Briac

* Henry Blodget: Facebook is once again overhyped * Eric Schmidt: The enduring lessons of Google's quirky IPO * Barry Ritholtz: A financial reform commercial I'd like to see * Big buyout: Canadian pension fund offers to acquire troubled UK private equity firm Candover * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London falls early, European shares hit 7-week low, the Nikkei loses 2.6% and Hong Kong shares retreat. * PE-backed IPOs are picking up * Russia runs on Dunkin: PE-backed doughnut chain is opening shop in Moscow, after a 20 year absence * European M&A is closing in on its slowest month in a decade * Sam Robinson: The power shift in LP/GP relations is not permanent.

* The 10 best "out of office" replies * Wishing you were in Beverly Hills for the Predator's Ball Milken Conference. It may be small solace, but panel videos are now online. * Police raid the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, apparently related to the 4G iPhone episode. Will the shield law protect him? And, for those journalists siding with Apple on this: If a Goldman Sachs exec or White House staffer had left a confidential memo in a bar and you had picked it up, would you have simply returned it to Blankfein HQ or Pennsylvania Ave. without taking a peek? If you said yes, I don't believe you. * Morning Call: U.S. futures flatten, London falls early, European shares retreat, the Nikkei edges higher and China shares slip. * Bionic eyes are coming! Bionic eyes are coming! * Leon Black is crowned king of the junk bond rally * Barbara James: How Nigeria should handle its sovereign wealth funds * New data on UK venture capital points to smaller, less syndicated deals

* Debt: The first five thousands years * Brendan Moynihan: Ivory tower gives Wall Street its worst ideas * Mike Butcher says that proposed EU regs could "kill off European VC and screw startups." * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares climb, the Nikkei falls 1.3% and Hong Kong retreats. * Why Detroit is worth saving: Q&A with David Egner of Detroit’s New Economy Initiative * Chris O'Brien: How Ron Conway became Silicon Valley's most influential startup investor * The old gang is back together: Steve Rattner reuinites with his former Quadrangle Asset Management pals to form Willett Advisors. * Kim-Mai Cutler discusses how DST gets the hottest late-round VC deals. Unfortunately, she doesn't delve into the BIG question: How much money does DST really have, and where is it coming from?

* Selling agriculture 2.0 in Silicon Valley * Mark Suster: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees * BusinessWeek: Prior to Apax's successful sale of Tommy Hilfiger, conventional wisdom was that "private equity and fashion are a bad combo, kind of like pairing a Dior dress with Ugg boots." * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises ahead of UK GDP report, European shares climb and the Nikkei falls 1.3%. * Seth Goldstein: Here we go again * The future of hedge funds-of-funds * Corporate bond spreads (non-financial) return to pre-crunch levels. * Don't blame Wall Street for the economic meltdown. Blame porn, and the SEC staffers who love it. * Massachusetts gives A123 Systems a $5 million loan for helping to create local jobs. In other A123 news, the cleantech company's stock hit an all-time low yesterday.

* Robert Scoble: Facebook's ambition * Geoff Colvin: The real outrage is how CEOs are paid, not how much * Eric Wessof: The recent class of greentech IPO aspirants share a very unclear path to profitability. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower on Greek deficit news, London falls early, European shares drop and the Nikkei loses 1.3%. * Quattrone and Boutros, together again * An obesity capsule has passed its first human trial * Jon Steinberg: Bringing big company execs into little companies * The bidder that topped THL Partners for CKE Restaurants was... Apollo Management THL Partners? * Q&A with Greg Zuckerman on the Goldman situation. If you read Zuckerman's book The Greatest Trade, you may recall a part about how John Paulson pitched something very similar to Bear Stearns, but was rebuffed...

* Which 20 companies lost the most money in 2009? * Janine de Nysschen: Why men get VC funding and women don't * Peter Fuhrman: Citic Capital and the challenges of the Chinese buyouts business * Morning Call: U.S. futures look flat, London falls early, European shares retreat, the Nikkei rebounds and China shares climb. * Dan Woods: The end of the Blackberry elite * Steve Rattner is still managing Mike Bloomberg's fortune * Even in Blackstone’s worst-case scenario, LPs get back a buck-fifty

* China's great wall of private equity * Tom Hicks: "Liverpool FC will be the most profitable investment I have ever made." * An argument in favor of carry-on bag fees (no, the author is not employed by Spirit Air) * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares pare gains, the Nikkei dips and Hong Kong shares climb. * The chairman of Alibaba.com has set up a private equity firm. * Andrew Ross Sorkin: "What purpose does a synthetic C.D.O., which contains no actual mortgage bonds, serve for the capital markets, and for society?" * Steve Jobs: “We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone.“ * Xconomy, a network of hyper-local business/innovation news sites, is opening shop in Detroit. This might sound foreign to folks on the coasts -- Xconomy's first three sites were Boston, Seattle and San Diego -- but Detroit could yield its most interesting stories. Automotive innovation as salvation, cleantech as the city's next generation or a continued slide into the abyss... However it plays out, I'll be reading.

* Where venture capital's money came from in 2009 * James Altucher: 25 reasons to believe in the market rally * The Private Equity Council is lowering its gates, allowing smaller firms to join (sub req). * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares retreat, the Nikkei loses 1.7% and China shares tumble. * Katie Fehrenbacher goes deep inside the Amyris Biotech IPO filing. * Hugh MacLeod: "Numbers do lie, sometimes pathologically so..." * At what point do Felix Salmon and Henry Blodget get their own Crossfire-type show? Or financial celebrity boxing show on CNBC, with the turtle as referee? The latest: Salmon savages Blodget's contrarian defense of Goldman Sachs.

* Why CEOs may want you talking about takeover attempts * Jim Jubak: The key ingredient to financial bubbles is cheap money * Rafat Ali: What questions will be answered by Demand Media's IPO filing? * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London opens flat, European shares stay at 19-month high, the Nikkei loses 1.5% and Hong Kong shares retreat. * Private equity's property problems * Bloomberg expects 19 greentech IPOs this year * Mike Hirshland to Twitter developers: Don't be scared. Just be smart. * The next $10 billion LBO might be right around the corner (this is theoretical, not specific)

* Sara Behunek: A history of American taxation and its discontents * The BVCA says that a proposed UK capital gains tax increase is "completely dotty." That may sound festive to American ears, but apparently it's not a compliment... * Ever heard of a location-based service startup called Where? Well, it's a lot like FourSquare, except with profits and lots more users. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London flattens, European shares drop, the Nikkei climbs on China data and Hong Kong shares inch up. * James Sturm quits the Internet. * Jennifer Shenker: Turkey is the new venture capital hotspot * Robert Shedd: Are we really creating startups via business plan competitions? * Tweet of the Day: All of 'em, because they're all going into the Library of Congress. Madison, Jefferson and @the_real_shaq.