Briac

* HubSpot's Dharmesh Shah: 9 quick tips learned while raising $33 million in venture capital * Sorkin hedges a bit on his criticism of the recent HCA dividend, letting an analyst report titled "Shell Game" draw most of the blood. * Google is expected to roll out its Twitter killer today, but Nicholas Carson (correctly) says it needs to play nice with Twitter (and Facebook) in order to succeed. Also: Dave Winer gives his wishlist for what Google's service could/should offer and Scoble thinks Twitter and Facebook will be just fine. * Morning Call: U.S. futures lifted by Greece rescue talks, London rises early, European shares dip, the Nikkei falls despite a Toyota bump and Hong Kong snaps its losing streak. * Howard Lindzon chats with the Betaworks boys * Should individuals be regulated like Wall Street banks? * Fighting words from Liu Lefei, chairman of private equity for China's CITIC Capital: “Local funds will replace foreign investors in the future."

* Need venture capital for your iPad-related startup? There's an AppFund for that. * A private equity firm is majority owner of the Connecticut power plant that exploded yesterday, killing five workers. * The SEC is rethinking its proposed ban on PE placement agents. As it should. I'm all for rooting out corruption in PE fundraising -- hell, I've written about little else for the past year -- but the SEC's original language is the regulatory equivalent of using an anvil to swat a fly. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares fall on banks, the Nikkei hits 2-month closing low and both China and Hong Kong shares keep slipping. * Q&A with Blackstone Group's Tony James * Economists, crises & cartoon (h/t Kedrosky) * James Surowiecki: The perils of economic populism * New white paper from BCG on how PE firms add operational value, and where LPs believe they still fall short.

* The demise of VC-backed Crispy Gamer * Tim Geithner says he will "fight" to change the tax treatment of carried interest. * Apollo' Management's Eric Zinterhofer spent much of last year reorganizing Chater Communications. Now he gets to run it. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares hit 10-week low, the Nikkei falls over 3% and the news isn't any better for China or Hong Kong shares. * Jerry Colonna: Board meetings that suck * Jay-Z sues Highland Capital Management over a hotel loan * A TechCrunch intern admits to being bribed to write about certain startups. He's a TechCrunch intern no more. Arrington obviously did the right thing here, but a follow-up question: Shouldn't he identify the shady startups? * Rob Day on the underwhelming financials of recent cleantech IPO filers: "I believe these companies are IPOing now because they raised their LAST money under the argument that it would be the 'last money before the IPO,' and now that the window for IPOs has opened even just a slight bit, they feel compelled to race out there and make it happen. Come hell or high water, this is the promise they've made."

* Facebook has become the web's largest news reader * Martha White: The second lives of vacant auto dealerships * Pharma is at pains to replace blockbusters. Has it found a cure? * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares extend losses, the Nikkei drops 0.5% and Hong Kong shares lose ground. * Recruiters say that MBA job prospects are improving. * Liz Gannes: Generation Internet is anyone under 30, not just teens * Ben Bernanke's remarks at his swearing-in ceremony. * Tweet of the Day: @OpenJonathan Today's my last day at Sun. I'll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more

* An early warning system for asset bubbles * Former PE pro Harry Wilson considers a run for NY State Comptroller. Not sure it will help that his spokesman's name is Bill O'Reilly (at least with downstate voters)... * Startup workspaces are sprouting up all over Boston, including in an expelled MIT frat hour * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares gain, the Nikkei overcomes Toyota's slide and strong sessions for China and Hong Kong shares. * Alan Patricof on fundraising * Satya Patel of Battery Ventures: Four sources of long-term differentiation * Remember that report about Chris Dodd wanting to kill the Volcker rules in their crib? Well, Dodd says it's wrong. Of the other hand, he also says it may be a bit too ambitious (the persistent lament of Democratic senators who keep finding new ways to extract weakness from power).

* Paul Volcker explains himself. Seems like his argument against bank-sponsored private equity is more about conflicts of interest than about systemic risk. May be a tougher case for Wall Street to argue against, given how many banks cited those very conflicts when giving up internal PE programs six or seven years ago (before reversing course when buyouts got big again). * Are fairness opinions really fair? * The yo-yo life of a tech entrepreneur: A cautionary tale * Zynga's Mark Pincus on management: "I also like to hire people into one position below where they ought to be, because only a certain kind of person will do that — somebody who is pretty humble and somebody who’s very confident." He also says to "make everyone the CEO of something." * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London opens flat, European shares slip, the Nikkei stays flat as Toyota support slips and China shares hit 3.5 month closing low. * Eric Wiesen has a friend who hates tech. * Rob Go has some suggestions for MBA programs that want to train the next generation of entrepreneurs. * Survey Says: Buyout pros are less gloomy than last year, but hardly jolly

* Larry Cheng: If a board meeting was like the State of the Union * Wall Street tries to put a price on the Volcker rule. And some of its more tone-deaf denizens try to reposition themselves as victims. * All VC firms talk a good game on innovation. Only a select few, however, display any substantive innovation when it comes to their own business models. First Round Capital is one of them. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares gain on commodities, the Nikkei falls on exporters and China shares drop on Beijing tightening. * Martha White: Can Obama make you get an IRA? * How a tweet brought makeshift 911 services to life in Haiti * Rob Go says that the iPad will revolutionize the textbook industry. Should Chegg.com and its clones be worried? * 81% of men say opportunities to move to middle management are gender neutral. Only 52% of women agree. * Charlie O'Donnell has a message for MBA grads looking to join startups: "Let me break the news to you bluntly—most of you are going about this startup thing completely ass backwards and no early stage startup that I know of is really dying to hire an MBA. What they want is a ninja, and a hundred grand or so later, your diploma is not universally recognized as a “I haz ninja skillz” card."

* Reid Hoffman: "All these concerns about [online] privacy tend to be old people issues" * University endowments just experienced their worst fiscal year since the 1930s. * Matthew Goldstein finds a copy of AIG's Schedule A, without all that pesky redaction * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares rally, the Nikkei rebounds and China shares gain * Venture capitalist Paul Grim tries to parse the iPad hype * Cracked: The six most statistically full of crap professions * Poll: Americans support Obama's proposed TARP tax * Mike Kinsley is out as editor of Atlantic Media's new business site, before there even is a new Atlantic Media business site.

* Sam Gustin: 10 things we already hate about the Apple Tablet * Does algae cultivation have a worse carbon footprint than corn? * Jeremy Grantham on the Volcker rules: "These new ideas are all good stuff as far as I’m concerned, and entirely justified." * Gordon Brown on Volcker rules: "“In the American circumstances, it may be necessary for the private equity and hedge fund work to be separated. We don’t have that issue here.” * Morning Call: U.S. futures point to mixed open, London keeps falling, European shares dip, the Nikkei's slide continues and Hong Kong shares hit 4-month low. * Square releases its full list of angel investors, including some notable first-timers * After three months behind a paywall, Newsday has sold just 35 website subscriptions (no, that is not a typo) * Carbonite, a VC-backed online backup company, says that it will file for an IPO later this year. * Pro-Wall Street 34-year-old is challenging Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the Democratic primary, and she has a bunch of private equity ties (not all of them are resume enhancers).

* Fed chair Krugman? * Inside the Citi-Terra Firma battle * Paul Volcker says that he has been discussing his proposals with Obama for the past year. Now who suggested he was out of the loop? Oh yeah, Paul Volcker. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher (despite the Sam's Club layoff news), London rises early, European shares rebound on banks, the Nikkei keeps slipping and China shares fall. * Mike Hirschland seeks conflict * Jason Calcanis has moved on from fee-charging angel groups, and refocused his ire on a fee-charging Internet audience analytics company. * Sarah Lacy bangs the smaller VC fund drum. I accept her premise, and the data clearly shows that smaller funds historically outperform larger ones (true of buyout funds too). My question, however, is how the smaller fund size crowd plans to integrate cleantech and pharma investments. These deals often are capital-intensive -- see today's Better Place news -- and are not compatible with a Y Combinator model. Does VC abandon these sectors, or simply bifurcate along their lines? Or just keep ignoring the issue?