Wow – I guess Web 2.0 is happening somewhere (fortunately I have a delegate there – my partner Ryan McIntyre). That not withstanding, the tempo of stuff going on today is staggering. I’m having a blast sitting here in Boulder just trying to stay mildly ahead of all the stuff flying around. I thought I’d share some of it with you in case you need a fifteen minute break like I do.

I’m getting three to five Startup Visa stories a week at this point. A few are straightforward but most are complex and intellectually frightening, including one I read through yesterday that almost caused my head to explode. When I was in Boston a few weeks ago I met with someone who told me their particular story very passionately and clearly. He then followed up with a short essay that he asked if I’d post publicly. While the story is a general one, it is short and sweet and nicely captures the sentiment that I’ve heard so many times since writing The Founders Visa Movement post.

We are doing another TechStars 2009 Demo Day, this time in Seattle on 11/4/09. It’s part of a two day TechStars mini-reunion across all three TechStars years – part retreat, part spend time with a bunch of Seattle colleagues, and part party – TechStars style. The agenda for the Investor part of the event on the after of 11/4 follows: 2:30 PM – Investor Panel – You’ll hear from some of the top angel investors and venture capitalists in the country, including Brad Feld (Foundry Group), Greg Gottesman (Madrona), David Cohen (TechStars), Andy Sack (Founders Co-Op), Stephen Hall (Vulcan Capital) and many more. They’ll discuss their investment philosophies, emerging trends, and innovation.

If you’ve been watching the TechStars Founders video series, you’ll love the Behind the Scene (aka “bloopers”) episode that just came out. The Founders | Behind the Scenes from Megan Leigh Sweeney on Vimeo. Watch otherwise chatty people be speechless, learn more about the use of the word “fuck”, try to figure out which one is Nate and which one is Natty, see Canadians sing and learn what happens when they get nervous, and go on a rocket ship. Great stuff Megan (and TechStars).

Mark Suster, a partner at GRP Partners, has an outstanding post up this morning titled VC Seed Funding is Dead, Long Live VC Seed Funding. Mark started blogging recently and has quickly turned into my second favorite VC blogger (after Fred Wilson) – if you don’t subscribe to his feed, you should. Mark just did his first seed deal, a $500k investment in a company called Ad.ly, and his post is a long essay on how he’s thinking about seed investing these days. He makes the appropriate warning (and differentiation) between VC investors who view seed investments as “options” on future rounds (e.g. they toss a little money in and then generally ignore the company until the next financing) and “active seed investors” (like First Round Capital, SoftTechVC, True Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and O’Reilly AlphaTech) who view the seed investment as their first round of several as they help get a company up and running.

Periodically I get way behind on my “daily routine” and skip my RSS feeds for a while (up to a week). This week was one of them – I had two 4am wakeups that led me to the airport followed by a 7am wakeup (due to me being glued to my bed) followed by a 8am board meeting. So – no RSS feeds. This morning, after sleeping 12 hours, I spent an hour and read through what I missed this week. There’s some great stuff that came out of it (most from the last few days) – here you go.

I spent the morning at an NCWIT (National Center of Women & Information Technology) board meeting where I’ve been chairman for the last few years. NCWIT’s mission is to increase women’s participation in IT. We focus across the entire pipeline (K-12, higher ed, industry, academic, and entrepreneurial communities) and – in addition to having a number of our own programs – work hard to leverage the efforts of other organizations around the country. We’ve got a superb board of directors and executive advisory council and an incredible staff which I’m especially proud of. For a quick overview, take a look at the Fact Sheet and the FAQ.

This year I’m the interviewer for the Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurs Unplugged series. On Monday @ 6:00 pm I’m interviewing David Cohen, the founder of TechStars at the Wolf Law Building in Room 204 on the CU Boulder Campus. I’ve known and worked with David for about four years. Prior to starting TechStars, he started three companies – two that were successful and one that failed. Since starting TechStars, he’s had an incredible impact on the Boulder Entrepreneurial Ecosystem during that time, is an awesome entrepreneur, and can be hilarious. Come watch me pry some great stories, anecdotes, and advice out of him. Register here.

Dell has put up a new site called Motherboard that I don’t totally understand the point of, but I very much enjoyed the interview with Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil has always been a hero of mine ever since I first hear of him when I was at MIT in the mid-1980’s. I’ve never worked with Ray although I got to know his business partner Aaron Kleiner near the end of my time in Boston. I’ve observed Ray from afar, read his books, and thought about his thinking. I find all of it, including the notion of the Singularity and his goal of living long enough to be able to live forever, very compelling.