Matt Blumberg – the CEO of Return Path – has a great post up on “Shifting Gears.” I get to work with some awesome entrepreneurs – Matt is one of them. As I shift gears from five months of “heads down, obsessive, non-stop work and travel” to “summer”, his post really rang true.

Nerd week continues (and my pile of technology crap on the floor slowly diminishes). At the Microsoft VC Summit last month, our parting gift (Microsoft has always given out nice gifts) was a Roku SoundBridge M1000. For the past few years, we’ve been using a Turtle Beach Audiotron which has worked well until recently. About six months ago, it stopped noticing when I ripped new CDs to my file server (I use my Mac G5 to rip to an old Windows NT Server box – it’s about all I use the G5 for – I know, not so smart.) I’d occasionally thrash around and try to figure out the problem with the Audiotron (it worked fine – it just decided it wasn’t going to add anything new to its playlists no matter what I did, including hitting it with my fist, which occasionally works with electronics.)

I’m a marginal conductor, but a pretty good fundraiser for the Boulder Philharmonic. Fortunately Gregory Walker – the Boulder Phil’s concertmaster (the first violin for those of you like me that didn’t know what a concertmaster was) keeps the Boulder Phil on beat whenever I’m conducting. Since Gregory has always made me look good, it was very easy for me and my friend Howard Diamond (who – among other things – owns a jazz record label) to support Gregory’s efforts to record a version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons using an electronic violin. I just found out that Newport Classic is going to produce the CD – congrats to Gregory!

Bill Gates has a bi-annual “think week.” I have an unpredictably scheduled “nerd week” that occurs whenever I no longer can walk into my office at home because boxes of electronics are piled up everywhere. Last weekend, I started chipping away at the physical (and virtual) pile of software and hardware products that have piled up in my life. First up – Tiger. While I spend most of my computer life on my various PCs (including my nifty new Tablet which I’ll write about soon), I keep a Mac G5 around for posterity. I usually use it for two things: (1) manage all my music / iPods (excellent marketing strategy Apple – sell me an $8k computer to help me with my iPod) and (2) reboot it each week to watch it automagically update its software. 

Adam Bosworth once again has an extremely useful post – this time on his thoughts about why Ajax is having an impact these days (compared to 1997 when he was involved in creating it). Now, what’s up with that Greasemonkey stuff?

Yesterday I posted a chart showing the large cap tech buyers over the past two years. Sun was on the list – but near the bottom (three deals). This morning, I woke up to the news that Sun has increased its number of deals to four through their acquisition of StorageTek. I haven’t decided whether this is a good deal for Sun (I’m sure plenty of pundits will weigh in on this over the next 24 hours). I do know that Sun has to either acquire or be acquired to maintain long term relevance, so from that perspective it’s a smart move.

Amy and I have a large collection of contemporary art (if you’ve ever been to my office, our house, Mobius’s California office, or The Nature Conservancy building in Boulder, you’ll get a feel for what we collect.) Much of my love for art was inspired by my mom – the artist. I’m always super proud of her whenever she has a show. If you are in Mesquite, TX (near Dallas) between June 1 and July 7 and are into art, go check out her new show at the Mesquite Arts Center. 

If you are running a VC-backed IT software or hardware company, it’s much more likely that the success event for your company will be an acquisition rather than an IPO. While the folks in the blog universe regularly hear about acquisitions being done by Google, Yahoo, and IAC, I haven’t seen much chatter recently about large cap tech buyers. Last week at the GrandBanks Capital Annual Meeting, Ryan Moore showed a slide of the 2004 – 05 Technology M&A Deals listed by Large Cap Buyers (Source: Thompson Financial). The data is instructive and follows:

I’ve been a long time fan and supporter of the work of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. In the mid 1990’s, I was an “entrepreneur-in-residence” there, which was basically a fancy phrase for “consultant” (I spent a day a month working on a set of programs run by Jana Matthews called “Learning Programs for High Growth Entrepreneurs.”) One of the tangential things I was involved in was Entreworld – a web site on entrepreneurship sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation. It remains one of the richest sites on the web for learning about entrepreneurship and I recommend it highly.