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."

Microsoft will acquire San Francisco-based Rapt, which helps publishers manage their ad inventory. VCs Kip Sheeline of Levensohn Venture Partners and Arthur Patterson of Accel Partners saw their firms cash out on the deal, along with cofounder and CEO Tom Chavez. But not without a little founder blood on their hands.