Briac

* Tim Geithner's got some 'splainin to do * Lawrence Lenihan: The entrepreneur's bill of rights vs. the venture capitalist's bill of rights * Oracle acquired the most VC-backed startups in 2009, but Cisco takes the "aughts" crown. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares drop on banks, the Nikkei rally snaps and profit-taking in Hong Kong. * Paul Grim of SunBridge Partners: Why Nexus One changes (next to) nothing, but Android changes everything * Latin America's 2010 growth prospects: Better than developed nations, worse than Asia * Wesleyan University is suing its former chief investment officer for fraud, claiming he used his position to advance an independent business venture. The school is seeking more than $3 million in damages.

* David Beisel: A majority of VCs are above-average * Marc Cenedella: We have become a white collar nation, and that's okay * Android or iPhone? Bill Gurley argues that it's the wrong question to ask * PE firms keep hiring financial services pros, but not necessarily to buy up failing U.S. banks * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower ahead of ADP data, London slips early, European shares fall on oil, the Nikkei keeps rising despite JAL and Hong Kong gains on exporters * Q&A with PIMCO's Bill Gross * Martha White: Does boycotting big banks make sense? * Yet another Boston-area VC firm is looking to shed the suburbs * Paul Murphy: How much trouble is Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding actually in?

Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association this morning released Q4 and year-end 2009 data on VC-backed IPO and M&A exits. Not surprisingly, the results were underwhelming. The fourth quarter's five VC-backed IPOs brought the yearly total to just 13. That's more than twice the number of VC-backed companies that went public in 2008, but still played the backend of the slowest consecutive yearly total since 1974-1975. There were 67 VC-backed M&A exits last quarter, which generated $7.77 billion in disclosed value. The 2009 tally was 262 VC-backed M&A exits at a disclosed value of $12.55 billion, compared to 348 deals worth a disclosed value of $13.68 billion in 2008.

* Om Malik to entrepreneurs: User experience matters than user amazement * Shades of Mortimer and Randolph? PAI Partners' ex-CEO and former sector head are planning to launch a new firm. * Dow Jones releases 2009 VC-backed exit data (ours comes later this morning). Overall 2009 liquidity down 34% from 2008. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares climb, the Nikkei hits a 15-month closing high and China and Hong Kong shares fall on policy concerns. * David Carr: Why Twitter will endure * Dan Gross on the dangers of economic pessimism * The decade's 20 worst food trends: "The Raw Food movement. Leave it to the human race in this day and age to find something wrong with fire." * Four ex-NFL quarterbacks have been added as defendants in a civil suit against alleged Ponzi schemer Triton Financial. * Mike Greeley (Flybridge) and Paul Maeder (Highland) make their case against changing the tax treatment of carried interest. Per usual, it's mostly a behavioral argument -- VC investment (and thus successful entrepreneurship) will slow if taxes are raised on VC profits. Also per usual, it's bunk. Will Flybridge and/or Highland stop investing if carried interest tax treatment changes? Of course not. Remember, VC investment was at record-high levels back in the late 1990s, when capital gains rates were much higher than they are today. I like both of these guys personally, and I'm not sure if they're simply putting the best face on a bad case, or if they honestly believe VCs deserve preferential tax treatment to other performance-incented money managers... My guess is that it's actually the latter...

* Annie Lowry: 24 things that were true on this day in 1999... * Partners Group looks at 100 private equity investments made over the past four years, to understand how the industry has changed (.pdf). * Nine startup dreams and industries Google crushed in 2009 (Chris Thompson writes something similar) * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher for final day of 2009, London rises early, European shares retreat in thin trade, the Nikkei gained 19% in 2009 and Hong Kong rebounds. * Tweet of the Day from @jesserobbins: "The similarities between introductory emails from Nigerian Scammers & VC/Private Equity associates are, at times, frightening." * Charlie O'Donnell: Five ways to generate momentum for your angel or venture round. * Michael Lewis' next book is called The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. Available in March. * David Shen: Why aren't there more consumer internet VCs with graphic design skills?

* Damien Hoffman: Neel Kashkari evolved from Gordon Gekko into Henry David Thoreau. * The return of rabbit ears * There is light at the end of the leveraged loan tunnel. Unfortunately, there may also be a giant pothole just a few yards past the exit. * CalPERS makes some welcome ethics changes. For example, CalPERS board members must now "refrain from advocating a course of action concerning an investment with CalPERS staff outside a Board or Committee meeting." * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares dragged down by banks and commodities, the Nikkei closes 2009 up 19% for the year and China shares climb on energy. * The decade's biggest tech losers. * Q&A on VC opportunities in the stem cell space * Bijan Sabet on the pros and cons of "insider" VC rounds * The Illinois Teachers' Retirement System said that its PE portfolio fell 17.9% for the year ending June 30, 2009. This comes after five straight years of gains. You can download its full investment report here (PE data begins on pg. 65).

* Maybe Henry Kravis wants to emulate Warren Buffett because the Oracle is teflon when it comes to things like laying off 21,000 workers. * Amity Shales: "Today the country can ill afford another trillion in stimulus. But if such an outlay is inevitable, then let that trillion go to a national Big Dig." (We in Boston utter a collective "WTF?!?!?!") * The next generation at GTCR discuss their firm and the current state of private equity. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares climb on miners and oil, the Nikkei edges up and both Hong Kong and China shares improve. * Dave Pakman of Venrock: My areas of focus for 2010 * Chris Dixon: What's the right amout of seed capital to raise? * Should Americans be making more of their own luggage? * 10 huge ideas that flopped this decade (my only gripe with this list is the inclusion of "charter schools," when the author seems to only be discussing the for-profit variety).

Nobody is picking up the phones today, so time for another dreaded top 10 list. This time, it's the year's most popular posts on peHUB. We've excluded all the First Read and Second Opinion posts, and consider the multi-page VC Walking Dead to be a single story. No idea why the top post was the top post, or why it became a veritable meeting place for GE Capital employees (past and present). We're just glad they chose peHUB to be their virtual dartboard. Each of these posts typically sits behind the firewall (peHUB subscriptions make great stocking stuffers), but we're pulling them out for a few days. Happy reminiscing...

* If Wall Street ran the airlines... * MG Siegler: Social location will not be a market where everybody can just get alone. * Whole Foods CEO John Mackey on raising $425 million from PE firm Leonard Green: "It was more or less like we were buying an insurance policy. In case the worst-case scenario came about, we wanted to make sure we survived." * Morning Call: U.S. futures rise ahead of short session, London flattens, European shares rise, the Nikkei jumps 1.5% and China shares climb. * What is Solyndra's cost per watt? * The top B-school stories of 2009 * The decade's best and worst-performing industries * Barry Ritholtz: Big banks aren't lending because they're being rational * Gomez could have gone public. So says the banker who repped Compuware on its acquisition of the online analytics company back in October.

* Caroline Baum: "New normal" was the most overused phrase of 2009, followed by "unprecedented," "exit strategy" and "green shoots." * Top 10 Internet startup scalability killers * TriZetto Group offers to buy Canopy Financial's assets for $6.1 million * Chris Nelder: What if the Energy Information Administration Outlook were written by an honest person? * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares extend rally, the Nikkei hits 3-month closing high and strong closes for both China and Hong Kong shares. * Brad Feld: The downsides of large VC syndicates * SEC sues Heisman Trophy co-sponsor for investment fraud * Michael Karnjanaprakorn: A 50k foot view of the New York startup scene, whose emergence is one of the main entrepreneurial storylines of 2009. * Need a new iPhone game? How about Bailout Wars, where the goal is to defend the White House from Wall Streeters looking for cash (imagine 1600 Penn Ave. as a castle, and the bankers as barbarians at the gate).