I had an interesting experience today. As I was in the air on my way to San Francisco, I got a text from my Airbnb host saying that they had made a mistake and accidentally double-booked my room. I ended up taking their offer to cancel and booked a hotel room (at a steep increase in price). Then they asked if I would call Airbnb and say the cancellation was mutual, so that they wouldn't get "dinged". I didn't like that idea. Then, after I asked for a regular refund, and after some more back and forth, it appeared there was some confusion between my host and her assistant, and the room actually was available, and no I could not have a cancellation. This was a problem because my new room was already book, with no way to cancel without paying a big penalty. The whole situation felt fishy, scammy. I looked back in the reviews of the apartment, and I noticed a few other last minute cancellations (I hadn't looked super closely the first time). Texting with my colleague Bethany about it, we talked about the importance of writing a real review of the situation and processing a formal complaint through Airbnb. I thought: it's so great that Airbnb is there to handle disputes like this, to be the sheriff when people go off the rails and do shady stuff. I made the point that I needed a cancellation, and finally the host asked if instead of a formal cancellation, could I accept a paypal refund. I thought about this, and my first response was: no way -- I want this to go on the official record so this kind of shady behavior can't continue. Then, I remembered earlier in our conversations, when I first booked the apartment. In the instructions, the host suggested I tell the front desk I was a "friend", visiting (because, of course Airbnb isn't allowed in that building). In my mind, I played along just fine with that, happy to be complicit in our little ruse -- because the apartment looked great, and what's the big deal anyway. So, fast forward to our refund situation: now I no longer feel like I have any moral high ground to demand a formal close out -- in my mind, I was complicit in the shadiness when I was cool with fooling the apartment building. How is that any different than agreeing to sidestep the Airbnb platform rules? Just goes to show how difficult it is to build a real trusted environment. On the one hand, Airbnb does a fantastic job building trust and accountability using its platform. On the other hand, a wink and a nod on one end of the platform (renting an apartment where I shouldn't) makes it hard to really stand up for the rules on the other end (reviewing the host for bad behavior). Our chat in the Airbnb app ended with the host saying "U r nice person." Not sure how I feel about that.
I had an interesting experience today. As I was in the air on my way to San Francisco, I got a text from my Airbnb host saying that they had made a mistake and accidentally double-booked my room. I ended up taking their offer to cancel and booked a hotel room (at a steep increase in price). Then they asked if I would call Airbnb and say the cancellation was mutual, so that they wouldn't get "dinged". I didn't like that idea. Then, after I asked for a regular refund, and after some more back and forth, it appeared there was some confusion between my host and her assistant, and the room actually was available, and no I could not have a cancellation. This was a problem because my new room was already book, with no way to cancel without paying a big penalty. The whole situation felt fishy, scammy. I looked back in the reviews of the apartment, and I noticed a few other last minute cancellations (I hadn't looked super closely the first time). Texting with my colleague Bethany about it, we talked about the importance of writing a real review of the situation and processing a formal complaint through Airbnb. I thought: it's so great that Airbnb is there to handle disputes like this, to be the sheriff when people go off the rails and do shady stuff. I made the point that I needed a cancellation, and finally the host asked if instead of a formal cancellation, could I accept a paypal refund. I thought about this, and my first response was: no way -- I want this to go on the official record so this kind of shady behavior can't continue. Then, I remembered earlier in our conversations, when I first booked the apartment. In the instructions, the host suggested I tell the front desk I was a "friend", visiting (because, of course Airbnb isn't allowed in that building). In my mind, I played along just fine with that, happy to be complicit in our little ruse -- because the apartment looked great, and what's the big deal anyway. So, fast forward to our refund situation: now I no longer feel like I have any moral high ground to demand a formal close out -- in my mind, I was complicit in the shadiness when I was cool with fooling the apartment building. How is that any different than agreeing to sidestep the Airbnb platform rules? Just goes to show how difficult it is to build a real trusted environment. On the one hand, Airbnb does a fantastic job building trust and accountability using its platform. On the other hand, a wink and a nod on one end of the platform (renting an apartment where I shouldn't) makes it hard to really stand up for the rules on the other end (reviewing the host for bad behavior). Our chat in the Airbnb app ended with the host saying "U r nice person." Not sure how I feel about that.
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's been really interesting to understand the very wide range of contexts and positions that companies are taking. For instance, many tech companies have employee bases who skew left-leaning, but may also have user and customer communities that are very diverse (especially across red and blue states). And even those companies who may skew left internally, they are generally sensitive not to alienate any Trump supporters on staff. So it's complicated. As the white house continues to issues executive orders on issues like immigration that hit tech companies directly, and as issues like transgender rights -- that are outside the pocketbook interests but may intersect with a company or community's values -- come up, it feels as though companies are going to continue to be under pressure to take public stands. As this happens, one of the things I've been noticing is that some of the best ways to engage on issues are native to the platform -- meaning, rather than simply signing a letter, there can be more creative, powerful, and ultimately more straightforward ways to get involved. For example, our portfolio company Casetext, which builds a legal research tool that they sell to law firms, has offered free access to their platform for any lawyer working on civil liberties and civil rights issues:
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 ideological center of this administration. For those who've also been on that quest, I recommend an article from this week's Washington Post, Where did Steve Bannon get his worldview? From my book, written by historian Neil Howe. Howe, along with co-author William Strauss, in 1997 published The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny. This book has been a major influence on Bannon, and the gist is that history is neither linear nor chaotic, but rather cyclical. From the article:
"We reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic (too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of nearly all traditional societies: that social time is a recurring cycle in which events become meaningful only to the extent that they are what philosopher Mircea Eliade calls “reenactments.” In cyclical space, once you strip away the extraneous accidents and technology, you are left with only a limited number of social moods, which tend to recur in a fixed order."
Strauss and Howe define 4 "turnings" of the cycle, each lasting roughly 20 years: first a "High", characterized by collective energy (think: post WWII boom), second an "Awakening" where the next generation seeks higher values (think: 60's counterculture and the civil rights movement); third, an "Unraveling", where institutions are distrusted and individualism is high (think: 1920s and 1990s), and finally a "Crisis", where "institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up", in response to a perceived existential threat. For those of us at USV, this general concept of cycles rings true. The firm's original investment thesis was deeply influenced by the work of economist Carlota Perez, and her theory of "technical revolutions" as described in the book
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's been really interesting to understand the very wide range of contexts and positions that companies are taking. For instance, many tech companies have employee bases who skew left-leaning, but may also have user and customer communities that are very diverse (especially across red and blue states). And even those companies who may skew left internally, they are generally sensitive not to alienate any Trump supporters on staff. So it's complicated. As the white house continues to issues executive orders on issues like immigration that hit tech companies directly, and as issues like transgender rights -- that are outside the pocketbook interests but may intersect with a company or community's values -- come up, it feels as though companies are going to continue to be under pressure to take public stands. As this happens, one of the things I've been noticing is that some of the best ways to engage on issues are native to the platform -- meaning, rather than simply signing a letter, there can be more creative, powerful, and ultimately more straightforward ways to get involved. For example, our portfolio company Casetext, which builds a legal research tool that they sell to law firms, has offered free access to their platform for any lawyer working on civil liberties and civil rights issues:
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 ideological center of this administration. For those who've also been on that quest, I recommend an article from this week's Washington Post, Where did Steve Bannon get his worldview? From my book, written by historian Neil Howe. Howe, along with co-author William Strauss, in 1997 published The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny. This book has been a major influence on Bannon, and the gist is that history is neither linear nor chaotic, but rather cyclical. From the article:
"We reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic (too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of nearly all traditional societies: that social time is a recurring cycle in which events become meaningful only to the extent that they are what philosopher Mircea Eliade calls “reenactments.” In cyclical space, once you strip away the extraneous accidents and technology, you are left with only a limited number of social moods, which tend to recur in a fixed order."
Strauss and Howe define 4 "turnings" of the cycle, each lasting roughly 20 years: first a "High", characterized by collective energy (think: post WWII boom), second an "Awakening" where the next generation seeks higher values (think: 60's counterculture and the civil rights movement); third, an "Unraveling", where institutions are distrusted and individualism is high (think: 1920s and 1990s), and finally a "Crisis", where "institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up", in response to a perceived existential threat. For those of us at USV, this general concept of cycles rings true. The firm's original investment thesis was deeply influenced by the work of economist Carlota Perez, and her theory of "technical revolutions" as described in the book
What's so beautiful about this is that it doesn't involve taking a complicated political stand that runs the risk of alienating users or customers. Instead, it is completely aligned with the core mission of the company and value proposition of the platform. This reminiscent of Airbnb's offer to host refugees for free, which is similarly elegant and platform-aligned. Further, a risk in the current political environment is "outrage fatigue" -- the rapid fire nature of policy today is exhausting, and individuals are feeling buffeted by the constant news onslaught. So efforts like these are a nice counterforce, in the sense that they are proactive, constructive, and provide a longer-term basis of support for issues that matter. I'm on the lookout for more opportunities like these.
. Perez also describes a 4-part sub-cycle, with each overall "revolution" lasting roughly 80 years:
At USV, we spend a lot of time discussing this cycle, especially as it relates to the nature of the internet/tech market, and which parts are expanding and which parts are consolidating -- for example, we're clearly in the deployment phase with regards to the web platform and app ecosystem, while the blockchain may open the door to another market expansion. But the larger point here is that it absolutely feels like we are at a pivot point, one way or another -- a transition point in the cycle. My colleague Albert has chronicled this extensively on his blog and in his book World After Capital, where he argues that we are at the transition between the industrial era (where capital is scarce) and the information era (where attention is scarce). An important point that Carlota makes is that as each revolution sets in, it brings with it not only new technological underpinnings, but also a whole suite of cultural, legal and institutional changes:
"The new paradigm eventually becomes the new generalized ‘common sense’, which gradually finds itself embedded in social practice, legislation and other components of the institutional framework…”
Both Perez and Strauss/Howe note a period of "turbulence" between cycles -- and in the case of Strauss/Howe, this is more than just a momentary blip but rather the entire fourth "turning", which is crisis. This is the part that's so obviously scary -- of course, as the fundamental underpinning of the economy change, that changes everything, causing real trauma. Right now maybe that's expressed as immigration policy and nationalism, but really it's more about the impact of information technology on jobs and the economy. One thing I still don't have a clear read on is that Bannon's apparent effort to "deconstruct the administrative state" feels like an explicit attempt to hasten the development of the cycle, while the broader Trump campaign branding and agenda ("make America great again") feels like an attempt to slow down this transition, bring things back to how they were. It feels clear to me that the attempts to put the information era genie back in the bottle will be futile -- we have turned the corner to a global, connected world. But in the meantime, economic nationalism is a natural response to that, especially in lieu of a clear policy and political vision that embraces the connected world, but distributes the costs and benefits more equitably.
What's so beautiful about this is that it doesn't involve taking a complicated political stand that runs the risk of alienating users or customers. Instead, it is completely aligned with the core mission of the company and value proposition of the platform. This reminiscent of Airbnb's offer to host refugees for free, which is similarly elegant and platform-aligned. Further, a risk in the current political environment is "outrage fatigue" -- the rapid fire nature of policy today is exhausting, and individuals are feeling buffeted by the constant news onslaught. So efforts like these are a nice counterforce, in the sense that they are proactive, constructive, and provide a longer-term basis of support for issues that matter. I'm on the lookout for more opportunities like these.
. Perez also describes a 4-part sub-cycle, with each overall "revolution" lasting roughly 80 years:
At USV, we spend a lot of time discussing this cycle, especially as it relates to the nature of the internet/tech market, and which parts are expanding and which parts are consolidating -- for example, we're clearly in the deployment phase with regards to the web platform and app ecosystem, while the blockchain may open the door to another market expansion. But the larger point here is that it absolutely feels like we are at a pivot point, one way or another -- a transition point in the cycle. My colleague Albert has chronicled this extensively on his blog and in his book World After Capital, where he argues that we are at the transition between the industrial era (where capital is scarce) and the information era (where attention is scarce). An important point that Carlota makes is that as each revolution sets in, it brings with it not only new technological underpinnings, but also a whole suite of cultural, legal and institutional changes:
"The new paradigm eventually becomes the new generalized ‘common sense’, which gradually finds itself embedded in social practice, legislation and other components of the institutional framework…”
Both Perez and Strauss/Howe note a period of "turbulence" between cycles -- and in the case of Strauss/Howe, this is more than just a momentary blip but rather the entire fourth "turning", which is crisis. This is the part that's so obviously scary -- of course, as the fundamental underpinning of the economy change, that changes everything, causing real trauma. Right now maybe that's expressed as immigration policy and nationalism, but really it's more about the impact of information technology on jobs and the economy. One thing I still don't have a clear read on is that Bannon's apparent effort to "deconstruct the administrative state" feels like an explicit attempt to hasten the development of the cycle, while the broader Trump campaign branding and agenda ("make America great again") feels like an attempt to slow down this transition, bring things back to how they were. It feels clear to me that the attempts to put the information era genie back in the bottle will be futile -- we have turned the corner to a global, connected world. But in the meantime, economic nationalism is a natural response to that, especially in lieu of a clear policy and political vision that embraces the connected world, but distributes the costs and benefits more equitably.
