Policy, 2017.
Regulation 2.0, trust & safety, net neutrality, the law catching up
- Who should police content on the Internet?
The beauty, and the danger, of the internet is that it’s open to everyone. Anyone can put up a website, about pretty much anything. This “open platform” is an amazing thing, and means that innovation can come from all corners, without barriers or gatekeepers. It also introduces new challenges for...
- Regulating source code
As more areas of our economy become computerized and move online, more and more of what regulators need to understand will be in the source code. For example, take the VW emissions scandal: These days, cars are an order of magnitude more complex, making it easier for manufacturers to hide cheats amo...
- Aligning purpose and strategy: Cloudflare goes nuclear on patent troll
Last week, I was in Amsterdam at the Next Web conference, giving a talk about “Purpose, Mission and Strategy” — how companies can strengthen the connection between these to align efforts and make tough calls more easily (will post video when it comes online). From that talk: The idea here being tha...
- Flexing the platform for good
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been touching base with many companies and individuals in the tech sector to understand how they are reacting to the current political environment. Every company and community (of users, customers) is different, with its own sensitivities, priorities, and goals. So it’...
- Cycles
It’s clear that right now we are in a moment of upheaval and turbulence, that seems to have come upon us very quickly. Pretty much everyone I know has been wrestling to unpack this for the past several months. I’ve been trying my best to understand the worldview of Steve Bannon, who is clearly an… ...
- The Public Data Layer
I have been thinking a lot lately about the increasing importance of the “public data layer” — meaning, data that we will need (“we” applied broadly, meaning the general public, NGOs, government, scientists, journalists) to make sense of what’s going on in and increasingly busy, but increasingly qua...
- Experience ↔ Design ↔ Policy
People often ask me how I ended up working in venture capital, and more specifically in a role that deals with policy issues (“policy” broadly speaking, including public policy, legal, “trust & safety”, content & community policy, etc.). Coming from a background as a hacker / entrepreneur with an u...
- Unintended Consequences
I’ve been struck recently by the power and surprise of unintended consequences. For example, a recent Slate article digs into flip side of the life-saving potential of automated vehicles: our reliance on car crash deaths for organ donors: “An estimated 94 percent of motor-vehicle accidents involve s...