Decent piece about the problems startups might face in exiting via trade sale (ie, being acquired), even if the economy picks up.
First, accounting: most startups don't do it very well, but most acquirers value it a great deal. Second, more interesting, deal complexity: many ventures funded in the last few years incorporated all sorts of arcane liquidation preferences and other rights schemes. So anyone buying them faces steep transaction costs just in understanding what they're getting.
The article also notes something else that's veeery interesting: that there's a market failure for seed funding in the States, because of the way the risk capital market is structured.