Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has been taking heat in the press of late, could get a lift if Facebook acquires mobile navigation app maker Waze. Kleiner is among the VCs that have invested $67 million in the company since its founding in 2009.

Ellen Pao, a former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers junior partner who is suing the venture capital firm for gender discrimination, has landed a new job heading up strategic partnerships at social-news website Reddit.

Hybrid automaker Fisker Automotive has hired law firm Kirkland & Ellis to advise it on a possible bankruptcy filing, a source said on Thursday, while executives continue their search for a strategic investor. The company, founded in 2007, has raised more than $1 billion in venture capital, including $103.67 million last September 2012 from Advanced Equities Inc., Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is teaming up with the talent and literary agency United Talent Agency and USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering to create what’s being called the Viterbi Startup Garage, an accelerator that will provide financial and other resources to select USC students and alumni. Applications will be accepted through Monday, April 22. Ten teams will then be chosen; they’ll work out of USC’s Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey for twelve weeks beginning May 28.

It used to be that you had to have an actual company for capture investors’ attention. Last March, entrepreneur and investor Paul Graham upended that basic standard, inviting candidates with no plan whatsoever into his Y Combinator program. Now, Upstart, a 10-month-old, 10-person company based in Palo Alto, is making even Graham’s unconventional thinking seem quaint.

Today First Read brings you the latest links on alternative funding options for start-ups; how to hire great engineers; what’s going on with the cloud and what Facebook should be working on next.

Longtime Kleiner Perkins partner Ellen Pao may have chosen an odd way to reveal to the world that she’s no longer working at the firm, taking to the social network Quora to announce the development. But from a financial, legal, and public relations’ standpoint, Kleiner Perkins may wind up the big loser in this latest chapter of its ongoing saga with Pao.

Zumper said it raised $1 million in seed funding earlier this year from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, CrunchFund, New Enterprise Associates, Dawn Capital, the Experiment Fund and the DeWilde family trust. Zumper is using the money for expansion.

Top employment attorney Cliff Palefsky speaks to peHUB about arbitration agreements generally, their growing ubiquity, and why in many cases, he thinks they border on scandalous.