Writing, 2015.
Essays since 2006, plus a few things first published at USV. Occasional by design. The podcast lives on its own page.
- OuiShare Rethink & Remix Barcelona: The Evolution of the Venture
I gave this talk at the OuiShare Rethink & Remix conference in Barcelona: Continue reading
- As Massachusetts ponders ride-sharing regs, where’s the data?
Today, hearings begin at the Massachusetts state house over how to regulate the budding ride-sharing / on-demand transportation industry (Uber, Lyft, et al). Adam Vaccaro over at Boston.com has a good summary of the various competing bills — a pro-Uber bill that welcomes new Transportation Network C...
- Introducing Quackpad – simple collaborative docs for teams using Slack
Every month at USV we have an internal hack day, where we work on various fun tech projects. We hack on USV.com, we build internal tools, we play with fun new hardware, try out new APIs, etc. It’s a nice change of pace, and an opportunity to get a little closer to the tech we… Continue reading
- Supporting workers in the gig economy
If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my years as a human, it’s that life is hard and people need help in order to make things work. That help can come in many forms: family, friends, co-workers, teachers, unions, healthcare providers, agents, assistants, coaches, therapists, strangers on the...
- Pain x Resistance = Suffering (the case for throughput)
For the past nine months or so, I’ve been seeing a therapist specializing in mindfulness. Perhaps the best decision I’ve ever made. One of the things we spend a lot of time talking about is resistance – everyone has their own quirks and issues, and that’s one of mine. The tendency to hit the brakes...
- Here’s the solution to the Uber and Airbnb problems — and no one will like it
It’s been a fascinating week to watch the war between Uber and the De Blasio administration play out. Not surprisingly, Uber ended up carrying the day using a combination of its dedicated user base and its sophisticated political machine. This is yet another very early round in what will be a long a...
- Brutal honesty delivered kindly
On my way to SF this week, I stopped over in Boulder, visited Techstars and then had dinner with Brad Feld, where got to talking about the dynamics inside and around venture firms. He has obviously been doing this for a long time, and for me, less of a long time (3-1/2 yrs at this point).… Continue...
- Shift Conference Croatia: The Cycles of Domination and Disruption
Two weeks ago, I traveled to Split, Croatia to speak at the Shift Conference, a large gathering of entrepreneurs and hackers from eastern and southern Europe. I had a great time meeting folks from that part of the world, and it was awesome to spend two days at the beautiful Croatian National Theatre...
- The Blockchain as verified public timestamps
Two weeks ago at USV’s annual CEO Summit, Muneeb Ali from OneName explained the blockchain in a way I hadn’t heard before, and which I thought was really helpful: the blockchain is time. That’s a somewhat abstract way of saying it, so more concretely we could say that: The blockchain is database of ...
- EEC Bilbao: Supporting Workers in the On-Demand Economy
I gave this talk at the EEC conference in Bilbao Spain this week: Continue reading
- The more things change…
Here’s a slide from 2009, when we were convincing transit agencies to open up their data, and then later building MTA BusTIme: And here’s one from yesterday, from a talk I gave at the Shift Conference (blog post to follow w more on that): Continue reading
- Regulation, the Internet way
Today at USV, we are hosting our 4th semiannual Trust, Safety and Security Summit. Brittany, who manages the USV portfolio network, runs about 60 events per year — each one a peer-driven, peer-learning experience, like a mini-unconference on topics like engineering, people, design, etc. The USV net...
- Where do web standards come from?
I’ve spent the better part of the last six years thinking about where web standards come from. Before joining USV, I was at the (now retired) urban tech incubator OpenPlans, where, among other things, we worked to further “open” technology solutions, including open data formats and web protocols. T...
- Wanted: email apology bot
Maybe we all live in the email anti-Lake Wobegon, where we’re all “worse than average” at email, in our own minds. One problem with email is the giant guilt pile it creates — the psychological consisting of the number of emails you know are in there that you have forgotten about, ignored, or missed....
- OuiShareFest Paris: Venture Capital vs. Community Capital
Photo: Rudy (Loïs) Pignot I am in Paris this week for OuiShareFest, and spoke yesterday morning during the opening session. OuiShareFest is in its third year as a large international gathering of folks interested in the peer/collaborative/sharing/networked society, put on by the community organizat...
- Anti-workflow: to-dos
A while back, I wrote about Anti-Workflow Apps — apps that solve problems for you without forcing you to adopt a workflow that you may never fully be able to adopt. Workflow apps (CRMs, to-do lists, project management tools) are super hard to drive adoption towards, as everyone works differently an...
- Dick Pics and Cable Company Fuckery
John Oliver has become the most important voice in tech policy (and maybe policy in general). His gift, his talent, his skill: turning wonky policy language that makes people glaze over into messages that people connect to and care about it. Last fall, he did took what may be the most boring, confus...
- Failure is the tuition you pay for success
I couldn’t sleep last night, and was up around 4am lurking on Twitter. I came across an old friend, Elizabeth Green, who is an accomplished and awesome education writer — you’ve probably read some of her recent NYT mag cover stories, and it turns out she has a new book out, Building a Better Teache...