
The Butter Thesis
At USV, we talk a lot about our investment thesis. The USV thesis is a set of ideas that has guided our investing over the years. It is a tool we u...
From Crypto-Native to Crypto-Enabled
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 ...
You Never Know When You've Had a Good Day
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 good dayI 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 ...

The Butter Thesis
At USV, we talk a lot about our investment thesis. The USV thesis is a set of ideas that has guided our investing over the years. It is a tool we u...
From Crypto-Native to Crypto-Enabled
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 ...
You Never Know When You've Had a Good Day
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 good dayI 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 ...
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Matthew Yglesias has a good piece up this morning on the immigration debate in the wake of the Boston bombings. He points out that historically, as we’ve tightened our border lockdown, we’ve not decreased illegal immigration, we’ve just made the coyote industry more lucrative.
In my favorite line, he suggests that rather than tighten our lockdown, we should open up:
by far the best way to keep dangerous foreigners out of the country is to make it easier for nondangerous ones to enter.
In other words, the best approach is not lockdown, but antilockdown.
If you think about it, this counterintuitive thinking applies to lots of other issues, and particularly reminds me of the debate over piracy — e.g., the best way to decrease illegal downloading is not to make it harder to copy files, but rather to make it easier to buy & share them legally.
I am going to keep thinking of other issues where this kind of thinking applies.
Matthew Yglesias has a good piece up this morning on the immigration debate in the wake of the Boston bombings. He points out that historically, as we’ve tightened our border lockdown, we’ve not decreased illegal immigration, we’ve just made the coyote industry more lucrative.
In my favorite line, he suggests that rather than tighten our lockdown, we should open up:
by far the best way to keep dangerous foreigners out of the country is to make it easier for nondangerous ones to enter.
In other words, the best approach is not lockdown, but antilockdown.
If you think about it, this counterintuitive thinking applies to lots of other issues, and particularly reminds me of the debate over piracy — e.g., the best way to decrease illegal downloading is not to make it harder to copy files, but rather to make it easier to buy & share them legally.
I am going to keep thinking of other issues where this kind of thinking applies.
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