jkettnich@stepstoneglobal.com

Recently, a group of M&A pros who represent 22 tech companies in Silicon Valley met for a round-table discussion sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Among other things, they talked at length about what they spend most of their time on when it comes to early-stage deals. The answer: due diligence, by a lot. They also said they […]

The New York Times gives David Pogue a slap on the wrist. CNN gives Eliot Spitzer the hook. Dick Fuld to private equity players: I can help you run your businesses. (Cough.) Jamie Dimon's magic has limits, geographically speaking. Terry Semel tells Dealbook that someone should buy Netflix. LivingSocial raises another $30 million. Keg parties, nap rooms, and "mustache Mondays" resurface along with lofty valuations. Months after four analysts bailed on Harbinger Capital Partners, its COO parachutes out as part of a "mutual agreement." Vanity Fair answers the questions Obama wouldn't have at today's Twitter town hall meeting.

Uh oh. A shift in legal venues may mean that Madoff investors get less of their money back. Why Apple needs all the cash it's hoarding. How to network without wearing out your welcome. How to survive an executive shakeup. Globally, private equity funds raised $11.2 billion in the second quarter. Slate asks: Should Google do more to distance Rick Santorum's name from you-know-what? Hotmail turns 15! Crazier, it's still the largest webmail provider in the world. How Skype deal underscores the vast divide between PE and VC culture. Vice President Joe Biden joined Twitter today. Here are 10 reasons why his communications staff shouldn't have let that happen. Speaking of Twitter, it's now testing a Facebook-like message wall.

That darn copycat! LivingSocial, like Groupon, is also now planning to go public this year. HomeAway's shares soar 39 percent on its opening day. Hmf. No IPO filing today. Thanks for nuffin, Zynga. The WSJ's Scott Austin ponders the $1 billion valuation club. GigaOm's Colleen Taylor takes a look at what happens when founders leave. The 19 most hated companies in America! A list of things worth more than poor, gutted MySpace. Cnet cofounder Halsey Minor files another lawsuit. Phil Falcone spends $700,000 for a three-month rental in the Hamptons.

From AOL to Mayfield Fund to Facebook to a new venture fund. Yes,  Chamath Palihapitiya busts a move again. The makers of Angry Birds have a flock of revenue streams, too. The private equity industry to Washington: Kindly stay away from our pay. An Open Letter to the Gentleman Blow-Drying His Balls in the Gym Locker Room. Jon Stewart's offers his beleaguered pal some advice: "You gotta keep it cleaner, Wiener." “Mr. Blagojevich, you are a convicted liar, correct?” "Yes." The Blagojevich circus starts anew. Forbes takes a quick look at the money behind John Edwards: heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. If Groupon has to keep spending to attract customers the way it is now, then it will likely never be profitable.

Can't imagine how Ticketmaster could aggravate you more? Just wait; today it rolled out "dynamic pricing" based on consumer demand. Par-tay! "Suddenly everyone wants to invest in Silicon Valley," says Benchmark's Bill Gurley. "It's game-on all the time." Seriously, people. You think Gurley is exaggerating?The founder of Diesel just invested in a tech incubator. Madoff trustee Irving Picard has worked his ass off for four months and now it's time to get paid. That didn't take long (although kinda longer than we'd guessed): a Berkshire shareholder is suing Warren Buffett and David Sokol over Lubrizol. Billionaire Mark Cuban has put his Landmark Theatres and Magnolia Pictures up for sale, but he's only accepting "very, very compelling" offers. You, too, can create a fake and misleading story link, observes Nieman Journalism Lab, after falling for a fake and misleading story link. KKR, now "incubating new investment vehicles with the pluck of a Silicon Valley startup." Such a brave soul. A angel investor looking to raise his profile confesses: "I have doubts once I think of women founders having kids and being distracted from work."

Want to enjoy watching March Madness? Then don't bet on it, says a study. Why Groupon had better IPO soon. Rajat Gupta is suing the SEC for depriving him of a jury trial. Read the lawsuit here. Goldman axes the lowest-ranking 5 percent of employees. An idiot gets a Charlie Sheen Tiger Blood tattoo. IBM has agreed to pay $10 million to settle SEC charges that it bribed South Korean and Chinese government officials with cash payments, improper gifts and overseas trips from 1998 to 2009. Talbot Group, the mining investment firm whose entire management team died in a plane crash last summer, is selling off its assets. The maker of "Angry Birds" is also now contemplating an IPO. (Natch.)

The New York Times paywall goes up March 28. Will we be be able to navigate the damn thing? The good news? Dealbook still wants to be free. Married to the mess: the FDIC goes after the wives of WaMu execs. A hedge fund founded by a former Galleon Group portfolio manager is closing its doors. (Cue the violins.) As talk of an IPO leaks out, Groupon's supposed valuation soars to, ahem, $25 billion. Is it really worth more than Google was at the time of its IPO? FriendFinder, whose holdings include numerous pornographic online properties, has refiled to take itself public to pay off its debt load. Forbes takes a look at the world's 10 billionaires who died last year (six of whom presumably passed on their estates free of the federal estate tax). Mike Tyson cures your "Angry Birds" addiction. Can a relationship survive business school? Who knows, but these tips might help. Looking for a must-read? Check out this 2009 email thread between Fred Wilson and Paul Graham about "the one that got away." Here are five things you probably didn't know about St. Patrick's Day.

Phew. The long wait is over. There's finally a site where women post videos of their pregnancy tests. Customers of the online marketplace Etsy are furious over new privacy changes that reveal their names and purchase histories. (Some disclosures have been more embarrassing than others.) Want the new iPad 2? Here's what you can expect to get for your old one. Some "earthquake entrepreneurs" get thrust into the spotlight. Gilbert Gottfried gets thrust out of a job for knuckleheaded tweeting. U.S. and Japanese regulators are investigating UBS on suspicions that it tried to manipulate the Libor. Check out the five sectors that will be hardest hit by the Japanese crisis. Former executives of Lehman Brothers might escape S.E.C. charges despite highly questionable accounting that contributed to the firm’s collapse. Hate your day job? It could be worse, according to a new Gallup survey. Respondents say that being self-employed sucks more. A Manhattan mom sues her daughter's school for destroying the child's chances of getting into the Ivy League. Notably, the child is 4.

Andreessen Horowitz has raised roughly a billion dollars since opening its doors in June 2009, so it should surprise no one that the firm -- run by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and John O’Farrell -- has just brought aboard a fourth GP. More surprising is that the firm’s newest hire, IronPort Systems cofounder Scott Weiss, doesn’t have much experience as a venture capitalist. (Neither did Andreessen and Horowitz or O’Farrell, who was most recently a vice president at Silver Spring Networks.) “The goal is to…build a new culture, a new way of evaluating companies, and a new way to build companies,” says Horowitz. “To do that, it didn’t make sense to bring in people from the old culture...