Legendary venture capitalist Michael Moritz is stepping back from the daily management of Sequoia Capital due to a rare and incurable illness, Moritz wrote in a letter to the firm’s limited partners, according to multiple media reports.

Social networks get their big day in court–and a win–but a new test will emerge in the U.S., where anti-piracy proponents are regrouping after an embarrassing defeat.

It’s been a pretty exciting last 12 months for Gideon Yu. And the last 12 months are coming full circle for him too—soon, he’ll be he may be getting back into investing. Yu’s new gig will be at his own fund Yu is considering becoming an advisor to a new early-stage venture fund, tentatively slated to [...]

One of the biggest misconceptions in technology is that small acquisitions are less risky and require less attention than large ones. It is not true. When Reply bought my company, MerchantCircle, in May it put several of my top execs in key financial and legal roles. The move was a clever way to bridge the [...]

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Now Hiring! JPMorgan hires Drago Rajkovic to work on tech M&A

Cheers, Mate! Foster’s vino spinoff spins well

Duh, Winning: YouTube monetizes its huge user base, more expected

For the past month we’ve been doing M&A Case Studies on MBA Mondays. It’s time to go back to the basics of M&A. I laid them out in this post. For the next few weeks, I am going to discuss each of the key issues in detail. First up is the integration plan.

The integration plan is the way the buyer plans to operate your business post acquisition. You should get this figured out before you sign the Purchase Agreement. You are going to have to live with the results of the integration and you had better buy into it before you sign your company away to someone else.

There are two primary ways a buyer can “integrate” an acquisition. The first way is they mostly leave your company alone. Examples of this are Google’s acquisition of YouTube, eBay’s acquisition of Skype, and The Washington Post Company’s acquisition of Kaplan (one of my favorite M&A cases).

Remarkable founders don’t come across as “silvery tongued devils,” says Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital. Rather, they’re often shy, quiet and rather withdrawn. That was one of the observations Moritz made last night in a one-hour Q&A at startup incubator Kicklabs. The Xconomy-hosted event was provocatively titled “Michael Moritz Unplugged,” but the star VC didn’t [...]

We’ve got another “Pay Czar.” Patricia Geoghegan replaces Kenneth Feinberg in overseeing compensation at companies bailed out by Uncle Sam.

BP has been kicked off the FTSE4Good ethical investment index. That ought to really make someone think twice about dumping another 5 million barrels of oil into the ocean.

Eager to tell your Facebook friends you’re not at home? Not such a great idea.

Still not tired of the super angel vs. VC debate? Tune into part 5 of Sarah Lacy’s “Super Angel/VC SMACKDOWN” video series.

Dear John Smith: If you missed out on securing john.smith@gmail.com, now’s your chance to lock in http://about.me/johnsmith.

Fortune’s Dan Primack is intrigued by Ann Miura-Ko. Hey, Dan, if you’re really interested, check out the profile Joanna Glasner wrote about Miura-Ko in AUGUST as part of VCJ’s “Hot Prospects” cover story.

Stanford student gets instant satisfaction. After quickly coding YouTube Instant following Google’s unveiling of “instant” search functionality, Feross Aboukhadijeh got a job offer from YouTube’s CEO.

Shakeup at Nokia. Phone giant nabs Canadian Microsoft exec Stephen Elop to be its new CEO.

When Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, we knew that the video sharing site’s investors had hit a home run. Now we know exactly how far it went, thanks to documents released today as part of Viacom’s copyright infringment suit against Google.

Sequoia Capital invested a total of $9 million over two funding rounds in 2005 and 2006, and ultimately received $516 million worth of Google stock. This is higher than prior reports of a $442 million payout. If Sequoia held onto its shares, they would now be worth an additional $68 million.

Artis Capital, a hedge fund with ties to Sequoia, invested around $3 million in YouTube’s Series B round and received $85 million in Google stock. It would be worth another $11 million or so on today’s market.