It’s amazing to go back and read what people were saying about Timothy Geithner in the spring. Many people said he looked terrified as the Treasury secretary, like Bambi in the headlights. The New Republic ran an essay called “The Geithner Disaster.” Portfolio magazine ran a brutal, zeitgeist-capturing profile that concluded by comparing Geithner to Robert Redford’s hollow man character in “The Candidate.”

The criticism of his plan to stabilize the financial system came from all directions. House Republicans called it radical. Many liberal economists thought the plan was the product of hapless, zombie thinking and argued that only full bank nationalization would end the crisis. The Wall Street Journal asked 49 economists to grade Geithner. They gave him an F

Working for a start-up is hard enough. Trying to wittily describe ”the unique entrepreneurial culture that sets their company apart and inspires them to go to work each day” - in 140 characters or less - is equally challenging.

That was the task set by the National Venture Capital Association and job board StartUpHire, which asked for Twitter-esque submissions from start-up employees in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

You can find more than 100 of them here, and submit your own. Many of them aim to be funny, some inspire, though quite a few are simply advertising their start-ups or didn’t seem to understand the objective. Here are a few of our favorites. (Post yours at the aforementioned link, and if it’s interesting enough, we’ll add it below.)

The San Diego area is the home of numerous cleantech businesses that are developing innovative green cars (Aptera, V-Vehicle Co.), developing alternative fuels (GreenHouse International, Synthetic Genomics Inc., Sapphire Energy), finding alternatives to petrochemicals (Genomatica, Verdezyne), and providing renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions (KEMA, Kyocera, Envision Solar).

Assisting our growing cluster is a network of non-profits, trade groups, government agencies, universities, and investors who share a common interest in cultivating a green economy. These groups collaborate on many projects, strengthening our vision for more green businesses, jobs, and investments in cleantech innovation. But while they share common goals, local green groups are also distinct in many ways and often compete for money, members, and media; their varying perspective, focus, message, membership, and goals can be confusing. If you’re an entrepreneur, how can you find support for the green innovations you hope to commercialize? Where do investors look for opportunities and advice? Where can founders find the resources they need to move their ventures forward?

It is a seeming paradox that in today's world economy, despite an overwhelming trend toward globalization, the "power of place" matters more than ever. In fact, studies show that regional and local policies matter more than national policies in fostering economic growth.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently published two reports on this phenomenon, with direct consequences for regions such as Paso del Norte.

DOE’s new renewable energy Venture Capital unit ARPA-E has just funded an entirely new kind of liquid battery innovation from MIT professor Donald Sadoway, that works like an aluminum plant running in reverse; producing power instead of consuming it.

Under the ARPA-E program at the DOE, the Obama administration has provided record-setting funding for advanced breakthroughs in renewable energy technology - that could propel America to the front of the post-oil age economy.

Infosys cofounder Nadathur Raghavan's sons take over his VC firm.

On October 21, 2009, N. R. Narayana Murthy sold Rs. 174 core worth of Infosys shares to capitalize Catamaran, his venture capital fund. If Murthy ever needs advice for this new venture, he won't have to look too far. He just has to call the man who could have been the second CEO of Infosys but turned down the job in 1999 and quit the company in 2000. Nadathur Raghavan doesn't even live too far away. He is right there in Bangalore.

In India, the terms 'innovation ecosystem' and 'angel investor' are frequently used but rarely seen in practice. Nadathur Raghavan's fund Nadathur Investments is a rare fund in the country that has truly done this. Over the last nine years, it has invested $65 million in technology, lifesciences and healthcare start-ups. Companies such as Impulsesoft, Metahelix, Connexios and Medi Assist owe their existence to Raghavan's love of financing new ideas.

These days, it's impossible to read the business news without finding articles referring to the world of innovation. Companies proclaim they will grow faster than their competitors because they are going to innovate better products.

Self-proclaimed "innovation experts", who in the past sold marketing, benchmarking and Six Sigma as the "one and only way to heaven", have recently jumped on the innovation train. They are now bombarding audiences with shallow articles and low-value talks full of innovation buzzwords, from "out-of-the-box" and "disruptive" to "cutting-edge" and "breakthrough".

When I'm not writing for VatorNews or working with Bambi on the next mixer, I'm doing research for AlwaysOn. Over there, we just released the VC 100--our pick of the top venture capitalists based on exit performance in the last four years. One thing we learned in the process was how many top dealmakers don't make it into the limelight. Some of the real rockstars are Kevin McQuillan (4 IPOs, 7 acquisitions in 4 years), Todd Chaffee (4 acquisitions, 2 IPOs), Scott Ungerer (cleantech darkhorse--10 big exits in the last 4 years) and Mike Gordon (IPOs: Sourcefire, Vonage, TeleAtlas, BigBand Networks, Isilon). Check out our rundown below and the full list of winners here: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/34032

The last 15 months have been highly uncertain for both the venture capital industry and the companies they fund, but history shows that funding entrepreneurs takes patience and endurance. The first annual AlwaysOn Venture Capital 100 highlights the one hundred individuals who have backed the most profitable winners in the last four years. To compile the first VC 100 List, our editorial team sourced data from its research partners Morgan Stanley, VentureDeal and the 451 Group on more than 700 active venture capitalists, 1,400 VC investments and 1,000 technology liquidity events in the last four years, from October 1, 2005 to September 30, 2009. The winning venture capitalists were selected based on total number and dollar amounts of successful M&A and IPO deals from their portfolio companies. For IPOs, AlwaysOn examined opening market capitalization as well as subsequent stock performance, relative to the Nasdaq. For each investment, AlwaysOn counted one lead investor per firm, in order to identify the true dealmakers, understanding that in many cases more than one partner is involved in helping each company. Much of the exact valuation data that would have been ideal for this kind of analysis remains private and inaccessible, of course, so we present the VC 100 ultimately as a "representative list", based upon our best efforts.

Government was taking steps to utilise innovative traditional knowledge, Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said.

"[We] are to make a big deal around scientific exploration in indigenous knowledge," Pandor told a conference on intellectual property rights in Johannesburg.

"Indigenous knowledge is a key part of our innovation technology."

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., today joined Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Karen Mills, other policymakers, lenders, and small business owners at a forum on small business financing. The forum explored new ideas and strategies for expanding access to financing for small businesses.

"Now that we have stabilized Wall Street, we must jump start Main Street," Sen. Landrieu said. "We can do this by making sure small businesses have access to the capital they need to keep their businesses alive and growing during these tough times.

Shares of Sunnyvale Internet security company Fortinet soared more than 30 percent Wednesday in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq, raising hopes that long-dormant Silicon Valley public offerings may be stirring back to life.

It was the first public offering in 20 months for a tech company with a Silicon Valley address, and the reception may encourage other valley startups to follow suit in coming months.

"This is what investors have been waiting for," said Bob McCooey, Nasdaq vice president of new listings.

BEIJING, Nov 19, 2009 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- ERC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- China and the US agreed to establish a clean energy research center in a joint statement signed on Tuesday after talks between Chinese president Hu Jintao and US president Barack Obama.

A protocol was signed between China's Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Energy Administration and the US' Department of Energy.

The research center will prioritize three topics including energy efficiency in buildings, clean coal, and clean vehicles. It will have one headquarter per country, with public and private funding of at least US$150 million over five years evenly split between the two countries.