Part of the USV investment thesis is “Access to Knowledge”. To date, most of our investing in this area has primarily been around consumer learning platforms, like Duolingo, Quizlet, Codecademy, Outschool, Brilliant and others. These platforms are generally focused on acquiring and internalizing new knowledge.
There is another pillar of the Access to Knowledge thesis which we’ve explored less, but which is equally important: making better sense of the information we already have. We’re all swimming in oceans of information today, but turning that into useful, actionable, trustworthy knowledge is an elusive goal. This was the thesis behind our investment in Dune.
One very specific idea with this pillar is the goal of using technology to improve human memory. I see / hear / read lots of things every day. Many of them I can recall, many of them I cannot. I am constantly asking myself questions like: who was that person that said that thing? Or what was that company doing that thing? Or who wrote that article? Etc.
Our digital memory is currently stored in a few places. Email inbox, chat history, web browsing history, etc. Searching through those using existing tools is about the best we can do to leverage them. It’s not bad, but it’s incomplete and not always as helpful as it could be. I personally don’t think it’s good enough.
Part of the USV investment thesis is “Access to Knowledge”. To date, most of our investing in this area has primarily been around consumer learning platforms, like Duolingo, Quizlet, Codecademy, Outschool, Brilliant and others. These platforms are generally focused on acquiring and internalizing new knowledge.
There is another pillar of the Access to Knowledge thesis which we’ve explored less, but which is equally important: making better sense of the information we already have. We’re all swimming in oceans of information today, but turning that into useful, actionable, trustworthy knowledge is an elusive goal. This was the thesis behind our investment in Dune.
One very specific idea with this pillar is the goal of using technology to improve human memory. I see / hear / read lots of things every day. Many of them I can recall, many of them I cannot. I am constantly asking myself questions like: who was that person that said that thing? Or what was that company doing that thing? Or who wrote that article? Etc.
Our digital memory is currently stored in a few places. Email inbox, chat history, web browsing history, etc. Searching through those using existing tools is about the best we can do to leverage them. It’s not bad, but it’s incomplete and not always as helpful as it could be. I personally don’t think it’s good enough.
There are already some good tools in the market here. I remember back in 2011 when Greplin launched the first integrated personal search. Today, tools like Command-E and Slapdash offer a modern version of this. Tools like Heyday and Memex are offering a better view into your browsing history. This feels important. Tools like Grain and Scribe are making video meeting contents indexable (e.g, contributing them to our digital memory footprint). Tools like Roam Research and Logseq provide an active interface for building a web of memories (disclosure: I’m an angel investor in Logseq). For the right users these tools are magic, but I also think the active note-taking approach isn’t for everyone.
More generally, any application that sits in the web browser, on the mobile phone, on desktop OS, or has API integrations into the services we use could start to play this role. But getting the product experience right is a challenge. To date, probably my favorite example is the way google photo will prompt me to check out photos from this day 7 years ago, etc. I always hit that notification and take a little stroll down memory lane. There would also seem to be some easy wins here, especially when you start to cross reference memory from multiple sources. What was the article I read when I was talking to that person? What was that note I jotted down when I was on that trip? Etc. But point is: while the high level concept seems to be sitting right there, the ideal product approach still seems to be TBD.
Privacy & security are of course huge issues. We’re currently comfortable with some forms of our “memory” stored on computers and corporate servers (namely: emails, photos, web history, messages, etc). But pooling them all together and indexing them does feel like a step up in a way that may make people uncomfortable, and at the very least would require thoughtful approaches to privacy and security.
I think the market for Memory as a Service is potentially huge. Not just knowledge workers who process information for a living (though that’s a good wedge), but really anyone, if implemented the right way.
For the last 15 or so years, I've been blogging occasionally on this website. Unfortunately, towards the end of last year, I lost control of my long-term domain name, nickgrossman-dot-is (intentionally not linking to it here). This was a dumb mistake; I just missed the renewal notice and someone else claimed it. Painful lesson learned.
At the time, I was bummed but figured it would just be on me to rebuild SEO to the **real** Nick Grossman blog. But, oddly, the new registrant has taken the extra step of republishing fake versions of my old content on the site, presumably in an attempt to retain SEO the old posts. Notably, all of the content has been slightly modified -- just enough, I guess, to sidestep any takedown claims based on copyright infringement.
So, what started out as an annoying and unfortunate situation has taken a turn to something more ugly: at best, an attempt to farm some referral links; in the middle, a shakedown effort; and at worst, an attempt at some kind of slow-motion identity theft.
All of this has gotten me thinking about ways in which the new decentralized media stack can help address some of these problems.
While the focus on economics is really exciting, there has been less focus on the implications of the identity and perma-storage aspects of the stack. Identities on Mirror are Ethereum wallets, and all of the content is archived -- in a verified and permanent way -- in the arweave network.
What that means is that, for every post, there is a blockchain-verified, permanent, immutable, record of who published what, when. Data stored in arweave cannot be changed; it can only be referenced. Every post in Mirror creates a permanent, reference-able, linkage between the identity of the author, the time of publication, and the content of the post. You'll notice that every post has a footer that looks like this:
For my use case of a hijacked domain name and republished fake content: if I had published my original blog on Mirror/arweave, there'd be a permanent record of the real/original content. For that to matter, though, "the internet" would need to learn to trust & reference the archival version of content, not modified copies.
Of course, a version of this exists today with the Internet Archive, which is an invaluable resource (and presumably, the way the new owner of my domain scraped all the old content....). While the Internet Archive is an incredible resource, it has not yet become deeply linked with other forms of publishing and identity on the web. In the case of Mirror, given the native linking between on-chain identity and content, a vibrant ecosystem is much more likely to develop around this kind of verified content.
More broadly, verified content feels like an important primitive in re-establishing trust online. Deepfakes, identity theft, social media bots, etc -- these are all affronts to our sense of reality online, and our ability to trust platforms and people. Just as the economic aspects of Mirror have been at the forefront so far, they have also been for crypto broadly.
While it's true that crypto networks introduce new forms of economics (speculation, payments, crowdfunding, etc) -- the underlying feature that enables them is trust in data. Crypto assets have value because we trust the data systems that generate them. I am excited that we are now starting to explore applying these same concepts to a broader set of online assets -- critically important ones: identity and content.
One of my favorite things about crypto is that, every so often, your conception of what it is changes.
Bitcoin at first was "weird internet money" and then it was "a protocol" and then it was "digital gold". Ethereum is "ICOs", or maybe "DeFi", or maybe "Web3", or maybe all three, or maybe something else. Crypto wallets are a place to hold money, or maybe they're also your digital identity. Crypto protocols like Maker, Compound, Helium, Arweave and Uniswap are marketplaces, or maybe APIs, or maybe inverted companies, or maybe ecosystems, or all of the above. The IRS sees crypto as property, the SEC as securities, the CFTC as commodities, FinCEN as currencies. And on and on.
Point is, we are still very early in the process of learning how to think about crypto networks, let alone what we can build with them.
One area where I think we are going to see our conception of Crypto change dramatically over time is its relationship to energy.
The narrative today is, overwhelmingly: crypto mining (specifically: Proof-of-Work mining for Bitcoin and Ethereum) is a dangerously large consumer of energy. Where I expect the narrative to move to over time is: crypto mining is driving the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
To explain why, let's start with Iceland.
I'll never forget the first time I visited Iceland in 2012 with
There are already some good tools in the market here. I remember back in 2011 when Greplin launched the first integrated personal search. Today, tools like Command-E and Slapdash offer a modern version of this. Tools like Heyday and Memex are offering a better view into your browsing history. This feels important. Tools like Grain and Scribe are making video meeting contents indexable (e.g, contributing them to our digital memory footprint). Tools like Roam Research and Logseq provide an active interface for building a web of memories (disclosure: I’m an angel investor in Logseq). For the right users these tools are magic, but I also think the active note-taking approach isn’t for everyone.
More generally, any application that sits in the web browser, on the mobile phone, on desktop OS, or has API integrations into the services we use could start to play this role. But getting the product experience right is a challenge. To date, probably my favorite example is the way google photo will prompt me to check out photos from this day 7 years ago, etc. I always hit that notification and take a little stroll down memory lane. There would also seem to be some easy wins here, especially when you start to cross reference memory from multiple sources. What was the article I read when I was talking to that person? What was that note I jotted down when I was on that trip? Etc. But point is: while the high level concept seems to be sitting right there, the ideal product approach still seems to be TBD.
Privacy & security are of course huge issues. We’re currently comfortable with some forms of our “memory” stored on computers and corporate servers (namely: emails, photos, web history, messages, etc). But pooling them all together and indexing them does feel like a step up in a way that may make people uncomfortable, and at the very least would require thoughtful approaches to privacy and security.
I think the market for Memory as a Service is potentially huge. Not just knowledge workers who process information for a living (though that’s a good wedge), but really anyone, if implemented the right way.
For the last 15 or so years, I've been blogging occasionally on this website. Unfortunately, towards the end of last year, I lost control of my long-term domain name, nickgrossman-dot-is (intentionally not linking to it here). This was a dumb mistake; I just missed the renewal notice and someone else claimed it. Painful lesson learned.
At the time, I was bummed but figured it would just be on me to rebuild SEO to the **real** Nick Grossman blog. But, oddly, the new registrant has taken the extra step of republishing fake versions of my old content on the site, presumably in an attempt to retain SEO the old posts. Notably, all of the content has been slightly modified -- just enough, I guess, to sidestep any takedown claims based on copyright infringement.
So, what started out as an annoying and unfortunate situation has taken a turn to something more ugly: at best, an attempt to farm some referral links; in the middle, a shakedown effort; and at worst, an attempt at some kind of slow-motion identity theft.
All of this has gotten me thinking about ways in which the new decentralized media stack can help address some of these problems.
While the focus on economics is really exciting, there has been less focus on the implications of the identity and perma-storage aspects of the stack. Identities on Mirror are Ethereum wallets, and all of the content is archived -- in a verified and permanent way -- in the arweave network.
What that means is that, for every post, there is a blockchain-verified, permanent, immutable, record of who published what, when. Data stored in arweave cannot be changed; it can only be referenced. Every post in Mirror creates a permanent, reference-able, linkage between the identity of the author, the time of publication, and the content of the post. You'll notice that every post has a footer that looks like this:
For my use case of a hijacked domain name and republished fake content: if I had published my original blog on Mirror/arweave, there'd be a permanent record of the real/original content. For that to matter, though, "the internet" would need to learn to trust & reference the archival version of content, not modified copies.
Of course, a version of this exists today with the Internet Archive, which is an invaluable resource (and presumably, the way the new owner of my domain scraped all the old content....). While the Internet Archive is an incredible resource, it has not yet become deeply linked with other forms of publishing and identity on the web. In the case of Mirror, given the native linking between on-chain identity and content, a vibrant ecosystem is much more likely to develop around this kind of verified content.
More broadly, verified content feels like an important primitive in re-establishing trust online. Deepfakes, identity theft, social media bots, etc -- these are all affronts to our sense of reality online, and our ability to trust platforms and people. Just as the economic aspects of Mirror have been at the forefront so far, they have also been for crypto broadly.
While it's true that crypto networks introduce new forms of economics (speculation, payments, crowdfunding, etc) -- the underlying feature that enables them is trust in data. Crypto assets have value because we trust the data systems that generate them. I am excited that we are now starting to explore applying these same concepts to a broader set of online assets -- critically important ones: identity and content.
One of my favorite things about crypto is that, every so often, your conception of what it is changes.
Bitcoin at first was "weird internet money" and then it was "a protocol" and then it was "digital gold". Ethereum is "ICOs", or maybe "DeFi", or maybe "Web3", or maybe all three, or maybe something else. Crypto wallets are a place to hold money, or maybe they're also your digital identity. Crypto protocols like Maker, Compound, Helium, Arweave and Uniswap are marketplaces, or maybe APIs, or maybe inverted companies, or maybe ecosystems, or all of the above. The IRS sees crypto as property, the SEC as securities, the CFTC as commodities, FinCEN as currencies. And on and on.
Point is, we are still very early in the process of learning how to think about crypto networks, let alone what we can build with them.
One area where I think we are going to see our conception of Crypto change dramatically over time is its relationship to energy.
The narrative today is, overwhelmingly: crypto mining (specifically: Proof-of-Work mining for Bitcoin and Ethereum) is a dangerously large consumer of energy. Where I expect the narrative to move to over time is: crypto mining is driving the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
To explain why, let's start with Iceland.
I'll never forget the first time I visited Iceland in 2012 with
That was a head-scratcher for me at the time. But what he meant was: Iceland has vast amounts of accessible, inexpensive renewable energy in the form of geothermal. But you can't build power lines in every direction under the Atlantic. So instead of selling it directly, you convert the electricity into aluminum and you ship that around the world. In other words, you convert stranded renewable energy into value.
In a sense, the aluminum coming from Iceland is like a battery. What is a battery? A way of shifting both the location and the time-of-use of energy. Whereas live electricity (whether produced by coal, gas, wind or solar) must be used right then and there, electricity converted to aluminum can be used anywhere, anytime.
Dams are batteries; gasoline is a battery. And in a way, aluminum is a battery. Of course, while traditional batteries start and end with energy directly, aluminum's battery is economic, converting energy to value. And that value can be re-used elsewhere (even converted back into energy!)
Which brings us back to crypto mining. Crypto mining converts electricity into value, in the form of crypto assets (BTC, ETH, etc). Those assets, like the aluminum produced in Iceland, can then be moved, transferred and transformed. But unlike aluminum, which must be physically shipped to its final destination, crypto assets are programmable, and can move there instantly via an internet connection.
So, if we think of Bitcoin as a battery, what can we do with it? The key properties of Bitcoin's battery are: 1) always on and permissionless (no need to find customers, just plug and go) and 2) naturally seeking low-cost electricity: it will always buy when the price is right.
Given those properties, Bitcoin's battery can assist renewable builds (and electric grids more generally) in a number of ways:
Interconnection queues: when you develop new energy resources, you must apply to get them connected to the grid. Texas alone has over 100 GW of renewables in its queue. These queues can take years to clear. In the meantime, these assets could be online and earning Bitcoin.
Project finance: Renewable developers need capital to finance build-outs before they have customers. Bitcoin's battery is always ready to be the first customer.
Geographic issues: Sometimes the sunniest, windiest places are not the ones with the most customers, so it's hard to justify the development of new renewables. Bitcoin's battery solves this, becoming a "virtual transmission line" of sorts.
Timing & grid balance: Sometimes when the sun shines and when the wind blows is not when we need the most electricity. Yet, electric grids are marketplaces that must stay in perfect balance between supply and demand. Therefore, grid-connected renewables often have to "curtail" (turn off) if the are producing too much energy at the wrong time. Bitcoin's battery is ready to buy 24/7/365 when the price is right, and turning up and down as needed, and participating via direct power purchase agreements as well as via demand response programs.
Underperformance: Related to the timing & balance issues above, often times, renewables produce more energy than is needed on their grid, leading to subpar financial performance. Bitcoin's battery is ready to buy if no one else will.
Cleaning the grid: Even outside of renewable generation, Bitcoin's battery can help improve both emissions and the energy mix. For example, Crusoe Energy attaches efficient turbines and mining equipment to existing gas flaring sites, both improving emissions and converting energy into Bitcoin's battery. Taking this a step further, you could even then take those profits and reinvest them in on-grid renewables elsewhere, another twist on the idea of Bitcoin as a "virtual transmission line" (aka battery).
These are just high level ideas. There are many ways they could be implemented (power purchase agreements, feed-in tarrifs, contracts for differences, etc) -- those details are way above my pay grade.
While I am certainly an optimistic tech VC and not an expert on energy infrastructure, these are not just hand-wavy rosy ideas. Just recently the energy giant Aker announced a major Bitcoin-related initiative, Seetee. The shareholder letter where they lay out the vision is worth a read -- it's broader than the ideas I'm focusing on here, but indeed they describe Bitcoin as an "economic battery", and intend to use it to solve some of the problems I mention above, among others.
I believe the properties of Bitcoin's battery are powerful and profound, and will lead to the kinds of solutions I point to here. And as we have learned from our experience with this technology so far, that's certainly only the beginning of what will be possible.
That was a head-scratcher for me at the time. But what he meant was: Iceland has vast amounts of accessible, inexpensive renewable energy in the form of geothermal. But you can't build power lines in every direction under the Atlantic. So instead of selling it directly, you convert the electricity into aluminum and you ship that around the world. In other words, you convert stranded renewable energy into value.
In a sense, the aluminum coming from Iceland is like a battery. What is a battery? A way of shifting both the location and the time-of-use of energy. Whereas live electricity (whether produced by coal, gas, wind or solar) must be used right then and there, electricity converted to aluminum can be used anywhere, anytime.
Dams are batteries; gasoline is a battery. And in a way, aluminum is a battery. Of course, while traditional batteries start and end with energy directly, aluminum's battery is economic, converting energy to value. And that value can be re-used elsewhere (even converted back into energy!)
Which brings us back to crypto mining. Crypto mining converts electricity into value, in the form of crypto assets (BTC, ETH, etc). Those assets, like the aluminum produced in Iceland, can then be moved, transferred and transformed. But unlike aluminum, which must be physically shipped to its final destination, crypto assets are programmable, and can move there instantly via an internet connection.
So, if we think of Bitcoin as a battery, what can we do with it? The key properties of Bitcoin's battery are: 1) always on and permissionless (no need to find customers, just plug and go) and 2) naturally seeking low-cost electricity: it will always buy when the price is right.
Given those properties, Bitcoin's battery can assist renewable builds (and electric grids more generally) in a number of ways:
Interconnection queues: when you develop new energy resources, you must apply to get them connected to the grid. Texas alone has over 100 GW of renewables in its queue. These queues can take years to clear. In the meantime, these assets could be online and earning Bitcoin.
Project finance: Renewable developers need capital to finance build-outs before they have customers. Bitcoin's battery is always ready to be the first customer.
Geographic issues: Sometimes the sunniest, windiest places are not the ones with the most customers, so it's hard to justify the development of new renewables. Bitcoin's battery solves this, becoming a "virtual transmission line" of sorts.
Timing & grid balance: Sometimes when the sun shines and when the wind blows is not when we need the most electricity. Yet, electric grids are marketplaces that must stay in perfect balance between supply and demand. Therefore, grid-connected renewables often have to "curtail" (turn off) if the are producing too much energy at the wrong time. Bitcoin's battery is ready to buy 24/7/365 when the price is right, and turning up and down as needed, and participating via direct power purchase agreements as well as via demand response programs.
Underperformance: Related to the timing & balance issues above, often times, renewables produce more energy than is needed on their grid, leading to subpar financial performance. Bitcoin's battery is ready to buy if no one else will.
Cleaning the grid: Even outside of renewable generation, Bitcoin's battery can help improve both emissions and the energy mix. For example, Crusoe Energy attaches efficient turbines and mining equipment to existing gas flaring sites, both improving emissions and converting energy into Bitcoin's battery. Taking this a step further, you could even then take those profits and reinvest them in on-grid renewables elsewhere, another twist on the idea of Bitcoin as a "virtual transmission line" (aka battery).
These are just high level ideas. There are many ways they could be implemented (power purchase agreements, feed-in tarrifs, contracts for differences, etc) -- those details are way above my pay grade.
While I am certainly an optimistic tech VC and not an expert on energy infrastructure, these are not just hand-wavy rosy ideas. Just recently the energy giant Aker announced a major Bitcoin-related initiative, Seetee. The shareholder letter where they lay out the vision is worth a read -- it's broader than the ideas I'm focusing on here, but indeed they describe Bitcoin as an "economic battery", and intend to use it to solve some of the problems I mention above, among others.
I believe the properties of Bitcoin's battery are powerful and profound, and will lead to the kinds of solutions I point to here. And as we have learned from our experience with this technology so far, that's certainly only the beginning of what will be possible.
