I don't have an MBA, but I have earned my SIlicon Valley MBA.  Let me explain. When I was a few years out of college, I considered going back to get an MBA.  I liked working in the valley and knew that I wanted to spend my career in tech and ultimately around startups - at that point I had only worked for Apple.  So I asked around to a lot of people I knew well and respected.  People who I thought had been successful in their careers and whose path I wanted to learn from.  Many of them had MBAs and some did not.  I wanted to hear their perspectives on the value of a traditional MBA.

Disruptive technology is forcing big changes in Hollywood: new contracts, new genres, new stars. As the behemoth industry steps into the digital era, entertainment execs will be paying even closer attention to the global Silicon Valley—especially the startups that are writing the rules and creating the tools for the digital entertainment age.

I attended the Capitalize event thrown by DartBoston last night. It featured Google Ventures (specifically, Rich Miner) assessing the pitch by Hello Vino.

The most interesting point of the night came when Rich described his favorite way to measure Active Users: the 30-30 statistic. Most startups measure their Active Users based on some activity over the past X days (where typically, X = 30). By contrast, 30-30 is where Active Users are measured by counting all users who have used the product in the last 30 days who also signed up longer than 30 days ago.

The purpose behind the 30-30 methodology is that everyone who signed up in the past 30 days is an Active User by definition in the more common 30-day window definition of Active User, which is needless noise when you’re trying to determine engagement. 30-30 is a more pure measure of true engagement that doesn’t include people that visited your site once and never returned… it’s a great way to cut out the noise in a typical 30-day Active User window. The people who are left in 30-30 are the ones that are truly engaged.

My friend Howard Lindzon DM'd me on Twitter last night. He asked if I would agree to be interviewed on Skype next week on a series he is doing titled "The Web Is Dead." When I saw the DM, I shuddered. My good friend the web is dead? No way.

But then I thought about a conversation I had with Saul Klein when I was in London a few weeks ago. Saul told me he is using the web a lot less and his iPad and iPhone a lot more.

I’m concerned I’m losing touch with the behaviors of a typical internet user. It’s arguable whether or not a “typical” internet user even exists… but when I use that phrase my intentions are to get at:

• What needs does the internet fill for people, on average?
• Where do they go to fulfill those needs?
• How long do people spend online, on average?
• What are the means of access?

I know these questions can be answered quantitatively with service like comScore or industry reports from people like Mary Meeker at Morgan Stanley, but data alone is really insufficient to really feel in touch with how people use the web. This is my concern… I know the data and read it regularly, but I have not spent enough time with users directly lately.

What is Apple going to do about AT&T's network problems? One iPhone fan, desperate for a solution, asked if someone from Apple is working on the problem. Jobs, as usual, keeps his cards close to his chest and gives a carefully crafted response, but not a real answer. The bottom line seems to be that the Apple-AT&T partnership is still worth more than the headaches AT&T's network is causing for Apple.

Here at home, the angel community in New England is really starting to flex its muscles.  Thanks to Scott Kirsner's arbitrary declaration (and admirable leadership), June is Innovation Month in New England and there is a ridiculous amount of activity going on.It started off on June 1st with Angel Boot Camp, a confab that gathered over 200 angels, VCs and start-ups. Last night was Tech Stars Boston Investor Night, which continues to gain momentum heading into its second season, as well as the big annual the MITX Awards event.  Every night this month, there is something going on.  You can see the master schedule at www.neinnovation.com. Many of these venues didn't exist 3-4 years ago - Mobile Mondays, Web Inno, Open Coffee, etc.  New events are coming to Boston this month, including the Open Angel Forum, which is June 18th.

Steve Jobs recently said that fewer people will be using personal computers in the next 5-10 years than today. Steve Ballmer disagrees and says that PCs will continue to shift in form factor but are here to stay. Is this just an issue of semantics? Is the iPad a PC as Ballmer suggests? Either way, what's Microsoft's role in an post-iPad world?

It's with great excitement that we introduce the eighth annual AlwaysOn Global 250 top  private companies. The AlwaysOn Global 250 represent the top emerging companies in the Global Silicon Valley that are demonstrating significant market traction and pursuing game-changing technologies in on-demand computing, digital media, and greentech.

The AlwaysOn editorial team, along with partners at Manatt, Morgan Stanley, the Blackstone Group, KPMG, Silicon Valley Bank, Sonnenschein, and Bridge Bank, as well as industry experts across the globe, scoured the entrepreneurial community to identify the top 250 private companies that are taking old notions of doing things and forging solutions that will lead to industry shake-up and huge value-creation opportunities.

Private equity and venture capital funds continued to show strength during the quarter ending December 31, 2009, with each asset class earning positive returns for the third consecutive quarter, one of the best since 2007. Overall, fourth quarter returns on private equity investments outpaced those in venture capital funds, though both continued to outperform the public markets over the long term, according to Cambridge Associates LLC, a provider of independent research and investment advice to institutional investors and private clients.