http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/pascallevensohn http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/pascallevensohn In today's Tech Ticker episode, venture capitalists Sharon Wienbar and Pascal Levensohn explain to Sarah Lacy how entrepreneurs can avoid getting fired during a downturn. We watched and took notes. Below, the clip and notes on the VCs' six essential points:

• 0:30: VCs need to better set founders' expectations. And vice versa, too.
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• 1:27: Don't spend.
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• 2:15: Don't respond to a bad quarter by doubling-down on engineering. Prune your management team.
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• 2:55: If you take VC, you have to play by their rules.
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• 3:29: Do you want to be rich or do you want to be king?
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• 5:31: Fiduciary duty is the board's concern (not the founder). In other words, they have to look out for all the shareholders.
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• 6:08: VCs make the most money when the founder goes all the way. The suit just wants money.

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=385100&view=rss&microfeed=true During an economic downturn, Scale Venture Partners' Sharon Wienbar explains to Sarah Lacy in this excerpt from a Yahoo Tech Ticker interview, "the strong get stronger, the weak get weaker, the strong buy the weak." Which means that while founding developers are off waiting for their $300 economic stimulus check and trying figuring out a way to make $.92 CPMs on ads on their Facebook apps, life is totally awesome right now for venture capitalists. Another VC, Pascal Levensohn, agrees: "The risk premium is coming back. This is a great time. It imposes discipline on entrepreneurs." In case you needed a translation, "discipline" is VCspeak for "getting ripped off."

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