Before coming to the US for the first time, I attended a long weekend orientation held by the organization that was arranging my stay. We were warned that we would feel homesick, and that we would experience culture shock.

I arrived in Rochester, Minnesota in 1983 at age 16. The wonderful Williams family welcomed me into their home. Bob was an engineer working on the AS400 chip at IBM's Rochester facility. Jeanette was a professional parliamentarian. Sandee and Scott, my host siblings, were a few years younger and attending middle school. I was a junior at John Marshall, the public High School in Rochester.

I had an absolute blast. At no time did I feel homesick (sorry, Mom and Dad). I reveled in the incredible optimism that I saw all around me. Whatever I wanted to attempt, there were people encouraging me. Learn how to type? Jeanette let me use her IBM Correcting Selectric II. Want to go on an AFL field trip but don't have money? Go sell citrus fruit. Can I join the discussion team? Try out. And after trying out successfully, come and compete with us all around Minnesota. Encouragement to go for it at every turn.

After an amazing year, I was excited to return to my home country of Germany to see my parents and spend time with my friends. But a funny thing happened upon my arrival back home. I experienced culture shock. What a strange country this, I kept thinking to myself. Why does everything feel so small? Why is everyone so critical all the time? (Aside: I have since then developed a lot of compassion for the intergenerational trauma that still lingers deeply in Germany.)

These days I like to joke that I was an American who happened to have been born in Germany. But joking aside, the US has given amazing opportunities not just to me but to many other immigrants who have come here over generations and built their lives here (some day I may fill in more of the story, such as coming back for college and then graduate school).

I just spent three days in the Bay Area, visiting seven hard tech companies (five of them in the USV portfolio). In each of them there was a spirit of can do, of building towards a better future, of grit and ingeniousness. Yes there are startups everywhere (and at USV we have invested in Europe and even in Asia), but only here in the US does the freedom to innovate feel like it is the very fabric of society.

This freedom allows us to envision and pursue a better tomorrow. Freedom is the engine of renewal. Gigi and I have been embarking on an endeavor of seeding what a post AGI future might be like. Together we have launched an effort we are calling Eutopia. A series of projects all aimed at planting seeds in the here and now, including a basic income pilot and a community learning center. Our work is inspired by imagining a future where physical capital is (nearly) free due to technological advances and where learning is pursued because of curiosity (instead of instrumentally).

Thanks to the Williams for making my first year in the US such a wonderful experience. Thanks to my parents for letting me spend a year here as a teenager. Thanks to Gigi, the love of my life, for being such an amazing partner in everything we do. Thanks to all the entrepreneurs building amazing companies. Thanks to everyone protecting the freedoms we so easily take for granted. 

Thanks to America for being such a special place. And today on the 4th of July, on Independence Day, is a great day to celebrate America. Here’s to inventing the future.

Happy 250th anniversary, America!