We’ve seen several M&A deals collapse unexpectedly in the past two months. Each was at the signed LOI stage. There was no warning or evidence of an issue until the moment the CEO got the phone call from the acquirer saying the deal was off. In both cases, the explanation was vague. I’ve also seen several financings fail to close recently. Two of them were late stage financings that were pulled by the investor at the last second. One of these investors is highly visible for doing late stage deals. The other was an investor I didn’t know much about. The explanation I heard from the founder in each case was again vague.

I spent the day yesterday doing Denver Startup Week stuff. I was on a bunch of panels and during one of the Q&A sessions someone asked something to the effect of: “Now that things are moving faster than ever before, how do you deal with / keep up with them?” I thought about it for a second and responded that I wasn’t sure the assertion was correct. I don’t think things are moving faster than ever before. I paused to make sure I believed that. Then I continued with my answer.

Pioneer Square Labs (PSL) launched today. We led the round and I’m joining the board. PSL, based in Seattle, is a not a VC firm, accelerator, or incubator, but instead is a startup studio, which is a company that creates companies. The co-founders are Greg Gottesman, Geoff Entress, Mike Galgon, and Ben Gilbert. Greg is a co-founder of Madrona and long-time VC. Geoff worked with Greg at Madrona for a decade and is one of the most prolific and successful angel investors in the Pacific Northwest. Mike was the co-founder of aQuantive which was acquired by Microsoft for $6.2 billion. Ben was a co-founder of Madrona Labs with Greg.

I saw this video earlier today and it delighted me. I love Sphero.

As I read about the unveiling of the Tesla Model X, I have two thoughts. The first one is “I want” (hint: Amy – you need to replace your red Range Rover.) The second is that price of admission is an amazing product. Indulge me while I go on an amazing product rant from our portfolio. Glowforge is turning 3D printing inside out by using a laser to cut and engrave, instead of an extruder to, well, extrude. They just crossed the $4 million mark in day five of their thirty day pre-order campaign. Sphero has sold more BB-8’s in the month since they launched than even I thought possible. I have one on my desk and it gives me joy every day I’m in the office. Accenture just launched their Connected Analytics Experience’s immersive environment which is enabled by Mezzanine. As a daily user of Mezzanine, it actually makes video conference and collaboration tolerable. The demand for the 3D Robotics Solo drone is off the charts. Rock Band 4 comes out next week. Yesterday two new U2 songs were added as exclusives. Enough said. We closed an investment yesterday in a company that will announce next week. I’ve been using the product for sixty days along with their competitor’s product. Their competitor has raised 10x the amount of money so far (prior to our investment), and the product from the company we invested in, from my own head to head comparison, is amazing, compared to the “meh” product from its competitor. We are issuing a term sheet today to another company that I hope accepts our offer. Your mind simply explodes when you use this particular product. I could keep going but you get the idea. When I reflect on our successful investments, regardless of the form factor (software or hardware or both) that they take, they all are amazing products. And the founders come from a product first mindset – their goal is to unambiguously create the best product that delight users every time they come in contact with it.

A few weeks ago I did an interview about mental health, depression, and entrepreneurship with Samara Linton and Michelle Pamisa. They wrote it up and posted it on the Dream Nation site in an article titled Be Well – It’s Work. I thought they did an excellent job capturing what I said and they game me permission to repost the interview here. Could you tell us a bit about when you first started noticing that you weren’t feeling right?

The 2015 Defrag Conference is happening on November 11-12. Early bird pricing ends tomorrow. For a taste of what you’ll get if you attend, following is a guest post by Ramez Naam, the author of 5 books including the award-winning Nexus trilogy of sci-fi novels. I’m a huge fan of Ramez and his books – they are in my must read near term sci-fi category. A shorter version of this article first appeared at TechCrunch. The tech has advanced, even since then.

An event about how the Maker movement is transforming the role of public libraries is happening on Friday, October 16, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. at the Boulder Public Library. I’ve sponsored ten tickets for local high school students active in the library’s teen programs.

Glowforge has started taking pre-orders with an expected ship date of the pre-orders of before the end of the year. It’s one of the most magical products I’ve ever been involved with. It’s in the “show, don’t tell” category, so spend three minutes of your life and see what you can do with it. For the next 29 days, Glowforge 3D laser printers are available for 50% off the retail price. In addition, if you buy using my referral code, you get another $100 of the price.