Writing.
Essays since 2006, plus a few things first published at USV. Occasional by design. The podcast lives on its own page.
- Digital Bearer Assets
I spent time over the past few days with several entrepreneurs who are building crypto or “web 3” applications well outside of the financial space. One of the takeaways for me was of the important role that digital “bearer” assets will play in creating new experiences in web 3. By bearer assets, I m...
- Broadening Access
I spent the morning today at MTA headquarters, judging the “Accessibility” category of the NYC Transit Tech Lab competition, organized by the Partnership for NYC. Here is the view from the 20th floor of MTA HQ at Bowling Green: Ostensibly, the theme of the day was accessibility in the sense of thing...
- Form, Storm, Norm, Perform
I was out with some friends over the summer, one of whom is a college soccer coach, and we were talking about what it is that makes great teams great. I love talking to to coaches and people who have played for great coaches (just ask Ryan about how I always bug him for Coach… Continue reading
- The Discuss on Twitter WordPress Plugin
Discuss on Twitter is a WordPress plugin that uses Twitter as the commenting system for your blog. I’ve been developing it over the past few weeks along with Fred Wilson and Kirk Love as part of the launch of AVC 3.0 which went up yesterday. It’s currently live on this blog, as well as AVC… Continue...
- Iterating from Scratch
A few years ago I wrote about one of my favorite product sayings: “Half, Not Half-Assed“, which comes from my favorite book on product development & teamwork, Getting Real (from the team behind Basecamp). I actually first got hooked into this thinking when I saw one of the Basecamp founders, Jason F...
- Automated Personal Finance
Today I’m finally switching off of Capital One because of their broken integration with Plaid. For those who don’t know, Plaid is a service that makes it easy for apps to connect to your bank account. So, if you want to do anything interesting that your bank doesn’t offer (spending analytics, smart ...
- Write, and Go Outside
I am feeling reflective at the beginning of this new year, as often happens to me. Today and yesterday especially so, as the kids are back to school but USV is still on break, so I have a few really free days to catch up, reflect and think. I’m about to go out on a… Continue reading
- Getting Right for What’s to Come
Fred and Albert just posted their annual posts on predictions and issues to tackle for the coming decade. Both are great, and thinking about all that we will need to do to in the coming decade is both inspiring and intimidating. Before I can even think about those kinds of things and how to approach...
- Adversarial Interoperability
As I make my way through the various predictions & reflections that accompany the new year, one stands out: the EFF’s 2019 Year In Review, entitled “Dodging Bullets on the Path to a Decentralized Future“. I have long been disappointed that there have seemed to be two separate and parallel conversati...
- Slides: Crypto @ Harvard Kennedy School
Last week, as I have done for the last several years, I gave a guest lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The class is DPI-662: Digital Government: Technology, Policy, and Public Service Innovation taught by my old friend David Eaves and the topic in recent years has been on Crypton...
- 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 use to help ourselves know what to look for, and to help companies who fit into it to find us. Despite all of the… Continue reading
- CoinAlts Chicago: Fireside Chat w Sam McIngvale of Coinbase Custody
A few weeks ago at the CoinAlts conference in Chicago, I did a fireside chat with Sam McIngvale, CEO of Coinbase Custody. CoinAlts is a conference focused mostly on the institutional infrastructure around crypto assets — legal, accounting, custody, etc. So we started out talking about the evolving...
- Saying Sorry
As I turned to write this, I was in the middle of reviewing a document a friend had asked me to look at a little while ago. In somewhat typical fashion, I had not done it right away, and had basically forgotten about it until he pinged me again, and even then I didn’t get… Continue reading
- How to Read a Pitch
Yesterday, we had a team offsite at USV, which included a “presentation party” where a bunch of us gave 3-minute presentations on a variety of topics. It was actually a perfect window into everyone’s personality — Andy gleaned lessons about venture capital from music lyrics (of course), Albert talke...
- Building a culture of success
My son played in a baseball tournament this weekend. His team did well, and finished as the runner-up. The team that beat them in the finals played really well, but more importantly, it was obvious that they had a strong culture of success. From the moment they walked on the field, they had a notic...
- The Trust Equation
This week was the annual USV CEO Summit, one of my favorite moments of every year (remarkably, this was my 8th summit, and they seem to get better and better). The theme of this year’s summit was “Trust”, which, for those paying close attention, is the anchor of USV’s investment thesis 3.0. We have...
- Setting up a system
Like most people, I have struggled over the years to comes up with a organizational/productivity system that works for me. Disclaimer: I do not yet have it down perfectly, and am not claiming guru status. But I do have a few things that have worked pretty well, and I have noticed some things that ...
- The power of community
Community is a funny thing. It can sound like a fluffy word or concept, but it’s actually really powerful. Maybe more powerful than many things. Community is about helping people feel connected and aligned. When people are connected, they feel warm and good, and part of something bigger than thems...
- What decentralization is good for (part 3): growth
Picking back up the series on what decentralization is good for (part 1, part 2), today I want to focus on one of the most exciting aspects of decentralization: growth. In this case, when I say “decentralized”, what I really mean is “open and non-proprietary”. The two often go hand-in-hand. Ok, s...
- Changing your life
Just about 10 years ago, I had a migraine that lasted two weeks. I have never been in such pain; even an ER visit and a morphine drip didn’t touch it. Then, 6 months later, I had a stomach pain that just wouldn’t go away. Finally I went to the hospital, and it turned out… Continue reading