Facebook is in the unique position today to face both the problems of centralization and decentralization. On its centralized core platform it is confronted with making content decisions, while on WhatsApp it struggles with slowing down the spread of rumors and calls for violence. Just to be clear, I have no sympathy for Facebook which has been arrogant about these issues and has put growth above anything else. Nonetheless everyone who is building new decentralized platforms would do well to ...

I was going to write a post today about how liquidity in financial markets goes down as concentration of holdings goes up but then I woke up to the news of the mass shooting in Las Vegas last night. I have written extensively before about the need for better gun control, so won’t rehash that today other than to note that the statistics for 2017 show already over 11,000 deaths year-to-date. What yesterday’s mass shooting does make eminently clear yet again though is just how much damage and tr...

I did not write directly about the death of Michael Brown although what happened in Ferguson was on my mind and I referred to it indirectly. I was not planning to write about the death of Eric Garner but then I saw a tweet last night that reminded me that if you do nothing in the face of violence and injustice you are contributing to it. So what will I do? My immediate action is relatively straight forward: assist in putting pressure on state and federal authorities to re-examine both cases a...

Facebook is in the unique position today to face both the problems of centralization and decentralization. On its centralized core platform it is confronted with making content decisions, while on WhatsApp it struggles with slowing down the spread of rumors and calls for violence. Just to be clear, I have no sympathy for Facebook which has been arrogant about these issues and has put growth above anything else. Nonetheless everyone who is building new decentralized platforms would do well to ...

I was going to write a post today about how liquidity in financial markets goes down as concentration of holdings goes up but then I woke up to the news of the mass shooting in Las Vegas last night. I have written extensively before about the need for better gun control, so won’t rehash that today other than to note that the statistics for 2017 show already over 11,000 deaths year-to-date. What yesterday’s mass shooting does make eminently clear yet again though is just how much damage and tr...

I did not write directly about the death of Michael Brown although what happened in Ferguson was on my mind and I referred to it indirectly. I was not planning to write about the death of Eric Garner but then I saw a tweet last night that reminded me that if you do nothing in the face of violence and injustice you are contributing to it. So what will I do? My immediate action is relatively straight forward: assist in putting pressure on state and federal authorities to re-examine both cases a...