It’s finally official: Marc Andreessen has crossed over to what he once called “the dark side” and is now a venture capitalist.

Several weeks ago, BoomTown broke the news that the Silicon Valley legend and serial entrepreneur and his longtime investing partner, Ben Horowitz, had completed the raising of $300 million for a new venture fund.

And, indeed, the new firm–which is made up of just the two–is now launched and called Andreessen Horowitz.

Of course, I had done a video interview with Andreessen with my Flip.

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Last Friday, BoomTown attended a packed-out book party at the Silicon Valley home of Gary and Laura Lauder in honor of globetrotting pundit Tom Friedman and his latest weighty tome: “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–And How it Can Renew America.”

The New York Times columnist’s book is catnip for the smart set–including greentastic VC John Doerr–gathered under a swanky tent on a stunningly beautiful late afternoon, even though Friedman’s message was that these kinds of days were pretty much numbered for the human race.

Can Silicon Valley stop dopily Twittering and save the day?

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Earlier today, BoomTown posted a video of star venture capitalist John Doerr’s 10 tips to start-ups for surviving the econalypse that he ticked off at a roundtable in Silicon Valley on Wednesday.

Beside the words of wisdom from the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner, I also trolled for advice from the panel of well-known entrepreneurs I moderated at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” event.

The message: They will survive! (Cue the disco ball.)

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Here’s a video of star VC John Doerr reciting his 10 tips for start-ups to follow in the economic downturn, dispensed at a VentureBeat roundtable event on the downturn yesterday.

And the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers VC didn’t need a massive, noisy PowerPoint like Sequoia Capital to make his quick and clear points, which he delivered in four minutes flat.

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Tomorrow, BoomTown is trying to find a silver lining from a group of entrepreneurs at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” roundtable event.

Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic will join Max Levchin of Slide, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, O’Melveny & Myers’ Sam Zucker, and Nirav Tolia of Web 1.0’s Epinions.

Along with my group, for whom I am planning all sorts of verbal tortures (”Exactly how much do you make?”), there is also a star-studded investors panel.

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In the late 1990s, during the height of the bubble of Web 1.0, there was a poolside charity auction at an Industry Standard conference for a variety of items donated by Web luminaries.
A tie from John Doerr, the right to push eBay CEO Meg Whitman in the pool and also the little black dress that [...]

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Last week, I was in Santa Barbara at the Bacara Resort for The Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics: Creating Environmental Capital conference, which described itself as a “CEO-level view of the rapidly developing relationship between the environment and the bottom line.”
Topics that were delved into via interviews were wide-ranging: “Sales Job: Will Consumers Spend to Go [...]

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Here’s some more video from the halls of Web 2.0 Summit, which is taking place this week in San Francisco.
Look to John Paczkowski of Digital Daily for liveblogging from the conference yesterday, which included appearances by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and eBay’s Meg Whitman.
Today is the final day, with digital bigshots onstage like: AT&T’s Randall Stephenson, [...]

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