would require employers to establish just cause prior to discharging or suspending an employee. Proponents of this initiative submitted over 130,000 signatures with the petition, well above the minimum number of signatures required.

If this amendment is approved, employers seeking to suspend or discharge employees or planning a reduction in force will need to prepare and retain a significant amount of documentation that is not currently required. Further, employers could be subject to civil actions by employees who believe they were suspended or discharged without just cause."

This amendment, if approved, could have a larger impact on the state’s economy than any presidential choice.  Before I get a bunch of hate mail claiming that I hate workers’ rights, please consider the following:

1. Never in my ten years of being a lawyer / VC have I ever been involved in a "for cause" firing.  Each time "for cause" is even alleged, the employees hires a lawyer and the company spends time and money defending itself.  While it might sound nice, "cause" is a very vague word, no one really knows what it means and it will only cause a ton of litigation.  The only clean way of dealing with this issue is having "at will" employment arrangements;

2. Partly because of 1, above, but also due to the increased need of paperwork, the only real winners with this proposed change will be lawyers; and

3. Most importantly, this will have an extremely negative effect on small businesses in Colorado.  Small businesses will not take the risk of hiring folks that they can not easily terminate in the case of a downturn in business or debatable individual performance. Most small businesses will hire more carefully and more conservatively because of fears that they won’t be able to make cuts if needed.  Without taking some hiring risks, Colorado companies will not have the advantages of growing quickly like companies in other states. 

I can’t believe how anyone would think mimicking Germany or France’s employment laws will make us more competitive.  I would highly recommend reading the full text here.  Thanks to Alan Kaplan for sending me the link.  VOTE NO ON 55. 

It’s been no secret that United Airlines pilots want CEO Glenn Tilton to step down.  However, when they are passing out wrist bracelets to passengers, you might have a problem.  I now have my first bracelet.  After my week of many United induced travel problems, I might not take it off.

Fed up with your home network environment? Can’t figure out why your wireless printer decided not to work today? Maybe you are just tired of being tech support for your parents? This should be easy as pie. But today it’s not…

Tomorrow it will be. At our Foundry Group blog, we announced today our investment in Pie Digital, a San Francisco-based company that has developed an affordable software platform, desktop device and service that, together, dramatically simplify the installation, maintenance and expansion of home computing equipment and networks. Pie makes it easy for consumers to connect and maintain their computers and the multitude of other digital devices in their home, enabling them to access and share documents, music and video files without worrying about the complexities of technology support. Simply put, Pie has created an “IT department in a box” for the average consumer.

Sounds too good to be true? I’d love to tell you more, but the company has made me promise to keep my mouth shut a little bit longer. I’ll blog more it when I can. For now, I’m really happy to join the board and do what I can to help them make all of our digital lives friendlier.

I was up in Healdsburg, California this weekend for my good friend, Jason Doren’s wedding.  I rented a car from Hertz (who don’t try harder) and was presented a lovely 2008 Toyota Rav4. 

On the dashboard was a button that I was most intrigued by:

It was all I could to not to touch it, but after tweeting about my dilemma, I received several quick responses that I should push the button immediately. Should I be worried that my partners Ryan and Seth were the quickest to approve?  

So, I pushed the button and was disappointed when only a little red light showed up on my dashboard.  I was expecting at least a little Iron Butterfly.  I assumed that "nothing happened."

Then, while walking around town, I found a soap named after a heavy metal band (Black Sabbath, if too small to see):

And then some wonderful dinnerware:

And now I’m beginning to think that I need to own a Toyota Rav4.  I am not alone.  Others have experienced similar experiences. 

(As an aside, for those of you considering a trip to wine country, after this trip, I can highly recommend the Hotel Healdsburg for lodging, Barn Diva and HBG for food and Rochioli and Porter Creek for both wine tasting and wine purchasing).

In my continuing venting of frustrations related to the current state of affairs of the patent system in our country, I was turned onto some very interesting statistics by my friend Chris Graham at Dechert.  (Despite his mean looking picture, he’s actually a really nice guy).

Chris’ partner, James Elacqua put together a presentation regarding litigation surround patents, with a particular look at business method patents (which I abhor). 

So with full credit to Jim and with thanks to Chris for passing along, here are some interesting numbers. 

1. Patent cases filed has nearly doubled in the last ten years.  Today, nearly 3000 cases are filed a year.

2. Direct costs (not including man hours lost, and costs related to losing one’s patent) for these cases (assuming more than $25m is at stake) are $5m for the median case, up 10x from the 1980s.  If we use just the median case, these patent cases have direct costs of $15,000,000,000 per year.

3.  Amount of jury versus bench trials have doubled in the past decade, now standing at 43%.  If you’ve ever been on a jury, think about which ones that you’ve been on that you think are capable of really understanding a patent case.

4.  Of course, jury trials normally return 8x the damages that bench trials do.

5.  Business method patent filings are on the rise and applications are far outpacing issuances.  When the PTO says it is overwhelmed with applications, this might have something to do with it.

Unfortunately, I don’t see a short term fix for any of this, especially after attending a debate last week at the DNC where Obama and McCain camps debated potential changes to the patent systems.  Neither side impressed me having a clear vision of how we are going to better our system, although there was plenty of rhetoric and mudslinging around.  Sigh…

I’ve had a cat for 9 years.  Sammie, is a short haired, black and white stray that showed up on my doorstep bleeding and I took her to the vet and the rest is history.

She’s been a pretty hilarious roommate, but as of late she’s been acting like a lion when I put food out on the table.  In the past week, she’s swiped a chicken breast, a hefty slice of drunken goat cheese and decided that popcorn is now kitty food.  It’s really quite annoying.  I’ve tried to scold her, but she doesn’t seem to care. 

She’s always been portly (read: obese), but she’s never actively competed with me for food and now its seems like it’s a daily issue.  Anyone know what is going on?  She also appears to have developed a drinking problem, as well.