Lawrence Aragon

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.

There’s no escaping Facebook, even when you're shopping in a real store. Lesson for entrepreneurs: Bill Bartmann lost $3.5 billion and his company, but he didn’t give up. Now he’s making a comeback. Kooky idea of the day: Rapper Snoop Dog has teamed with Symantec to raise awareness about cybercrime. Got some rhymes for da house? Check out the Hack is Wack rap contest. Outlandish claim of the day: Mike Arrington says Google offered a developer a $500,000 cash bonus to stay at Google for a year instead of going to Facebook, but the developer turned down the offer. In this economy? Job-cutting bosses get paid more than their peers, says new study. Anyone seen my hatchet? Steve Jobs wants to own your living room. Like we didn't see that one coming.

Joanna Rees, who founded early stage venture firm VSP Capital, today officially threw her hat in the ring to become the next mayor of San Francisco. Rees, who Forbes dubbed an “alley cat” 10 years ago for breaking into the proverbial old boys club of venture capital, says she has officially launched an “exploratory campaign […]

Four months of fund-raising helped Mohr Davidow Ventures raise an extra $29.2 million for three annex funds, according to documents filed with the SEC today. MDV’s effort to raise the annex funds first came to light in August, when it filed SEC documents showing that it had raised a combined $98.1 million in annex funds for its seventh, eighth and ninth core funds. Today’s updated filings show that the grand total increased to $127.3 million. The fund IX annex fund faired the best from the additional effort. It boosted its total to $72.1 million, up from $45.3 million on Aug. 7. The Dec. 3 filing indicates that’s a final close, as the line for “total remaining to be sold” says zero. The fund VIII annex fund also got a bit of a boost. It held a final close on $27.9 million, according to the Dec. 3 filing, up from $25.5 in August. The firm’s seventh fund did not (or could not) raise any additional capital since August. It held a final close on $27.3 million.

Brad Feld and Paul Kedrosky say creating “startup visas” can jump-start the U.S. economy. (WSJ) Digg has a plan to save the news business. (Forbes) First Google offered a skimpy olive branch to disgruntled news publishers. (Reuters). Now it has sweetened the offer. Meh. (TechCrunch) From the nerd department: Intel has produced an experimental 48-core microprocessor for cloud computing. (VentureBeat) From the This Has Nothing to Do With Private Equity, But It’s Interesting Department: The No. 1 “trending topic” on Twitter today is #WhyMenCheat. Must have something to do with a certain No. 1 golfer. (Twitter) Wrapping up one disastrous private equity deal: Sam Zell is out as CEO of the Tribune Co. He’s still chairman. (Yahoo Finance) On the green beat: The World Bank has loaned $1 billion to India to clean up the Ganges River. (Reuters) From the Wow, Now That’s a Big Surprise Department: Robert Finkel of Prism Capital does not like Josh Kosman’s new book, “The Buyout of America.” (TheDeal) Wall Street traders aren't on Wall Street anymore. (Reuters)

I was putting together the monthly list of most active U.S.-based VCs for the next issue of Venture Capital Journal and was stunned to see New Enterprise Associates atop the list with 12 deals. (See table below.) That's a much larger number than we typically see for a monthly period. What's it mean? Maybe it's a sign that deal making is finally heating up after a long cool spell. Or maybe NEA just wanted to let loose. To put those numbers into perspective, here's how the prior three months looked: For September, the most active VC was NEA, with eight deals; for August, it was Kleiner Perkins, with five deals; and for July, it was Intel capital, with seven deals.

The first nine months of this year mark the worst nine-month period for brand new VC investments in 15 years. This week’s Money Tree report showed that overall VC investment rose slightly from Q2 to Q3, but the picture is much bleaker if you focus on brand new deals, i.e. first-round financings. VCs invested a total of $2.19 billion in 462 first-round deals in the first nine months of this year (see chart below). To find another nine-month period equally as bad, you have to go back to the third quarter of 1994 to the first quarter of 1995, when VCs invested a total of $1.77 billion in 480 first rounds.

I was asked to put together a state-of-the-VC market presentation for a group of laypeople, so I thought I'd share it with peHUB readers. If you're not a VC expert, then these four slides should help you understand why the past two years have been miserable time for most VCs. Get them after the jump:

Two sources confirmed to peHUB today that Cogent Partners has been hired by Stanford’s endowment to sell some portion of its private equity portfolio. Beyond that, there are still lots of questions about exactly what Stanford hopes to get out of the deal. The news was first reported by LBO Wire. A managing director for Cogent declined to comment. One interested purchaser with around $1 billion under management told me he contacted Cogent and was told the deal was “so big I shouldn’t even bother thinking about it.” That investor, who has purchased assets from Cogent before, said Cogent was tight-lipped about the particulars of the assets and got the impression that Cogent had a list of very large investors it was already pitching the deal to. Another source with billions under management and who is familiar with the proposed sale said the deal is different than a traditional secondary sale because Stanford wants to work out some kind of “joint venture” arrangement in which it will continue to hold a stake in its private equity assets. For example, if it has a commitment that is 50% called down, it would rather sell 25% instead of the full 50%, the source says.