* Mark Suster: What's it like being a venture capitalist?

* Jim McTague: FINRA must heal itself before receiving added responsibilities

* The No Prick Rule: “Hire the good, humble, kind human being first … skill-set second.”

* Morning Call: U.S. futures look flat, London opens higher, European shares climb, the Nikkei gains 0.3% and Hong Kong shares jump nearly 2%.

* Nick Hasell: Have London's listed private equity firms turned a corner?

* Kevin Kelleher: The spark that could ignite Web M&A

* ABI Research: RFID market to reach $5.35 billion this year, and $8.25 billion by 2014

* Steve Rosenbaum: "Curation, whether accidental or intentional, is rapidly becoming the future of media and publishing."

* David Biello: "The Bloom box makes no economic sense whatsoever without various government subsidies, particularly a federal tax credit paired with incentives from the state of California."

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* Can California declare bankruptcy?

* Business schools revamp their applications

* Bijan Salehizadeh: Friendly advice for first-time CEOs

* Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares slip, the Nikkei loses 0.1% and Hong Kong shares gain.

* The end of WiMAX? Cisco is the latest to bail

* Liz Gannes: When it comes to social sharing, don't forget about email

* Tickets are now on sale for the next peHUB Shindig. Takes place March 31 in Boston (details about a San Francisco event will come next week).

* John Carney changes his mind on carried interest taxation, moving from the light back into the darkness. His basic argument is an old PE standby: LPs deserve all of the profit, and also the right to (preemptively) divvy up that profit as they see fit (no matter who originally put the capital at risk). Of course, that same argument wouldn't apply to those who receive a corporate bonus (based on firm profits) in lieu of salary. Or someone who hires a contractor to redo a kitchen, sells the house at a profit and then pays the contractor with the proceeds (guess what rate the contractor must pay?). John handles all this by claiming the tax code isn't consistent -- he's right -- but doesn't that actually argue for a rule change (carried interest) that would make the code a smidgeon more consistent? As you can tell, I feel a blog post coming on later today...

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Chris Dixon, 38, may be the ultimate founder’s founder.

He’s running his second startup, Hunch, after selling his first company, SiteAdvisor, for $74 million dollars four years ago. He’s an active angel investor in nascent startups and co-founded the $40 million seed-stage fund, Founder Collective, last year. He’s a champion of the early-stage scene in New York, where he lives and works. And Dixon, who’s as connected as they come on both coasts, is a prolific blogger who writes in plain English about the challenges of entrepreneurship, technology and venture capital.

I talked with Dixon this afternoon about how he juggles his life as an investor with that of running a company that aims to be as big as Google and Amazon some day -- once it works out some kinks.

What follows is Dixon on investing. Tomorrow, I'll post our conversation about Hunch, which Dixon launched last year with Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake:

Recently, there was a widely read post by a New York entrepreneur who argued persuasively that New York is still a tough place to launch a startup -- unless you’re “Chris Dixon or anyone else who's already built a successful company and had a real exit under their belt.” Do you agree? Disagree?

I do think there should be more seed investors, which is partly why we formed Founder Collective last year, a fund that’s location agnostic but mainly focused on New York area startups. There’s no lack of money in New York; there are plenty of rich people. But there hasn’t been the kind of smart money, if you will, that understands how to help a company get to the next stage and raise VC after seed money. You’re starting to see more of that -- New York is improving -- but I’m not in radical disagreement with him.

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* Marion Maneker: Subscriptions are micropayments

* Gregor Macdonald: The myth of energy breakthroughs

* Ex-Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz: "I feel for Google – Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too."

* Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares flatten, the Nikkei remains unchanged and Chinese shares slip.

* The perils of nonprofit recruiting

* Bank books reveal depth of problems

* Spark Capital's Bijan Sabet: Scale first, monetize second

* Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley: Facebook isn't for real-life friends anymore

* More than 250 of you have bought tickets to the peHUB Shindig in Boston. Get yours here.

* Making a killing: "Billions of dollars in corporate bonds sold to retail investors come with an unusual provision that could be used to generate a fast profit. There's just one catch: Investors must team up to buy the bonds with someone who is about to die."

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Postabon, a website focused on helping users find local retail deals, has secured $1 million of a $1.5 million funding round led by Spark Capital, according to a regulatory filing. Todd Dagres of Spark has joined the Postabon board of directors.

The company was founded last year by Harvard students Stu Wall, John Buchanan and Shaneal Manek. Mashable suggested that Postabon is "Foursquare meets shopping" -- based on its use of mobile geolocation technology. Its current offering focuses on the New York market, even though the company is technically headquartered in Cambridge.

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