I love Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  It is one of the most extraordinarily beautiful settings in the world.  One cannot help being in a good mood when observing the breathtaking wildlife, open sky and the awe-inspiring Grand Tetons.

Aydin Senkut, founder of Felicis Ventures, has an enviable track record. Founded in late 2005, Felicis has made roughly 60 investments, with 16 successful exits, including Mint, Tapulous and Aardvark.

The transmission networks spanning nations to provide light, heat and electricity will soon undergo a radical transformation. Most of the world's developed countries have invested in or plan to invest huge sums to implement smart energy infrastructures within the next two decades. The smart grid will revolutionize the way utilities and consumers measure and monitor electricity usage. This effort is expected to save money and aid energy conservation.

Google and Verizon today released an updated joint policy proposal for how the FCC should handle net neutrality. Both companies were careful to reiterate their love of the open Internet. During a joint press conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted, “Google cares a lot about the open Internet. An open Internet allows for the next Google to be created.”

I don’t generally blog about politics.  It’s not my thing.  I’m a socially liberal, fiscally conservative, non-party libertarian at heart.  Most issues are really nuanced.  I accept that on many issues there is no “right” answer and rational people can disagree.

Poor old Spotify. Less than a week after Billboard magazine reported that the music-on-demand service had “rebooted” its negotiations with US labels, rival service Rdio has just opened its doors in both the US and Canada, proudly boasting deals with many of those same labels.

This morning at a special press event in Mountain View, Google announced Google Apps for Government, a new version of Google’s suite of cloud-based enterprise applications that have been hardened to meet the government’s more stringent security restrictions.

Dave Girouard, Google’s President of Enterprise, kicked off the presentation with a few stats: every year, the federal government spends $76 billion on IT expenses. Another $50 billion is spent on IT by state and local governments. Google is looking to help.

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co.

Smart Grid management software producer eMeter announced a $12.5 million Series F round of funding today. The investment comes from Sequoia Capital and Foundation Capital, who have both invested in the company previously, along with Northgate Capital.

Last Thursday, Google placed a major $700 million bet on a new strategy. It announced an agreement to purchase ITA Software, a leading provider of flight information (fares, schedules, availability) to most of the key online travel sites, travel search engines, and airlines. ITA’s existing customers include Bing, Orbitz, Kayak, Expedia’s Hotwire, Continental, US Airways, American Airlines, and Southwest.

The MDM giant is doing home energy management. It’s not fancy, but people like it.