The latest Senate version of the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” has a stab in the eye for startups. It proposes to tax certain stock options and RSUs at the time of vesting. An earlier House version also contained this provision, but the House removed it. Startups are a key part of innovation. Often joining a startup means accepting a lower cash compensation for a higher potential upside. This upside usually comes in the form of stock options or other stock based compensation such as restricted stoc...

The latest Senate version of the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” has a stab in the eye for startups. It proposes to tax certain stock options and RSUs at the time of vesting. An earlier House version also contained this provision, but the House removed it. Startups are a key part of innovation. Often joining a startup means accepting a lower cash compensation for a higher potential upside. This upside usually comes in the form of stock options or other stock based compensation such as restricted stoc...

One of the problems with a relatively open platform such as Twitter is impersonation. I can claim to be somebody else, upload their picture to my profile and tweet away. This is particularly problematic for public figures and businesses but anyone can be subject to impersonation. Years ago, Twitter decided that it would “verify” some accounts. While a good idea in principle, Twitter’s implementation, sowed the seeds of the current mess. First, Twitter chose to go with a heavily designed check...

One of the problems with a relatively open platform such as Twitter is impersonation. I can claim to be somebody else, upload their picture to my profile and tweet away. This is particularly problematic for public figures and businesses but anyone can be subject to impersonation. Years ago, Twitter decided that it would “verify” some accounts. While a good idea in principle, Twitter’s implementation, sowed the seeds of the current mess. First, Twitter chose to go with a heavily designed check...

There was an interesting post on the YCombinator blog by Ramon Recuero about the evolution of blockchain protocols through forking and copying. The post does not mention the alternative possibility of binding voting as a mechanism for the evolution of blockchains. There are several projects, including the troubled Tezos, where the blockchain protocol will be able to evolve via on-chain voting. Voting is an important mechanism to be explored as an alternative to forking. In his famous treatise...

There was an interesting post on the YCombinator blog by Ramon Recuero about the evolution of blockchain protocols through forking and copying. The post does not mention the alternative possibility of binding voting as a mechanism for the evolution of blockchains. There are several projects, including the troubled Tezos, where the blockchain protocol will be able to evolve via on-chain voting. Voting is an important mechanism to be explored as an alternative to forking. In his famous treatise...

In today’s Uncertainty Wednesday we are putting some of the ideas from the last few weeks together: we are looking at the behavior of the sample mean of a fat tailed distribution. To do this we will again use a bit of Python code. Unlike our first sample mean example where we looked at the roll of a die, we will need some help here to draw samples from a more complicated distribution. Thankfully the Python ecosystem has the wonderful SciPy libraries, which if you don’t know already you should...

In today’s Uncertainty Wednesday we are putting some of the ideas from the last few weeks together: we are looking at the behavior of the sample mean of a fat tailed distribution. To do this we will again use a bit of Python code. Unlike our first sample mean example where we looked at the roll of a die, we will need some help here to draw samples from a more complicated distribution. Thankfully the Python ecosystem has the wonderful SciPy libraries, which if you don’t know already you should...

Over the holiday day weekend I did a lot of driving in a loaner Tesla (we have ordered one ourselves but it is, ahem, delayed). Well, actually, the car did a lot of the driving. I made extensive use of “Autopilot” features, including the smart cruise control and the autosteering. New cars by other automotive brands have similar capabilities. Long before getting to fully autonomous cars, I am blown away by how immediately transformative this experience is for highway driving. For me there were...

Over the holiday day weekend I did a lot of driving in a loaner Tesla (we have ordered one ourselves but it is, ahem, delayed). Well, actually, the car did a lot of the driving. I made extensive use of “Autopilot” features, including the smart cruise control and the autosteering. New cars by other automotive brands have similar capabilities. Long before getting to fully autonomous cars, I am blown away by how immediately transformative this experience is for highway driving. For me there were...

Today’s Uncertainty Wednesday will be quite short as I am super swamped. Last week I showed some code and an initial graph for sample means of size 100 from a Cauchy distribution. Here is a plot (narrowed down to the -25 to +25 range again) for sample size 10:And here is one for sample size 1,000:Yup. They look essentially identical. As it turns out this is not an accident. The sample mean of the Cauchy distribution has itself a Cauchy distribution. And it has the same shape, independent of h...

Today’s Uncertainty Wednesday will be quite short as I am super swamped. Last week I showed some code and an initial graph for sample means of size 100 from a Cauchy distribution. Here is a plot (narrowed down to the -25 to +25 range again) for sample size 10:And here is one for sample size 1,000:Yup. They look essentially identical. As it turns out this is not an accident. The sample mean of the Cauchy distribution has itself a Cauchy distribution. And it has the same shape, independent of h...

I have mentioned here on Continuations before that we have been home schooling our children. The main reason for doing so is to give them plenty of time to pursue their interests. Interest that over time can deepen into passions and have the possibility of ultimately providing purpose. For our son Peter one of those interests has been fashion. He has been learning how to sketch, cut, sow, etc. since age 8 and now at 15 has put together his third collection. This one is Men’s Wear and for the ...

I have mentioned here on Continuations before that we have been home schooling our children. The main reason for doing so is to give them plenty of time to pursue their interests. Interest that over time can deepen into passions and have the possibility of ultimately providing purpose. For our son Peter one of those interests has been fashion. He has been learning how to sketch, cut, sow, etc. since age 8 and now at 15 has put together his third collection. This one is Men’s Wear and for the ...

Two years ago I wrote a series of blog posts on board effectiveness tips. I am adding a new one today. If you have a large board, make sure you have a lead director. “What is a lead director?” you may ask. Informally speaking it is the director who makes sure that the board reaches consensus on important issues. Some companies formally elect director to the lead role, but this is uncommon for startups. Startups that have raised multiple rounds of financing can wind up with large boards with t...

Two years ago I wrote a series of blog posts on board effectiveness tips. I am adding a new one today. If you have a large board, make sure you have a lead director. “What is a lead director?” you may ask. Informally speaking it is the director who makes sure that the board reaches consensus on important issues. Some companies formally elect director to the lead role, but this is uncommon for startups. Startups that have raised multiple rounds of financing can wind up with large boards with t...

Just imagine for a moment the world we can easily find ourselves in. You love my series of blog posts called “Uncertainty Wednesday” but when you try to access it instead of seeing the content, you receive a notice from you ISP (the company you pay to access the Internet), that Continuations is not included in your current plan. You need to upgrade to a more expensive plan to see any content hosted on Tumblr. This is not some kind of far fetched hypothetical possibility. Without Net Neutralit...

Just imagine for a moment the world we can easily find ourselves in. You love my series of blog posts called “Uncertainty Wednesday” but when you try to access it instead of seeing the content, you receive a notice from you ISP (the company you pay to access the Internet), that Continuations is not included in your current plan. You need to upgrade to a more expensive plan to see any content hosted on Tumblr. This is not some kind of far fetched hypothetical possibility. Without Net Neutralit...

Super short Uncertainty Wednesday post today as I have a crazy busy week featuring our annual meeting (where we meet with our Limited Partners). The last few weeks we have been digging into sample means and expected values. We saw some surprising things already, such as random variables that do not have an expected value. During these posts I have sometimes used the terms random variable and probability distribution interchangeably, despite previously having given two separate definitions (se...

Super short Uncertainty Wednesday post today as I have a crazy busy week featuring our annual meeting (where we meet with our Limited Partners). The last few weeks we have been digging into sample means and expected values. We saw some surprising things already, such as random variables that do not have an expected value. During these posts I have sometimes used the terms random variable and probability distribution interchangeably, despite previously having given two separate definitions (se...