* Sarah Lacy: Is Silicon Valley falling out of love with options?

* Steven Davidoff: Behind the increasing number of tender offers

* Mike Bloomberg says he’ll “stick by” pal Steve Rattner, including as a financial advisor. Guess it doesn’t matter that Rattner (still allegedly) was a participant in defrauding a public pension system, or that the SEC wants him temporarily banned from the securities market. Wonder if Bloomberg still believes the charges against Rattner are “ridiculous.”

* Morning Call: U.S. futures are mixed ahead of GE (GE) and Matel (MAT) earnings, London falls early, European shares flatten and the Nikkei sheds 0.9%.

* John Sculley talks Steve Jobs

* Howard Marks sounds the “second crisis” alarm

* One year later: Revisiting toxic asset purchases

* Venture capitalists invested just $4.8 billion into U.S. companies last quarter, representing a 31% decrease from Q2. Get all the data here.

* Harvard Business School is preparing to open an Innovation Lab

* Neil Weinberg: Rattner deal will show justice is corrupt, not blind

* Is Cerberus about to profit from an automotive investment?

* Connie Loizos saves me the trouble: Why Kleiner Perkins skeptics are about to eat crow

* Tweet of the Day: @BorowitzReport: To Boost Ratings, CNN Traps Eliot Spitzer in Mine

* Tweet of the Day II: @joshk .@danprimack – You have single-handedly ruined my ability to search through my inbox for the phrase “term sheet”.

* Sequoia Capital founder Don Valentine: “Target big markets”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw]