"If the typical Gore event was 20 people in a living room writing six-figure checks, and the Kerry event was 2,000 people in a hotel ballroom writing four-figure checks, this year for Obama we have stadium rallies of 20,000 people who pay absolutely nothing, and then go home and contribute a few dollars online." Obama himself shrewdly capitalizes on both the turnout and the connectivity of his stadium crowds by routinely asking them to hold up their cell phones and punch in a five-digit number to text their contact information to the campaign.

• Customer data stored by different service providers will be combined to create more intelligent services.
• Oil will have increasing difficulty competing with biofuels made from cheap nonfood crops for transportation.
• Water technology will replace abating global warming as a global priority.
• The mobile device industry's migration to smart phones will produce great disruption for big industry players.
• Booming market for healthy aging technologies.
• Four-fifths of the world population will carry mobile Internet devices within five to 10 years.
• Algorithms will be constructed to develop new industrial chemicals, new biofuels and eventually artificial intelligence.
• The mobile phone is your most important device.
• There is going to be a venture capital shakeout.
• Within five years everything that matters to you will be available on a device that fits on your belt or in your purse

Somehow we got on the topic of makeup for TV interviews...
Jobs: I have never worn makeup.
Shriver: Really?
Jobs: I don't give a s**t what I look like.
Shriver: But some people do.
Jurvetson: Yeah, like Schwarzenegger. Boy, does he layer it on. Have you ever seen him close up?
Shriver: [chortles] Have I ever seen him close up? I can't believe you asked me that.

DFJ's Melton is clearly no dummy; Stanford's not in the habit of issuing degrees to the like. But she joins an investing team filled with other back-benchers. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz have also put money into Redfin, but Allen and Schultz tapped underlings to serve on Redfin's board. If Draper, Jurvetson, Allen, and Schultz really intend Redfin to upend the real-estate industry, why aren't they backing it personally? Clearly, Redfin isn't a star of their portfolios, or an idea that really captures these Internet dreamers' imaginations. They're aiming for a base hit at best — which is why they bunted when it came to picking their board representatives.

He's so...what's a word that's almost but not exactly the opposite of dreamy? Actually, there's some hipster charm to that tousled-haired boy genius known as Bill Gates. What do you think is going through his mind as he gazes at the camera with bedroom eyes?

I won't pretend that venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, who invested in Hotmail, Skype and other companies after working at HP and Apple, is chagrined by a photo that he uploaded himself. Even if he looks like Star Trek ensign Wesley Crusher on summer vacation.

Before Sergey Brin founded Google, apparently he was one of those sitcom characters who dresses in drag for an episode, leading to a wacky adventure in which some burly guy thinks he's a hot woman. As well as that dress fits, Sergey is no Bugs Bunny.

Even exhibitionist tech pundit and former Tech TV star Chris Pirillo eventually got embarrassed over this shot of him baring it all in Alaska. At least he has the best ever argument for shrinkage.

Philip Kaplan of FuckedCompany, however, has no such shame. That's why, if Marshall McLuhan is the patron saint of Wired, "Pud" is the patron saint of Valleywag. The man who danced around the ashes of the dot-com crash waltzed around with two girls in a live webcam stream. Try sticking that on YouTube.

You can tell Michael Arrington is not sure what he's doing in this photo with marketer Tara Hunt, but even after he learned, the TechCrunch blog founder pulled the shocker back out months later.

Why are 37signals founder Jason Fried and the founders of San Francisco web-dev house Adaptive Path so embarrassed by this bathtub shot by Maggie Mason? It reveals them for the sexy city slickers they are. Besides, in San Fran, just be thankful they were wearing their swim trunks (though for all we know, Jason could skinny-dip in the tub).

Microsoft staff, 1978. Bill Gates is actually proud enough of this photo to keep it on his corporate biography page.

I can understand the topless photo of bloggers Robert Scoble and Shel Israel: they were pulling a stunt for their book Naked Conversations (back when Scoble spent more time getting naked and less time being a dick). But the naked-with-laptop shot? Dude, maybe it would have worked if you didn't flop your tits over the screen.

I've always felt that RSS guru Dave Winer had some latent cause for all the aggression that makes him abuse so many people. What could that possibly be? He looks happy here in this sauna full of naked young men. Aha, obviously there's Dave's hidden passion: he's a closet lover of hot...sweaty...climates. That dirty Californian rainforest-botherer.

For visiting tech execs, Buck's is a hotter destination than Lombard Street. Scandinavian entrepreneurs will skip the Golden Gate Bridge for a 7am pilgrimage. The restaurant itself is an unpretentious-looking pancake and egg house in tiny, affluent downtown Woodside, where Valley moguls keep their equestrian estates.

Buck's is, basically, a roadside diner. Ample portions of affordable, predictable fare are served beneath giant model aircraft that hang from the ceiling (welcome to Woodside - you fly, right?) It's not the food, it's the clientele: You're more likely to breakfast next to a billionaire than to spot your frazzled tech support manager. Power brokers like DFJ's Steve Jurvetson are regulars. Laptop demos of startup sites and software are a common sight.

But don't fanboy the VCs over their eggs. The man to meet is the owner, Jamis MacNiven. MacNiven is a de facto member of the Valley's power broker elite, yet one to whom you're allowed to walk up and introduce yourself should your visit coincide with his irregular onsite hours. Shut up and listen, and you'll realize the guy is smarter than some of his patrons. It was MacNiven who gave Wired the last word on free Wi-Fi, when he told the mag that charging for Internet access was "like charging for salt and pepper."

Still, don't get your hopes up. Gossipy techies and lazy journalists have overplayed Buck's reputation as the place to be discovered. MacNiven is to blame, too — every month he reminds another reporter that Hotmail was funded right there at table 15.

Instead of pitching your business plan, kick back and listen to MacNiven's life story if you want a toehold among the Valley's movers and shakers. Woodside, by design, is a long detour for breakfast from the go-go grid of Highway 101. But it's instructive to watch VCs chill over pancakes before 12 hours of pulping startup founders. And unlike Michael's, MacNiven will give you table 15 before you get rich.

Joe Schoendorf: [Mr. Schoendorf is a venture capitalist with Accel Partners.] ...So we have to ask ourselves, 'Who's the next Intel; who's the next Apple; who's the next Google?'

John Doerr: [Mr. Doerr is a venture capitalist with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.] If you're saying a new player is going to displace Microsoft or Google in the next five years, I just don't see it. I think Google will be the next Google.

Just so you know? Doerr was one of the VCs who took Google public.

Steve Jurvetson: [Mr. Jurvetson is a venture capitalist with Draper Fisher Jurvetson.] Will there ever be a new Google?

Doerr: I hope so, but it might not be in information. It might be in entirely new fields.

Ann Winblad: [Ms. Winblad is a venture capitalist with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.] Who's the new Sony?

Doerr: Samsung. It's already happened. Sony bought Samsung.

(Actually it didn't. Not even metaphorically.)

Winblad: So it's not Google?

Pardon, what? How does this even make...what?

After the jump, it just gets worse.

Moderator Tony Perkins speaks up:

Perkins: But Steve Jobs has been a pioneer in user interfaces. I project that in three to five years Apple's music distribution dominance via iTunes and the iPod will have faded; it will have become the fifth or sixth player.

Doerr: Uh, wait—because, because, because?

Perkins: You can make fun of me John—

Damn, I was supposed to get permission?

—but I say this because it's a closed, proprietary system, and what my kids want is to be able to download music and share it with friends. [boring stuff removed]

Doerr: But you're projecting that Steve and the team at Apple are not going to be smart enough over time to serve that market.

Perkins: Well, unless they adjust ...

Schoendorf: You're also assuming that everybody else is going to suddenly figure out that market, but there's no sign they've even started.

Perkins: Everybody's in the business.

It's then that Jurvetson requests a show of hands to counter Tony Perkins. Tony, ever the gentleman, tells his persecutors, "Okay, we'll see. We'll invite you guys back." That's right — those MC fees make all the abuse worth it, don't they, Tony?

Gluttons for punishment can hear ZDNet's podcast of the talk.

Finding the Next Google [AlwaysOn Network]

The usual talking points:

• It's not a bubble, it's a boom.
• No one's going public. Everybody flips (—which would make a good Mr. Rogers book. "Everybody Flips").
• Every day, in every way, we're getting better and better.

New, hard-to-swallow talking points:

• The founder of an old teen social site (Bolt.com) knows something about a successful start-up.

Hunt for new media darling hints at bubble [FT]

Todd Lappin started Telstar by tricking out a van with pseudo-official insignia in the late 80s so he could illegally park in loading zones. Todd did the same to a new SUV in the 90s, and the idea ballooned. He could drive onto secure lots, park wherever he wanted, and avoid theft or vandalism. Then came the schwag, the photo series of industrial scenes, and most recently, the Model 442 Shareholder Value Generator.

Half the fun is in the caption and notes (including some from big-time VC Steve Jurvetson), which you can see here:

NEW!! IMPROVED!! The Telstar Logistics Shareholder Value Generator [Telstar on Flickr]
About Telstar [Telstar on Flickr]

An avid mountain biker, Mr. Jordan begins his workday at around 5 a.m. at the eBay gym, perched atop a stationary bicycle while tapping away on his BlackBerry.

Berrying while exercycling? How is that even productive? Jordan is either lying to himself or showing off for the reporter. But it's not the worst of the ludicrous ways Valley big shots overwork themselves.

Marissa Mayer only takes red-eye flights, to avoid missing workdays, according to John Battelle's book The Search.
VCs reportedly drive around to parking lots, late at night, to see which startups putting in the hours.
Google caught several interns — and full-time engineers — trying to live and sleep at the Googleplex.
One biotech IT manager wakes at 4 a.m. three times a week to train for over two hours, then skips lunch to lift weights.
Execs and VCs like Steve Jurvetson (pictured above) swim across the bay or bike up mountains, and they admit they make deals during these grueling show-off sports.

Geez, people, slow down. You're making the rest of us feel bad.

PayPal Prepares For a Challenge From Google [WSJ]
Wheels and Deals in Silicon Valley [NYT in Park Association]

The NY Times turned the area's extreme sports craze into a trend story. Geeks were proud to be quoted bragging that they get their kicks from windsurfing and swimming across the bay. They wouldn't be caught dead golfing. No, they are "X-treem." At least until some unlucky VC rumbles off Mount Diablo.

Wheels and Deals in Silicon Valley [NRPA]
Happy, Happy, Mud, Mud [Jurvetson on Flickr]