Our life is increasingly dominated by screens. Giant screens in public spaces; TVs everywhere in bars and restaurants; everyone standing around and walking around with their faces in their phones; watches, glasses and goggles with screens built-in, etc. "Screen time" is a thing.

Screens are amazing: full of information and entertainment. But they are also exhausting and over-stimulating.

It feels to me that, one way or another, we're poised to experience some amount of cultural backlash against so many screens. I can already start to sense it, as I spend time with my teenage kids -- while they are certainly on screens quite a bit, I can tell that they realize that it's a lot, and they seem to actively seek out escapes from the screen (as much as they understand that the screen can be an attractive escape from the real world).

In particular, I'm curious about digital interfaces that manage to capture the value & utility of being connected, but strike a different tone in terms of experience.

For example, I've been experimenting with the Meta Ray-Ban glasses for a while now, and while they aren't perfect, the experience of taking a photo or video without sticking my face in my phone is refreshing. That said, smart glasses are also clearly a step towards a more immersive, rather than less immersive tech experience, which has other potential drawbacks.

In terms of more visually interactive devices, the Kindle is probably the most successful example of this kind of "low-fi" computing. While it's also not perfect, and I still personally prefer to read a paper book, it doesn't scream "I AM A COMPUTER" quite the way other tablets do, and there's just something about the posture of reading on a Kindle (compared to a phone, for sure) that just feels more healthy and nature.

I am curious to see whether such an approach could work for other kinds of products that come closer to the experience of phones and tablets. I was surprised to learn recently that the ReMarkable tablet has sold over 1mm units (that's a 2021 number, so it must be materially larger now). I tried an early version and didn't have a great experience, but I've always liked the idea. I've been following the development of the Techless phone which is a Kindle-like "dumb phone" targeted at teens, but haven't tried it yet, as well as the Daylight tablet, where I'm currently waiting on a pre-order. I'm somewhat more skeptical of the Techless approach which would seem to position the low-fi item as a "starter" phone, and am somewhat more drawn to the Daylight approach which positions low-fi as "premium".

I'm excited to see more experiments in low-fi computing, and am very curious to see which form factors and user experiences prove to be appealing to mass audiences.

Photo: Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Passengers reading in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.30D (link)

It's such a cliche to say that "less is more" but it's so often the case.

We often advise companies we're talking to to raise less money than they otherwise might. Raising less now typically means less dilution. It can also mean more focus. Often times, raising too much means spending too much, or growing the team faster than makes sense, ultimately slowing things down.

Often times doing less means accomplishing more. What I mean by this is: doing something "perfectly" or "bigly" or whatever, often adds pressure, which can often lead to accomplishing less. This is the "perfect as the enemy of good" version of more. I most often see this expressed in forms like, we are encouraging our analysts at USV to write blog posts or develop internal decks/memos more quickly with less pressure, to get them out in the world and get feedback. My partner Jared encapsulates this well in Shitty First Drafts. This is also the theory behind Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). Often times, waiting to do more results in accomplishing less (and feeling worse along the way).

More stuff also means more responsibility. More pressure, more weight, more cost, etc etc. I'm definitely not a Marie Kondo minimalist, but I do understand this point of view. While I love stuff, I also like to pack light.

I'm writing this now mostly as a reminder to myself about how much I value this overall approach.

I was sitting with an investor friend earlier this week, describing the kinds of things that USV likes to invest in. She asked if USV invested much in SaaS (Software as a Service), and I said no, not really. But yes, in certain cases, especially where there is a network to be had, and I mentioned that one kind of network we like to invest in is a system-of-record style network.

The canonical example is our portfolio company Carta, which is certainly SaaS, but really, it's system-of-record, grounded in ownership interests (starting with equity ownership in startups) as the foundation record that binds the system together. From there, many stakeholders can engage and collaborate, all based on the shared interest in the records at the heart of the system.

Since the beginning of USV, we have always asked the question: "is this a tool, or can it become a network?" In the early days of Carta (f/k/a eShares), you could look at it as a tool for managing cap tables, or you could look at it as a network of assets and stakeholders.

The system-of-record network effect is also at heart of why blockchains are interesting. They are, by definition, ledgers that track the relationship between digital assets (money, date, etc) and a wide variety of stakeholders.

With any system of record, the more data and records that the system holds, and the more stakeholder identities that interact with it, the more valuable it gets. It's no surprise that the enterprise ERP systems (eg., SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Salesforce, etc) that form the systems-of-record for most large companies are extremely highly valued and long-term durable.

Perhaps all of this is obvious. But it has proven to be a helpful frame for us as we continue to consider software applications in a wider variety of contexts. For example, CarbonChain is building a system-of-record around carbon accounting, and Odyssey is building a system-of-record around financing and operations of distributed energy resources in emerging markets.

Becoming a system of record is not easy -- it requires placing oneself at the center of someone else's workflow and digital life. Open source solutions (e.g., blockchains) are well suited to it because bring a high level of transparency and trust. Digitizing an asset type that was previously analog and making it 100x more useful is another way to generate enough momentum to get there.

And with that, I will hit publish, and as I do so, this post will get recorded -- permanently -- in the arweave blockchain which provides the system-of-record datastore for this blog!

Cover Photo by blocks on Unsplash

The middle of a crypto (and broader financial) market meltdown is perhaps an apropos moment to introduce my second podcast guest: Muneeb Ali, the co-founder of Stacks.

Stacks is a "Bitcoin L2", meaning a system for scaling and expanding the usefulness of the bitcoin network, by making it less expensive and more programmable.

The "Slow Hunch" that Muneeb has followed for over a decade is the idea that blockchain networks can and will be used for more than just financial transactions.

USV invested in the the precursor to the Stacks project back in 2014 -- at that time, the focus was a project called OneName, which can be thought of as an "app" (for digital identity) on top of what would become the Stacks "platform".

We believed then, as we do now, that cryptonetworks and blockchain technology are not just financial technology but also "internet" technology and will, over time, change the way that many internet applications are built.

This has indeed been a slow hunch so far. In 2014, the technology infrastructure was so far away from supporting consumer use cases in a smooth way. One could argue that that's still true today, a decade later -- though the advances, especially in the last 2 years, have been remarkable.

Aside from the "if" of this slow hunch, there is the "how". In 2015, Ethereum launched on very much the same thesis of a highly programmable blockchain. And over the years since, it has used an "L2" (aka Layer 2) approach to scaling -- with a highly secure, but slow and expensive base layer, paired with an ecosystem of faster/cheaper L2s on top.

Where the Stacks project has differed is in this approach -- believing that Bitcoin makes more sense as the base layer, given its simpler approach and more reliable security. Muneeb and the Stacks team believe that this approach is more consistent with the "stack" of internet protocols, built around the highly simple, but extremely durable, IP protocol.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Muneeb.

Get the episode on Spotify / Apple / RSS / Youtube

Today I'm excited to introduce two things:

1/ I'm starting a podcast series along the same theme as this blog. The Slow Hunch Podcast will dive into the twists and turns, ups and downs, near misses, minor miracles, and personal plights behind the stories of "overnight successes", big breakthroughs, and ideas that in hindsight seem obvious but weren't always that way.

2/ Could not be more thrilled to welcome my first guest on the pod, my old friend Fraser Kelton.

Fraser and I first worked together a decade ago when USV invested in his last company Koko: an AI company focused on mental health that was ultimately acquired by Airbnb. My time working on the Koko board was a major introduction for me to the ML / AI tools & techniques of that earlier era. During Fraser's time at Airbnb, OpenAI released their seminal research that paved the way for what we now think of as modern AI / LLMs. Inspired by this advance, Fraser joined OpenAI as Head of Product and was part of the team that launched ChatGPT and changed everything. He's now a partner at Spark Capital, on a mission to support founders on their journeys of discovery.

I hope you enjoy the conversation. You can find the podcast here, which includes links to Apple and Spotify for audio. And you can find the full video conversation on Youtube, and embedded below.

A few months ago, I started working with a coach, which is something I probably should have done a long time ago. We recommend it broadly for CEOs/leaders in our portfolio for a reason.

Last week, we were talking about my strengths and weaknesses, and Alisa suggested something simple, yet profound, which was: looking for ways to move things that I know to be weaknesses into the strengths column, by changing how I approach them.

In my case, I tend to be stronger at collaborative work, and somewhat weaker at solo work (this is a generalization but a decent enough one for these purposes). Said differently: I really give and gain a lot of energy when working collaboratively / live on things with others, and have a harder time prioritizing and motivating on things totally on my own.

So, one way to handle that knowledge is to work on ways to improve directly on those solo things -- for example, by blocking time on the calendar more effectively, making better use of AI tools to speed certain tasks up, etc. It's obvious to begin by focusing in this direction, which you could bucket as the "strengthen the weakness" approach.

A perhaps less obvious approach would be to "move the weakness to a strength".

For example: every quarter at USV we update our internal valuations of all of our holdings, and each partner does this independently for the investments they manage. For no good reason, I tend to fall behind on this and do it at the last minute, and it's annoying for everyone.

Today, I got on with one of our fantastic finance team members, and together we went through my list. This had a multi-part benefit: 1/ it got done, and quickly; 2/ by doing it together, we actually investigated a flagged a few things that required follow-up from others on our team and 3/ it was fun.

So, what we have decided to do going forward is: rather than the finance team bugging me to remember to do these myself each quarter, we're just going to pre-book a 30 minute call to do it together, which will be a much better approach for all the reasons I mentioned above.

In this particular case, I feel so so lucky to have the benefit of an amazing team at USV, where I can really leverage this particular strength area (not just my own, but ours as a team).

But regardless of the particulars of any person's strengths and weaknesses, I'm intrigued by this idea that in addition to just focusing on improving our weaknesses, we can also look for opportunities to replace a weakness with a strength, and that may end up being the more realistic / effective path.

We are living in a wild moment as it relates to the intersection of computing and humanity.

I have been thinking of it in terms of the “superpowers” we are about to unlock. (For the moment I’m mostly thinking about personal/consumer superpowers, vs more systemic or industrial)

Broadly, I think if two categories of superpowers: AI and crypto.

The AI superpowers are more immediately tangible, and include:

• Talking (via voice, chat or otherwise) to computing devices of all kinds and getting a crisp, informed answer

• Not having to worry about how or where your personal information is stored, yet being to access all of it seamlessly and instantly

• Having super high quality help immediately available for nearly any task

Crypto superpowers are a bit less visible, and many of them may not fully kick in on a consumer level until there are more established network effects, but they include:

• Being able to digitally transact, seamlessly across apps, products, and borders. This spans all types of “transactions” — payments, earning, social gestures, etc

• Related: Having a digital identity that works seamlessly across apps, services, protocols and borders -- and that is "owned" by you directly

• Having the ability to discern the provenance of certain pieces of data and content (eg via zero knowledge proofs and other forms of cryptographic attestations) — will be increasingly important with more AI!

Interestingly, AI and crypto superpowers have something in common: they both increase interoperability and composability of digital system, artifacts and assets. But another way: they both break down annoying digital silos, albeit in different ways. AI connects digital systems because language (via LLMs) is the ultimate interoperability base layer. Crypto connects digital systems by putting digital identity in the hands of the user, and by the open source automation of digital interactions (aka smart contracts)

I am so excited for both of these paths to continue developing — in parallel and then together.

I’m not one to make big annual predictions, but one thing that seems likely to me is that 2024 will mark the emergence of mainstream apps powered by crypto that are less “crypto-native” and more “crypto-enabled”.

By “crypto-native”, I mean apps & experiences where the crypto is the main point, and where a large part of what’s going on is the road-testing of crypto-economic and decentralized computing primitives. You could characterize most of what has gone on over the last 10 years as largely “crypto-native” explorations: defi, mining/validating, DAOs, MEV, minting & trading NFTs, various hacks, exploits and shenanigans. Basically a decade of exploring the adjacent possible now that we have an ability to build trustless, permissionless, autonomous computing systems with native assets. This has been incredibly important because these systems are both powerful and complex, with tremendous possibility but also many new failure modes.

I believe we will now begin to see more “crypto-enabled” applications. These are applications that not only built on crypto, but could only be built because of crypto. And also where the crypto plays a supporting rather than a leading role. Crypto-enabled applications will, on the surface, look and feel like traditional web 2 applications, but they will have super powers. Examples of this will include international payments on stablecoin rails, marketplaces of all sorts (lending, ride sharing, crowdfunding, etc) where the financial mechanics are on-chain, transparent and open to all, loyalty w digital assets & financial rails baked in, and web3-native media & social applications where users have more control over and economics in their digital output. Given the recent advances in scaling (fast and cheap L1s and L2s), security (transaction scanning, insurance), and user experience (cloud wallets, account abstraction), it’s now possible to build these kinds of applications.

I’m excited to see what will be built in the “crypto-enabled” area. I think these applications have the potential to both re-architect digital experiences in ways that provide new benefits to all participants, and also to help advance a more positive narrative about what crypto can make possible.

Many years ago, when I had just started working at USV, I remember there was kind of a complicated situation that unfolded in a seemingly bad way, and I'll never forget what Brad said in response. He said:

you never know when you've had a bad day

I didn't really understand what that meant, so he told me a story that went something like: back around the year 2000 at the height of the dot-com boom, there was a guy who was a senior exec at a successful startup. That person had a falling out with leadership and was called into the office and asked to leave. He was surprised and upset, but there wasn't much he could do; they had decided. As part of the exit package, the company also agreed to buy out his vested shares, I believe at some discount to the current price at that time. It felt like cold comfort but of course he went along with it. But mostly he was out of a job and upset that it didn't work out.

Then fast forward a few months, the bubble popped and the stock tanked. I'm not sure what happened to the company, but I think the idea is that it essentially went to zero.

So in hindsight, that "bad day" turned out to be an amazing day.

I think about that story a lot, especially when markets are volatile, as they are starting to be again now.

I've written a lot over the years about this idea of "the slow hunch" -- my favorite idea from Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From. The idea is basically that big ideas don't come in a single "aha" moment, but rather, accrete over time. And many of the great thinkers / doers of the world have kept various forms of notebooks that they continuously re-read to piece together insights that gradually emerge.

The practice of doing this in a digital age has actually gotten harder, not easier, as one's digital thought process tends to be fragmented across many sources (email, google docs, social media, text files, blogs, etc). Speaking personally, it's a hot mess -- I have not been at all consistent about keeping these things in any kind of manageable place, such that the goal -- the ability to go back and reference prior ideas easily -- has been manageable. Things get lost, platforms change, links break, etc.

There are two innovations today that I think have the ability to help with that:

1/ the permaweb. This post will be forever stored on arweave, which means that no matter what happens (for instance losing control of my domain name, ugh) this content will be archived and accessible.

2/ AI language tools including LLMs -- the ability that these give us to synthesize text from disparate sources is incredible. I can imagine a point in the near future where I have an AI bot of some kind that has read all of my email, notes from various platforms, archives, etc etc etc and drawn it into one queryable place that can really help de-frag and synthesize my own thinking.

I am excited about a world where new digital technologies make it easier to turn fragments of thought into more coherent and durable ideas. Sadly, the last 15 years or so has perhaps made this worse. But I'm hopeful that the tools in front of us now have some potential to make it better.