The Slow Hunch by Nick GrossmanThe 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...
The Slow Hunch by Nick GrossmanFrom 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 ...
The Slow Hunch by Nick GrossmanYou 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 ...
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The Slow Hunch by Nick GrossmanThe 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...
The Slow Hunch by Nick GrossmanFrom 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 ...
The Slow Hunch by Nick GrossmanYou 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 ...
Subscribe to The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman
>1.2K subscribers
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
There is a practically non-stop flow of threats to the Internet. That's because the Internet is fundamentally empowering and therefore also threatening to those whose power is diminished. This week, there are two big things on the forefront, which my colleague Albert has written up today. Both issues -- how the US protects (or sacrifices) individuals' privacy on the web, and how the internet is fundamentally governed -- are super important. In particular I am concerned about privacy -- I suspect that most people really have no idea quite the extent to which companies and governments are tracking their every move. And I suspect that this issue is going to go mainstream in 2013. It's an issue that both governments and the private sector need to really get right -- on the private side, in order to earn the trust of customers, and on the public side in order to ensure a free society. Vanishingrights.com does a great job describing what's at stake with privacy reform (in this case, the Electronic Communications Protection Act). This quote particularly stood out to me:
So, I encourage anyone reading this to think about both of these issues and why they're so important, and take a moment to call your representatives. Separately, with the help of the inimitable Mike Masnick I have started a hackpad to keep track of "networks under threat" - a timeline history of public conflicts between new networks and the incumbent hierarchies they threaten (think: Coursera being banned in Minnesota, AirBnB being banned in NYC, etc.). Feel free to hack on that with us!
There is a practically non-stop flow of threats to the Internet. That's because the Internet is fundamentally empowering and therefore also threatening to those whose power is diminished. This week, there are two big things on the forefront, which my colleague Albert has written up today. Both issues -- how the US protects (or sacrifices) individuals' privacy on the web, and how the internet is fundamentally governed -- are super important. In particular I am concerned about privacy -- I suspect that most people really have no idea quite the extent to which companies and governments are tracking their every move. And I suspect that this issue is going to go mainstream in 2013. It's an issue that both governments and the private sector need to really get right -- on the private side, in order to earn the trust of customers, and on the public side in order to ensure a free society. Vanishingrights.com does a great job describing what's at stake with privacy reform (in this case, the Electronic Communications Protection Act). This quote particularly stood out to me:
So, I encourage anyone reading this to think about both of these issues and why they're so important, and take a moment to call your representatives. Separately, with the help of the inimitable Mike Masnick I have started a hackpad to keep track of "networks under threat" - a timeline history of public conflicts between new networks and the incumbent hierarchies they threaten (think: Coursera being banned in Minnesota, AirBnB being banned in NYC, etc.). Feel free to hack on that with us!
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