June 2012
17 posts
3 tags
Bayesian Probability and a Theory of Life...
On July 11 at noon I will be teaching my Skillshare class on Bayesian Probability and a Theory of Life again. I am really looking forward to doing so for a bunch of different reasons. First, I really enjoyed teaching the first one and it’s been way too long. Second, I get to test out some brand new Skillshare features that are still in limited beta. Third, all the proceeds will go to...
4 tags
Chrome for Android
Google has been showing off a lot of neat goodies at Google I/O. But the most interesting announcement as far as I can tell of the day is the availability of Chrome for Android. The existing Android browser is relatively wonky and not exactly fast. It also is surprisingly behind the iPhone browser in the adoption of some of the HTML5 javascript APIs. Chrome could really change this equation and...
3 tags
Tech Tuesday: Reserved Words
Just as a reminder, on Tech Tuesday I am currently going through what will be a pretty long cycle on programming. The overview post sets out a series of questions to be answered. The most recent posts on Variables, Constants and Literals and then on Data Types (Parts 1, 2 and 3) provide some of the basics for answering overview question 4 about how programs can refer to concepts as opposed just...
1 tag
Recognizing Alan Turing
This weekend marked the celebration of Alan Turing’s 100th birthday. Turing was one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century and made major contributions to cryptanalysis and started the theory of computability. He died shortly before his 42nd birthday from cyanide poisoning in what is widely believed to have been a suicide although some claim that it was an accident stemming from...
3 tags
Mobile Identity (Phone Numbers are Toast)
About 3 years ago, I wrote how phone numbers might be an important part of mobile identity. I started to change my mind on this last year. Now I am thinking that phone numbers may in fact much more rapidly be approaching the end of their useful life.
Why? Because of my recent experience in London with a data only SIM card. Having tired of crazy international roaming charges, I picked up a...
2 tags
Duolingo and Why We Need to Protect the Internet
Yesterday my partner Brad announced our investment in Duolingo. Duolingo is an ambitious attempt to provide free language learning and use all the work by the learners to provide a translation service. You can watch Luis von Ahn’s TED Talk where he describes the genesis of Duolingo from his work on Captcha and Recaptcha. The critical take away is that at the heart of Duolingo is the...
3 tags
Tech Tuesday: Data Types (Part 3)
This will be the third and final part of talking about data types as part of the programming cycle on Tech Tuesdays. Part 1 introduced the basic issue. Part 2 went under the hood and showed how explicit type declarations are one way to solve the problem. Today we will look at another approach and none of this will make much sense if you haven’t read the first two parts.
Last week I...
1 tag
My Slightly Odd and Yet Perfect Father's Day
I love what I do as a VC at USV. Being involved with many different companies each with unique opportunities and challenges is absolutely amazing. But it does mean that I have very little time to build things myself. So this weekend for Father’s day Susan and the kids gave me the best present ever: a full day of building stuff! Susan has an idea for a new service and I worked on an alpha...
3 tags
Cities, Venture for America and the Downtown...
Last night I went to a fundraiser for Venture for America here in New York. I am happy to report that the place was hopping and hopefully a lot of money was raised. Congratulations to Andrew Yang and his team for taking this from an idea just a short time ago to a well running organization.
The core mission of Venture for America is to get more young graduates excited about startups as a...
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Tech Tuesday: Data Types (Part 2)
Last Tech Tuesday we got started on data types as port of the ongoing cycle on programming. This post will not make sense without reading Part 1, so if you haven’t you should go back and do that now. We encountered the problem of “adding” two variables where one holds a number and the other holds some text. Today we will dig a bit deeper into this problem.
Let’s start...
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Speaking at Velocity Conf (Seeking Input)
Velocity is a great O’Reilly conference on web performance and operations and many of the devops attend each year. The theme for 2012 is “A Faster, Stronger Web.” I am honored to be giving a keynote there and what will likely be one of only a few non-technical presentations. Instead of talking about software and servers, I will focus on political and commercial threats and...
3 tags
Mind The Product (2012 and Always)
Foursquare’s new release was a big deal. I wrote yesterday about the courage it takes to make these kind of changes. Fred posted today about how he loves the “like” for check-ins. My personal favorite is the amazing new feed. I have already discovered several awesome lists and to-dos in the feed. I can now add those with a single click. Before the new release I might not...
3 tags
Foursquare's New Release
Huge kudos to the entire team at foursquare on today’s release. This is not just about the incredible amount of work that has gone into building the release (and for iOS and Android simultaneously to boot). It is primarily about what I have called the “courage of big changes.” This new foursquare release brings exactly the kind of big changes that take courage to make because...
1 tag
Wattpad!
Today’s post is over on the USV blog about Wattpad’s amazing growth and new round of fundraising. I am excited about about how they are re-imagining the book!
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Tech Tuesday: Data Types (Part 1)
Since it’s been a couple of weeks first off a quick reminder that we are in the middle of a Tech Tuesday cycle on programming. We left off learning about literals, constants and variables. If you don’t remember, now is probably a good time to briefly look back at it. As you do, you will notice that the examples involve both numbers, e.g. 42, and text, e.g. “Bill Gates.” In...
3 tags
Revisiting the Groupon-Google Deal That Wasn't
In December 2010 I wrote a post saying that Google shouldn’t buy Groupon but that it would be a good idea for Groupon to sell at the then rumored price of $5.3 billion with a $0.7 billion earn out. As of Friday’s close, Groupon’s market cap is $6.3 billion or 5% above what the full deal consideration would have been. So should they have sold back then?
It is still far from...
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China Impressions: Leapfrogging
All of my China impressions are to be taken with a fairly big grain of salt as I only spent 12 days there and was mostly a tourist. I am sure people who have been living there for years and/or have started businesses will be more reliable sources of information. With that caveat out of the way here is one of my most important impressions. China has the opportunity to grow its Internet sector by...
