Last week while I was off the grid for my Q1 vacation, TechStars announced that we are doing a Boston program this summer. Applications for both the Boston and the Boulder programs are open until March 21, 2009 at 11:59:59 PM MDT, but apply before 3/1/09 and be eligible to attend TechStars for a Day. We launched the original TechStars program in January 2007. We’ve now run TechStars in Boulder for two years and have had a dynamite time, helped create some super companies (we’ve had 20 companies go through the program, 2 have been profitably acquired, 2 are profitable, and 12 have been funded), and have been able to contribute meaningfully to the Boulder entrepreneurial scene.

Unknown Error. Please Restart. Perfect. I love The Onion. Thanks Rick.

Sim Simeonov, a partner at Polaris Venture Partners, sent me (along with a bunch of his closest friends) the following email this morning. “Founders often ask about the dilution they are likely to experience through exit. There are rules of thumb but there is no good data about what happens to common stock (at least, I haven’t been able to find such data outside of S1 filings which are a very biased sample). So, I built a little survey to collect anonymous data from entrepreneurs. I’ll crunch the numbers and share the stats with everyone. I’d appreciate your help in spreading the word around so that we get enough data.”

Don Dodge totally nails it in his post Create 50,000 companies for $1B. He builds on Fred Wilson’s No Thanks post when discussing what the US government should do with 1/20th of auto industry bailout money. “Government should create incentives for investment. It is probably best not to make the investments directly. There are already some good programs and incentives in place that have been forgotten or underfunded for too long. Pouring money into these programs is certain to stimulate investment, inspire innovation, and create jobs.”

My monthly column in Entrepreneur Magazine is up (and on the newsstands). This month’s article is titled Check Your VC’s Pulse and offers entrepreneurs three important questions to ask your VC investors to understand better the health of their firm. It also explains what the various answers to the questions mean. As an addendum to the article, read Fred Wilson’s post titled A Stimulus Plan For Venture Capital? No Thanks. In response to Tom Friedman’s NY Times op-ed piece where he suggests the US government take the auto industry bailout money and give it to top venture capital firms instead, Fred explains the problem and risk of adverse selection very clearly.

I’m back in Boulder from my Q1 vacation with Amy. We spent the first few days at our ski house in Keystone with the Wilson Quintet (Fred, Joanne, Jessica, Emily, and Josh). We then went to Paradise Island in the Bahamas with our Boston friends Warren and Ilana Katz. We had a great time chilling out, enjoying our friends, sleeping a lot, eating at Nobu (twice), reading, and being completely off the grid.

I’m completely laughing my ass off after watching Samantha Bee’s Future Shock – Roombas of Doom segment on Comedy Central. The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c Future Shock – Roombas of Doom Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things With Demetri Martin Funny Political News Joke of the Day Totally hilarious. My fraternity brother, co-founder, and CEO of iRobot – Colin Angle – holds his own nicely. iRobot was one of those investments that will always be in my “I wish I’d done that” category as I remember sitting with Colin in my house in Eldorado Springs talking about the upcoming VC round he was contemplating. Oh well.

I just read Howard Lindzon’s book The Wallstrip Edge: Using Trends to Make Money — Find Them, Ride Them, and Get Off. It’s a really fun book – 200 pages of the inside of Howard’s brain. There are so many things about Howard that I love including: He is totally hilarious He created Wallstrip, which was a successful investment for me (and him) He understands how and when to use the word fuck He twitters endlessly about his twittering (and stocks – especially Stocktwits, which he helped create) Whenever I spend any time with Howard, I laugh at least once ever five minutes He has this funny Canadian accent that is crossed with a weird Arizona semi-drawl spoken at a New Yorkers pace He’s been a hugely helpful TechStars Mentor He’s a self-proclaimed putz – and proud of it He wrote about me in his book and was very flattering He has a giant party in the spring called LindzonPalooza and schedules it on a weekend that I can never come His blog is dynamite I could keep going but you get the point. If your path hasn’t intersected with Howard, you are missing out. Howard will engage in a conversation with pretty much anyone, including my dad, so go for it. And grab his book – it’ll give you a fresh perspective on public (and private) market investing.

I spent last Sunday at CU Boulder at the Silicon Flatirons Digital Broadband Migration: Imagining the Internet’s Future conference*.* Not surprisingly it was an interesting day where early on, surrounded by lawyers, public policy people, academics, and telco executives, I realized I existed in a parallel universe to them. For example, when I asked who used twitter, less than five hands went up in a room of 250+ people. Phil Weiser, the major domo of Silicon Flatirons, has a great post up summarizing the conference. If you are curious, go take a look at From Imagining The Internet’s Future To Examining The Internet Ecosystem*.*