I got a great question the other day which highlights the tension that can emerge in an early stage company between VCs and entrepreneurs. Company X – which is VC backed – has six months of cash in the bank. Almost every employee could go without a paycheck. The team is on full pay now – it’s a small team of under 10. Not taking salaries buys the company another six months. There is a major launch in about four months.

Eric Lunt, FeedBurner’s CTO – has a review up of the book Java Concurrency in Practice. Eric is an absolute star developer – I’ve known him since the early days of FeedBurner and marvel what he and his team have been able to create. If you are a Java developer and involved in creating highly scalable web apps, I recommend you take Eric’s advice and grab this book.

I’m getting a lot of questions these days about early round valuations – specifically for angel rounds. While these vary over time, and by segment, most of them tend to settle into a pretty tight range for early stage angel investments. I’ve talked about the different approaches – either a “convertible debt” or a “light preferred” – in the past. I’ve also stated that I prefer the light preferred approach.

I’ve always traveled a lot. Recently, the travel friction that I experience in airports around the country has felt like it’s at an all time high. Lines are long, people are angry and impatient, flights are delayed or overbooked, and there’s never a power outlet anywhere to plug my laptop into. Yesterday was a miserable travel day as I made my way from Washington DC to East Lansing, MI via Chicago. An hour in the security line at Dulles plus 15 minutes in a people mover guaranteed that I missed my flight, resulting in a reshuffling of the entire afternoon of meetings in Chicago. I eventually ended up at a Marriott Hotel in East Lansing late last night.

Rick Klau – the VP of Business Development at FeedBurner – has a great endorsement up for Hotwire.com. Rick travels constantly (as all all busdev guys should) and Dick Costolo (FeedBurner’s CEO) is cheap (as all startup CEO’s should be.) Mix chocolate and peanut butter and according to Rick, get a tasty treat at Hotwire.com

Amy and I love art – especially contemporary art. We were long term patrons of an art gallery in Boulder on 1011 Pearl Street called Maclaren Markowitz Gallery. The gallery – after having a successful run for 15 years – started to have tough times as the economy started to tank in 2001. To try to be helpful, we became investors in the gallery and were able to help give it a few more years of life. While it could have continued to limp along, at some point everyone was tired and the primary owners decided to close the business and move on with their lives.

Often there’s a perception that to be a successful CEO, you need to be an extrovert. Media and pop culture reinforces this – we regularly see people that are comfortable in the spotlight and equate them with the model of success. I’ve always had a number of CEOs and entrepreneurs that I’ve worked with that are introverts. While they are comfortable being in a public forum, they prefer to be either alone, with their family, or in small settings. My wife Amy has often told me that I’m a closet introvert (nope – this doesn’t mean that I like to hang out in closets) – while I spent a lot of time in group settings (and am comfortable in this environment), I much prefer to either be alone, be with Amy, or have dinner with one person or a couple.

I’ve been to a zillion board meetings (ok – let’s guess between 1,000 and 2,000 assuming 10+ / month for the past 12 years.) While the food is usually lousy (but not always, as I’ve seen a marked improvement since I wrote my Board Meeting Food Is Usually Shit post), I’ve found a more troubling pattern than just bad food. The official business of a typical board meeting is back end loaded. Specifically, items such as the ones that follow will come at the end of the meeting.

Ross – my “IT guy” – stole my HP z545 Media Center PC a while ago. I wasn’t really using it because there was too much “marital resistance” to this particular change in our AV infrastructure (plus, I never really got it working the way I wanted.) Imagine my surprise when Ross suggested that it was the core of the best digital media solution he could envision (after he put it all together, of course.) Ross has an extensive post on his blog up about his Media Center configuration and why he thinks it is the best solution – following is a teaser.