LinkedIn needs to sex up its pitch if they want a Facebook-sized valuation

LinkedIn's $1 billion valuation certainly seems low only when compared to the stratospheric $15 billion Facebook is worth on paper. One reason why is because, frankly, college kids are sexy — as the VCs in the announcement infomercial prove irrefutably, business professional who use LinkedIn are not. So if you're going to announce a new round of venture capital with a video on YouTube, why not make it a music video? The kids love music videos. Hence, Valleywag presents "The Upside" featuring Jeffrey "Sand Hizzy" Glass, David "D-Cup" Sze, David "Dollar Billz" Cowan and Mark "Make Money" Kvamme over beats from EPMD. Recognize.

The poetic stylings of Sand Hill Road

We're used to venture capitalists having, um, "wild" and "exciting" hobbies in their downtime. Like Bill Tai of Charles River Ventures, who spends his time kitesurfing. Or Kleiner Perkins founder Tom Perkins, the yachting enthusiast. Or First Round Capital's Josh Kopelman, who dabbled in indoor skydiving. Venture capitalists are supposed to be daring and innovative, which is why we can't get our heads around this latest trend: VC as poet. After the jump, a brief history of the genre — and the latest atrocious example. More »

Bessemer Ventures partner David Cowan picked the wrong week to vacation on Hawaii's Big Island. Yesterday the island, already preparing for the onslaught of Category 4 Hurricane Flossie, was hit with a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. [Who Has Time for This?]

If you want to meet Bessemer Ventures partner David Cowan — known around here for backing bipolar founders and being friends with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington — you can catch him at Kepler's Bookstore this Saturday at 3pm. He is scheduled to introduce controversial evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins before a book signing. [Who has time for this?]