It's one of many casually accepted, unchecked assumptions in Silicon Valley: Peter Thiel, the cofounder of PayPal and Facebook investor, is a billionaire, right? Leaked documents from his hedge fund, Clarium Capital, show he's not.

Jobs! Everybody needs one to pay for booze and porcelain figurine collections and such, right? We can't all be Ben Silverman and douche our way to the top! So we've been keeping an eye out!

The Twittersphere is up in arms over a move the message-broadcasting service made to make its site a bit less noisy: You can no longer easily eavesdrop on conversations with strangers. Hurrah!

What happens to the Twitterati when the site goes down for scheduled maintenance? Why, they temporarily turn into Facebookerati, lest the world be deprived of their every last thought.

Had an awesome week? Whatever. It was not as totally awesome as the week of Twittering Facebook chanteuse Randi Zuckerberg (of the Mark Zuckerberg Zuckerbergs). Except for the part where Julia Allison stalked her!

Clever libertarians don't just rail against government spending: They do something about it. Facebook investor Peter Thiel took $8 million from New York's pension fund — while setting himself up to avoid millions in taxes.

What a fight! In one corner, Rhodes scholar Rachel Maddow, the liberal lesbian MSNBC commentator. In the other, arch libertarian chess master Peter Thiel, the gay Facebook investor. Best of all, they've squared off before.

Oh great. Some geniuses in the Middle East are developing a robot with a Facebook account. Easier than it sounds, considering how mechanical our online interactions are anyway.

Facebook tried to buy Twitter. Google and Microsoft have been giving the red-hot Internet-messaging startup the eye. But we hear it's Apple that's closest to sealing a deal, possibly for as much as $700 million.

In January, the New York Times' standards editor issued guidelines about how editorial staffers are allowed to use Facebook and other scary online tools. Is reporter Twittering making a mockery of those guidelines? Let's explore!

Things were simpler when the only medium for asking someone out was the telephone. Text messaging, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have complicated romance, if not ruined it, the Washington Post reports.

Oh no! There's a site which tricks you into handing over your personal information for its own nefarious, moneymaking schemes! It's called Facebook. Oh, also, people are all upset because FBstarter.com is stealing their passwords.

Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, has made official long-rumored plans to run for California's attorney general. He's just the latest Silicon Valley figure to enter politics.

Peter Thiel, foremost among Silicon Valley's loopy libertarians and the first outside investor in Facebook, has written an essay declaring that the country went to hell as soon as women won the right to vote.

Just a few years ago, venture capitalists pushed Internet startups to conquer every last corner of the world. Now they're asking why they don't just pull the plug on the Third World.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, is once again courting software developers. Where he once invited them to live on its site, he's now hoping they'll knit Facebook into desktop applications. It's another move to ape Twitter.

• More on the decision by Condé Nast to shut down Portfolio. [NYO, Gawker]
• Newspaper circulation figures for the past six months show steep declines at most major papers, including the Times, Post, and Daily News. One bright spot: the Wall Street Journal, which experienced a tiny, 0.6% gain. [E&P]
• Phil Falcone's Harbinger, the hedge fund that battled for a piece of the New York Times Co. last year, may now be looking to unload its stake. [WSJ]
• CNN has fallen behind MSNBC and Fox News, as you may have heard. [NYT]
• PRWeek is going monthly. But it'll still be called PRWeek, so you know. [NYT]
• Obsessed starring Beyonce was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]

Former dating columnist Julia Allison, an Internet microcelebrity now famous for not being particularly famous, has finally gone too far in her attempt to acquire Facebook fans. She may even have broken the law.

Owen Van Natta, Facebook's former COO, is officially taking over MySpace, News Corp.'s social network. With its user numbers stagnant, MySpace desperately needs a restart. Is Van Natta the guy to do it?

Will anyone miss GeoCities, the antiquated homepage service Yahoo bought for $3.5 billion in 1999, and then left to rot? Venture capitalist Fred Wilson will — he hasn't seen that kind of payday in ages.