Following the publication of Jill Lepore’s “The Disruption Machine” and Clayton Christensen’s vigorous response in an interview there has been a healthy debate around the merits and even existence of disruption in many posts and tweets. I had been busy preparing for and then teaching a computer bootcamp for our children and some friends so I had mostly ignored this debate. It is of course highly relevant to my claim that we are at the beginning of a massive transition from industrial to infor...

I often talk to people about how the fundamental premise of our investing at Union Square Ventures is that the Internet is disrupting everything. Sometimes people ask whether that includes Venture Capital. I always answer: Of course it does! It would be more than a bit strange to assume otherwise. In fact, when I compare what it is like for an entrepreneur to fundraise today compared to when I was raising myself for the first time in 1996 it is already completely different. For starters, in 1...

Yesterday I tweeted out this fascinating chart about what has happened to newspaper advertising revenues: The chart comes from this blog post by a professor named Mark Perry. In the comments to the post there is a brief discussion that points to the shift away in classifieds to Craigslist and other outlets as a primary reason. I went to be shortly after tweeting that and couldn’t help but think about which industries are up next for that level of disruption. I believe a chart showing textbook...

I am supportive of the #occupywallstreet protest as an exercise of First Amendment rights. I too am frustrated with a financial and economic system that has made the rich richer, has hollowed out the middle class and has ever more American families living in poverty. I am, however, skeptical about the protests’ long term impact. While the protests may draw more media attention to the problematic role of very large banks, they are unlikely to contribute meaningfully to change given overall ins...

As I have been preparing for my talk in Edinburgh in August, I have been collecting examples of disruption. One that I am particularly fond of because so much has happened in the last 15 years are classified ads. Here is a brief history. Classified ads in the offline world were enormously profitable. They accounted for a significant portion of newspaper revenues and also supported some large standalone classified businesses, most notably a company called Trader that was a roll-up of paid and ...

I am very excited to be preparing for a talk at the Turing Festival in Edinburgh (last week of August). The subject, not surprisingly, will be “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet - how the Internet will transform business, government and society." I love that Vint Cerf used "You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” as his 5 word acceptance speech for the Webby Awards. To me it perfectly captures where we are with the Internet today and could be the unofficial motto for Union Square Ventures. Part of what I am doi...

In looking at consumer web services we often run across companies that are trying to please too many parties. A frequent pattern sounds like “we will partner with xyz for distribution | for content | for revenues” where xyz is a legacy company whose business model is being disrupted. Or should be disrupted by the startup in question, if it were successful. Our conclusion over the years has been that this is a difficult proposition to make work. You can’t create a truly disruptive experience t...

Bill Gurley has a must-read post up on how the $32B of affiliate fees will slow down the Internet disruption of the TV industry. I have one addition and one amplification for Bill’s excellent post. First, the addition. More than just supporting an existing flow of dollars, bundling is in fact not only a logical but even a socially efficient model for costly to produce content, such as TV shows. HBO has proven this point for years, but there is a great academic paper by Erik Brynjolfsson and Y...

Since we held the Hacking Education event last year, I have continued to look at education as an area that will be deeply disrupted by the Internet. I recently cited the $7B or so annual college textbook market as a prime example. One of the trends that will contribute to this disruption is the still small but growing movement against getting a formal college degree in the first place. I am excited to read Anya Kamanetz’s upcoming book DIY U which is all about this trend. Until it comes out, ...

Today’s post is over at the Union Square Ventures site on the challenge of creating native mobile applications. We are fascinated with the disruption that is taking place in mobile. The big question is what “native” applications will emerge based on the unique technical capabilities of the mobile platform and the emerging behaviors around those capabilities. Head on over there to read some of our early thinking. There are likely to be some big opportunites for startups!