The study, which was conducted by Jon Funk of Ocean Road Partners (also  of Allegis Capital), used data from our own venture capital database, additional data from Dow Jones/VentureSource, as well as private data collected by Redpoint Venturs’ Greg Martin.

The exits have been written about before (ie., MySpace, Shopzilla,  Rent.com, Lowermybills, etc.) but this is probably the first time anyone has tallied up exactly how much value has been generated from venture investments here, at least in terms of investment value. The related impact — in terms of jobs and employment, additional economic value, etc.–hasn’t been calculated, but is bound to be a multiple of that $48 billion. Small wonder then, that there are so many states/counties/cities eager to attract high tech companies. Southern California has been lucky in that it has developed a number of clusters where there are now self-sustaining groups of technology companies, helping to bolster the region’s employment and wealth.

It also points to, in my personal opinion, the reason why, as a nation, we should be encouraging venture capital and similar investments in startups — the multiplier effect. It’s clear that even just a few very successful companies here can have an out sized effect on the region and its future. In the coming weeks, we’re planning on having Jon Funk further detail the insights he’s gained out of his extensive look into the exits here in Southern California.

I thought about doing something around my health/family or maybe something related to Docstoc and our new Docstore.  But those are the things I think about all the time anyway.  What I don’t spend enough time thinking about are all the problems other people face every single day that so many of us are blessed to never have to think about.

SO, for the next 30 days I’m going to do something each day to give to others.  Its not always going to be a large amount of money and some days it won’t be money I’m giving away; I may make a donation online to various charities, give clothes to goodwill, buy a homeless person by my office a meal – I think what’s important is that I make myself think about the struggles other people are going through everyday.  AND, I’ll follow up with a post at the end of the month detailing what I did each day, at the end of this post.

Jason is soliciting suggestions on his blog…

Speaking of helping out charities and others less fortunate, I’ve been aware of some time an effort  in Colorado, the Enterpreneurs Foundation of Colorado — where startups give stock in their companies into a pool, where when exits happen that money goes to benefit local charity causes and foundations. That kind of effort–which is related to a number of similar efforts in the Bay Area and elsewhere, and which in Colorado was started by venture capitalist Brad Feld — would be great to see here in SoCal.

(Yes, we finally got tired of the “was your site designed in the 80’s” comments. I’ve always put information and substance — in our case, timeliness and content– ahead of glitz and flash, but there are plenty of people who think otherwise. I have more in common with the philosophy of Craig Newmark  and function-before-form of Craigslist, but I think we’ve come up with something that is more aesthetically pleasing yet doesn’t put anything ahead of getting timely information to you).

Thanks to Mason Yarnell of Yarnell Design for the work on the site. I’d highly recommend Mason and his work, and for providing the new look and feel you’ll see rolling out on our pages over the next few weeks.

The SoCal folks I noticed on the list:

2. Mark Suster, Partner at GRP Partners, rated 4.8571 by 7 CEOs

23. Mark S. Menell, Partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures, rated 4.3333 by 12 CEOs

49.  Stuart MacFarlane, Managing Director at Momentum Venture Management, rated 4.1667 by 6 CEOs

53. Michael Kim, Partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures, rated 4.1538 by 13 CEOs

84. David Min, Principal at Steamboat Ventures, rated 4 by 5 CEOs

To some degree, these lists are mostly useful as a rating of how “friendly” a VC is to listening to your deal, and on how well their “you’ve-got-a-good-idea-but-we’re-not-interested” skills are–plus what portion of their deals actually have rated them in TheFunded. I’m surprised ANY VCs end up on this list–not because they’re not great folks, but because they’ve got to tell 99% of the entrepreneurs they meet that their particular VC deal just isn’t for them, without getting them bent out of shape  (not an easy task).

Oversee.net’s DOMAINfest, a huge, annual event catering to the domain name business and domainers; running from Tuesday through Thursday, the event includes a headline keynote by Tony Hsieh of Zappos, and is capped off by a party at the (um, yes) Playboy Mansion on Thursday evening.

Ventura Ventures is launching its Internet incubator on Thursday (our interview with Alex Schneider, the Executive Director of the incubator, will run tomorrow) with a launch party in Ventura and plenty of food from local downtown restaurants, plus presentations from startups Geodelic, Lottay, and others. (use password: incubator)

Twiistup, the technology conference and networking event, is set for Wednesday evening and Thursday. The event this year includes such speakers as Paul Graham of Y-Combinator, Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media, Om Malik of GigaOm, Bambi Francisco of Vator.tv, Robert Scoble, and others. Thursday night is big for Twiistup as well, with a Casino Royale themed party at the Skirball Cultural Center.

Also on Thursday, the Founder Institute, an effort by Adeo Ressi of TheFunded to help incubate and mentor startups–with local efforts headed by Ken Rutkowski, is launching at a local event at Clearstone Venture Partners.

Last year we kicked off an effort to survey the opinions of people in the high tech industry here in Southern California to get a better idea of people’s opinions and attitudes on the economy. As a followup, working with the David James Agency, we’re doing it again for the Second Annual socalTECH Industry Survey. Click here to take the short survey, and our thanks in advance for your help! Guaranteed to be funner than shoveling mud out of your driveway and putting buckets under those leaks in your roof.