peHUB First Read

* Top 10 reasons why entrepreneurs hate lawyers * Barry Ritholtz rips apart a NYT piece about a recent lack of Silicon Valley IPOs. * Rick Carew: "The world's biggest private-equity firms are coming to the conclusion that they need local money to compete for deals in China. But new rules being circulated by some Chinese officials suggest local-currency funds won't prove the panacea for all that ails private equity there." * Morning Call: U.S. futures mixed ahead of Citigroup earnings, London falls early, European shares retreat, the Nikkei loses 0.8% and Hong Kong shares rebound. * Fred Wilson: Somewhere between M&A and VC is DST. * Mark Giemen: P2P lending is much riskier than people think. * Phineas Barnes: Junior VCs are gatekeepers who add friction to the system * Author of popular book on gullibility lost 30% of his retirement savings to Bernie Madoff. * Steve Syre: The Houghton Mifflin situation is a textbook case of debt overload and very bad timing.