Children who were born on 9/11 2001 turn 18 today, officially becoming adults. We are approaching the point where this attack is effectively one generation ago. With growing distance we need to keep supporting those who lost friends, family, colleagues – as well as take care of first responders – while also becoming more dispassionate in our evaluation of our reactions to the events. We must revisit the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the forever-war in Afghanistan, Guantana...

Children who were born on 9/11 2001 turn 18 today, officially becoming adults. We are approaching the point where this attack is effectively one generation ago. With growing distance we need to keep supporting those who lost friends, family, colleagues – as well as take care of first responders – while also becoming more dispassionate in our evaluation of our reactions to the events. We must revisit the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the forever-war in Afghanistan, Guantana...

I recently recorded a podcast about the climate crisis where I made the point that we should not think about innovation versus activism, we need both. In fact the level and speed of innovation that is required if we want to have any chance, can only be achieved if we make massive changes at the collective level (e.g. a $100+ per ton tax on carbon dioxide). Earlier in this series about the climate crisis, I wrote about the growing youth movement, today’s post is about another rapidly growing m...

I recently recorded a podcast about the climate crisis where I made the point that we should not think about innovation versus activism, we need both. In fact the level and speed of innovation that is required if we want to have any chance, can only be achieved if we make massive changes at the collective level (e.g. a $100+ per ton tax on carbon dioxide). Earlier in this series about the climate crisis, I wrote about the growing youth movement, today’s post is about another rapidly growing m...

Here is an image of Grand Bahama Island being 60% submerged during hurricane Dorian – the outline shows normal land mass, the dark areas are the only ones not submerged.This is a grim vision of our collective future: massive storms and rising sea levels making large parts of the world uninhabitable. I have shared two papers which make the case that we are are super far behind on solving the climate crisis in an earlier post but am bringing them back up here as more people need to read them: h...

Here is an image of Grand Bahama Island being 60% submerged during hurricane Dorian – the outline shows normal land mass, the dark areas are the only ones not submerged.This is a grim vision of our collective future: massive storms and rising sea levels making large parts of the world uninhabitable. I have shared two papers which make the case that we are are super far behind on solving the climate crisis in an earlier post but am bringing them back up here as more people need to read them: h...

The majority of the 2020 presidential candidates on the Democratic side support a Federal Job Guarantee with Andrew Yang being the lone voice in favor of a Universal Basic Income. Both of these policies are aiming to address the changes taking place in the labor market as our automation capabilities improve. In my book World After Capital and here on Continuations I have been a vocal supporter of a Universal Basic Income. But what about a Job Guarantee? Before getting into the issues with a F...

The majority of the 2020 presidential candidates on the Democratic side support a Federal Job Guarantee with Andrew Yang being the lone voice in favor of a Universal Basic Income. Both of these policies are aiming to address the changes taking place in the labor market as our automation capabilities improve. In my book World After Capital and here on Continuations I have been a vocal supporter of a Universal Basic Income. But what about a Job Guarantee? Before getting into the issues with a F...

Imagine the following scene: alien spaceships in orbit around earth, dropping nuclear bombs into our atmosphere at the rate of 1 bomb per second with the goal of overheating earth and destroying all life on it.It is obvious what we would be doing. We would drop absolutely everything else and mobilize all of our resources to defeat the aliens. There are of course plenty of movie versions of that kind of scenario, such as Independence Day. So why are we complacent instead? Because (a) it’s not ...

Imagine the following scene: alien spaceships in orbit around earth, dropping nuclear bombs into our atmosphere at the rate of 1 bomb per second with the goal of overheating earth and destroying all life on it.It is obvious what we would be doing. We would drop absolutely everything else and mobilize all of our resources to defeat the aliens. There are of course plenty of movie versions of that kind of scenario, such as Independence Day. So why are we complacent instead? Because (a) it’s not ...

Of course Ethereum is not a walled garden the way AOL was. Anyone can write and deploy a smart contract, whereas adding functionality to AOL required a contract and a custom implementation. What I mean instead is that much of AOL’s growth in both revenues and functionality was financed by AOL itself. AOL made a lot of investments in startups which then purchased advertising on AOL, at least in the early days of this, extended AOLs functionality. The decentralized finance (defi) space, which i...

Of course Ethereum is not a walled garden the way AOL was. Anyone can write and deploy a smart contract, whereas adding functionality to AOL required a contract and a custom implementation. What I mean instead is that much of AOL’s growth in both revenues and functionality was financed by AOL itself. AOL made a lot of investments in startups which then purchased advertising on AOL, at least in the early days of this, extended AOLs functionality. The decentralized finance (defi) space, which i...

On Monday of this week the Business Roundtable, an organization which “represents chief executive officers (CEOs) of America’s leading companies,” published a new statement on the purpose of a corporation. The new statement, which was signed by 181 executives, explicitly states that “we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders” (emphasis mine). This is an important departure from the singular focus on shareholders as the focus that has dominated the American corporate landsca...

On Monday of this week the Business Roundtable, an organization which “represents chief executive officers (CEOs) of America’s leading companies,” published a new statement on the purpose of a corporation. The new statement, which was signed by 181 executives, explicitly states that “we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders” (emphasis mine). This is an important departure from the singular focus on shareholders as the focus that has dominated the American corporate landsca...

Today we have launched a new website for USV. It is the second complete overhaul of the site since USV launched with a blog in 2004 (modulo some smaller experiments with tagging in between). The new site is up to modern standards in terms of speed and rendering on mobile. More importantly though it does a better job laying out the evolution of the USV investment thesis over time. It also provides much better access to the content that’s been produced on USV.com as well as on our personal blog...

Today we have launched a new website for USV. It is the second complete overhaul of the site since USV launched with a blog in 2004 (modulo some smaller experiments with tagging in between). The new site is up to modern standards in terms of speed and rendering on mobile. More importantly though it does a better job laying out the evolution of the USV investment thesis over time. It also provides much better access to the content that’s been produced on USV.com as well as on our personal blog...

Thirty one years ago, in 1987, I landed at Boston Logan Airport with an F1 student visa to attend Harvard. I was full of excitement and not the least bit concerned about getting into the country. I had been here twice before, once staying with a family in Rochester, Minnesota for a school year (1983/84) and once in the summer of 1986 to tour schools all across the US. Each time entering the country had been a complete non event (other than long waiting lines). This past Friday, a 17 year old ...

Thirty one years ago, in 1987, I landed at Boston Logan Airport with an F1 student visa to attend Harvard. I was full of excitement and not the least bit concerned about getting into the country. I had been here twice before, once staying with a family in Rochester, Minnesota for a school year (1983/84) and once in the summer of 1986 to tour schools all across the US. Each time entering the country had been a complete non event (other than long waiting lines). This past Friday, a 17 year old ...

There are many terrific analyses of the WeWork IPO filing out there. One thing I have not read is someone pointing out how there is a possibility that this all works, despite the hokum language and the eye popping capital requirements, simply because we have created $3 trillion more dollars in the US alone (with equally massive central bank money creation in Europe and in China). On my blog I have been complaining about valuations as far back as I can remember but when interest rates approach...

There are many terrific analyses of the WeWork IPO filing out there. One thing I have not read is someone pointing out how there is a possibility that this all works, despite the hokum language and the eye popping capital requirements, simply because we have created $3 trillion more dollars in the US alone (with equally massive central bank money creation in Europe and in China). On my blog I have been complaining about valuations as far back as I can remember but when interest rates approach...