Several of the companies I’m an investor in are significantly building out their iOS and Android development teams. They are looking for acquihires of up to teams of five. If you are a partner in a small iOS or Android development shop, are tired of doing custom projects, and want to join a fast growing VC-backed startup, drop me an email.

MakerBot has a great weekly TV show. This week learn about all the things you can make for halloween with your MakerBot as well as how you can help save the hermit crab. Also watch as the new MakerBot TV mascot – Mr. Maker – goes on a tour of New York City.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of Defrag. What started as a blog post (and email exchange with Eric Norlin) I did about “intelligence amplification” in 2006 has morphed into a conference about the larger topics of social and big data and is now a wide-ranging conversation about technology and what’s over the horizon. If you check out this year’s agenda, you’ll find everything from mobile to cloud computing to tech policy in DC to my own keynote on Resistance Is Futile.

A few weeks ago a guest post titled Minimum Viable Personality appeared on Fred Wilson’s blog. The author was a Giant Robot Dinosaur who has been dishing out wisdom in all caps in the comments on Fred’s blog for a long time. I’m a huge fan of FAKEGRIMLOCK, occasionally commenting on his comments, but often laughing out loud or smiling with recognition of their brilliance when I saw them. And, I grinned with relief when I finally made his #NOEATFRIDAY list.

It’s not quite halloween, but our friends at SVB are hosting an event for me and Jason Mendelson in Boulder on Thursday night to discuss our new book Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. We’ll be handing out signed copies of our book along with answering any questions about venture capital, startups, entrepreneurship, beer, or our upcoming halloween costumes. There might be halloween candy and I’m certain there will be some tricks as well as other treats.

Marathon #20 is in the books. Yesterday I did the St. Louis Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon with Matt Shobe. The amazing Amy Batchelor once again sherpa’d for us. The weather was perfect, the course was pretty but hilly, the support was outstanding (as it typical of Rock ‘n’ Roll marathons), and I came in at a solid 4:51:26. This race was an experiment – I wanted to see if I could do a marathon two weeks in a row while living my normal life. Last weekend I did the Amica Newport Rhode Island Marathon, ran out of gas around mile 16, and struggled home in 5:13:36. Prior to that marathon I had been on the road all week and crisscrossed the country (Denver to SF to Rhode Island). Last week was another heavy travel week – Boston to NY to SF to St. Louis. I did all the normal stuff I did with two exceptions – I didn’t drink any alcohol and I was obsessive about rubbing Purell on my hands throughout the day.

Last night I had the pleasure of talking at a dinner at Emily White’s house. Emily is on the board of the National Center of Women & Information Technology with me, is ex-Google, currently at Facebook, and with her husband Brian are amazing hosts. We had a fascinating group of NCWIT board members as well as a bunch of local entrepreneurs and members of the bay area entrepreneurial ecosystem who had a connection either to Emily or to me. The environment, food, and evening was delightful, and I led a discussion about a wide variety of topics after doing a 30 minute space jam in answer to Emily’s lead off question of “So Brad, what’s on your mind?”

I love Fitbit. We had a board meeting yesterday and there is so much amazing stuff coming from this company in the next few quarters. James and Eric are product creation machines – they love what they do, love their products, obsess about every bit of them, and have a vision about human instrumentation and where it can go that dwarfs anything I’ve heard from anyone else. Oh – and they’ve built a killer team that shares this vision as well as the ability to execute on it.

Last week on Brad Feld’s Amazing Deals we offered a huge discount on Ruby classes, and had one of our most successful offers ever. This week I asked my friends at Udemy to cook up another great deal on the course “Creating iPhone Games for Beginners”. They came up with an offer where $39 takes you through the process of building a complete iPhone game (normally $99). Leave a comment and give me your pitch for a new iPhone game. The best idea by midnight tonight gets a free course.