IRS Regulation 409A really sucks. While I’m probably now on some audit watch list as a result of speaking my mind, there really isn’t any other way to state it. Jason Mendelson and I were bitching about this today as we pondered how to deal with it and decided that we might as well try to constructively air our thoughts (and help educate our entrepreneurial and venture brethern on some of the issues) via a 409A Series (similar to our Term Sheet and Letter of Intent series). Remember – we aren’t lawyers (ok – Jason is…) and this isn’t legal advice – just the thoughts and opinions of two guys dealing with this stuff everyday. 

For my 40th birthday, I got a couple of cool t-shirts with photos of me substituted for Jack Bauer on 24. The only thing disconcerting was the image of me holding a handgun. I was pondering how ripped I looked (on Jack’s torso) when two questions on term sheets came in from someone at Ernst & Young. Being the excellent delegator that I am (much better than Jack, if you know what I mean), I forwarded the questions on to Jason who promptly answered them. They are as follows:

My friend Larry Nelson who runs w3w3.com just put up a short interview he did with me last week. Per Larry’s description: Here’s some candid straight talk about access to VC capital in Colorado. Brad Feld, Managing Director of Mobius Venture Capital didn’t have much good news to talk about when w3w3.com interviewed him two and three years ago. Brad gives some specific examples and offers some interesting advice for the coming year. For some, it is going to be a very good year and others will struggle. Brad points out that mid-stage and later-stage activity is very healthy.

The Denver Business Journal has a nice article about my friend Niel Robertson, co-founder / CTO of Newmerix. Neil joined the ranks of CTO bloggers a few weeks ago. For the record, I like his earring.

The Denver Post had a nice profile article on a couple of local Boulder / Denver CEO’s that run, including me (ok – I’m a “managing director” – but who really cares about titles). Ed Roberto – the CEO of Newmerix and occasional running partner was featured also.

I’ve received a variety of entertaining (and thoughtful) presents for my 40th birthday. Earlier this week, Dave Jilk gave me another one – my own Wikipedia entry. I suppose every kid wants an entry about him in the dictionary – my ego is highly entertained. Thanks Dave.

Now – that’s a mission statement. I’m on the board of the Colorado Conservation Trust and we had a board meeting last week. CCT is one of the best organized non-profits I’ve ever had the privilege to be involved with and is unambiguous about its goal. The mission statement says it all – “Conserve 2,000,000 Acres in the Next Decade – Let’s Get Going.” I’ve lived in Colorado for 10 years. Part of the magic of this place is the mountains, the open space, and the wide stretches of undeveloped land. Boulder benefits greatly from the city and county’s forward thinking conservation attitude from many years ago, resulting in a magnificent city in an environmentally protected setting. None of this was by accident and I’ve tried to do my part in the last decade to help locally.

I monitor around 400 blogs and try to stay on top of them daily (I use FeedDemon and NewsGator Online and have developed an awesome personal algorithm for getting through all the items quickly.) I also use a handful of services such as Tech Memeorandum to follow what people are talking about. I’m a fast reader and excellent skimmer so that helps. I had a very busy day yesterday that started early so I didn’t read anything from Thursday evening through Saturday morning. I just finished going through everything and was stunned by the amount of discussion about the Yahoo / del.icio.us deal. I’m very excited and happy for everyone involved, but as I read through post after post after post saying “Yahoo bought del.ciou.us” I started to feel something was wrong. I checked on Technorati – “delicious” is the number one search this hour (and Yahoo is four; Delicious Yahoo is six). I checked NewsGator’s Latest Buzz – the first is Joshua’s post and the second is Jeremy Zawodny / Yahoo’s post.

Anyone that’s walked (or run) across the Harvard (aka Mass Ave) bridge has noticed little numbers painted on it that end at 364.4 (and one ear). If you are an MIT grad, you know that in 1958 Oliver Smoot and his frat brothers from Lambda Chi Alpha measured the bridge in “Smoots” (Smoot was 5’7” and was the shortest dude in his pledge class), painting the bridge in intervals of Smoots one fall evening. This tradition of repainting the bridge has lasted since 1958 and I always get a chuckle in the fall when I end up in Boston and go for a run that crosses a bridge when I hit “69” or “halfway to hell”.