I recently listened to a talk by David Autor about employment and technology. He praised the high school movement as being incredibly forward looking for addressing the rapid decline in farm employment. When asked about what the equivalent would be today, David answered “vocational schools.” Now as it turns out my Dad was a teacher at a vocational school in Germany where the apprenticeship system has been maintained throughout the Industrial Age. I learned a ton from my Dad about technical dr...

I recently listened to a talk by David Autor about employment and technology. He praised the high school movement as being incredibly forward looking for addressing the rapid decline in farm employment. When asked about what the equivalent would be today, David answered “vocational schools.” Now as it turns out my Dad was a teacher at a vocational school in Germany where the apprenticeship system has been maintained throughout the Industrial Age. I learned a ton from my Dad about technical dr...

We have covered a lot of ground in Uncertainty Wednesday but we have yet to talk about measuring uncertainty. While most discussions introduce such concepts as mean and standard deviation early on, I have held off on them on purpose in order to develop a more comprehensive view of the sources of uncertainty and a hopefully better understanding of probability. Now is a good time to start thinking about how we might measure uncertainty. Take our super simple model again of a world with only two...

We have covered a lot of ground in Uncertainty Wednesday but we have yet to talk about measuring uncertainty. While most discussions introduce such concepts as mean and standard deviation early on, I have held off on them on purpose in order to develop a more comprehensive view of the sources of uncertainty and a hopefully better understanding of probability. Now is a good time to start thinking about how we might measure uncertainty. Take our super simple model again of a world with only two...

In the last two installments of Uncertainty Wednesday we looked at the concept of independence and concluded that it was actually quite a strong assumption. Now as one of the comments pointed out, independence is normally introduced in the context of a repeated coin flipping, where it is generally assumed that the outcome of the next coin flip is independent of the prior coin flip. When the independence assumption holds it means that no matter how long a sequence of coin flips I give you, you...

In the last two installments of Uncertainty Wednesday we looked at the concept of independence and concluded that it was actually quite a strong assumption. Now as one of the comments pointed out, independence is normally introduced in the context of a repeated coin flipping, where it is generally assumed that the outcome of the next coin flip is independent of the prior coin flip. When the independence assumption holds it means that no matter how long a sequence of coin flips I give you, you...

It appears that regulators are looking into ICOs, the Initial Coin Offerings by which many projects are raising financing at the moment. Regulators are rightly concerned with people losing money in speculative projects that fail to deliver or worse yet in outright scams. As regulators think about how to approach this area it will be important to keep a few things in mind: 1. Coins are sui generis. Coins are not equity, although they share some aspects of equity. Coins are not a pre-purchase, ...

It appears that regulators are looking into ICOs, the Initial Coin Offerings by which many projects are raising financing at the moment. Regulators are rightly concerned with people losing money in speculative projects that fail to deliver or worse yet in outright scams. As regulators think about how to approach this area it will be important to keep a few things in mind: 1. Coins are sui generis. Coins are not equity, although they share some aspects of equity. Coins are not a pre-purchase, ...

I was happy to see Emmanuel Macron solidly defeat Marine LePen in yesterday’s French elections. What is most interesting about his victory is that he started his movement En Marche! only last year. The received wisdom in the United States is that it is impossible to get past the two party system. If someone wants to become President, they have to run either as a Democrat or a Republican. I am not sure this is true anymore and arguably Trump, while running as a Republican, did so – at least in...

I was happy to see Emmanuel Macron solidly defeat Marine LePen in yesterday’s French elections. What is most interesting about his victory is that he started his movement En Marche! only last year. The received wisdom in the United States is that it is impossible to get past the two party system. If someone wants to become President, they have to run either as a Democrat or a Republican. I am not sure this is true anymore and arguably Trump, while running as a Republican, did so – at least in...

I am super excited to be backing our daughter Katie’s film project on Kickstarter. She is making a horror movie about what it’s like to be a teenager. Which sounds about right. Joking aside, here’s the premise:At sixteen, Amelia is almost free of the torment of her cutthroat New York City private high school. To her little group of friends, she’s the perfect student, bound for a prestigious Ivy League college, but beneath the surface things are bubbling over. Since her mother’s death, Amelia’...

I am super excited to be backing our daughter Katie’s film project on Kickstarter. She is making a horror movie about what it’s like to be a teenager. Which sounds about right. Joking aside, here’s the premise:At sixteen, Amelia is almost free of the torment of her cutthroat New York City private high school. To her little group of friends, she’s the perfect student, bound for a prestigious Ivy League college, but beneath the surface things are bubbling over. Since her mother’s death, Amelia’...

Last Friday morning I appeared on a panel about the future of work. This is of course a topic I have covered extensively here on Continuations and is a central subject of my draft book World After Capital. One of the key recurring themes that I hear in this context is some version of “We just don’t know what’s going to happen.” This comes up for instance with regard to how quickly some jobs will be automated and where possible new jobs might come from in the future. This strikes me as a huge ...

Last Friday morning I appeared on a panel about the future of work. This is of course a topic I have covered extensively here on Continuations and is a central subject of my draft book World After Capital. One of the key recurring themes that I hear in this context is some version of “We just don’t know what’s going to happen.” This comes up for instance with regard to how quickly some jobs will be automated and where possible new jobs might come from in the future. This strikes me as a huge ...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced the concept of independence. I ended the post by asking whether independence was likely to be a strong or a weak assumption. To answer this let us look at the possible values for elementary events. And for that purpose I will show a different way of looking at those that I should have probably introduced a long time ago, when I first presented the 2 states, 2 signals model, defined probability, and related the probability of elementary events to compou...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced the concept of independence. I ended the post by asking whether independence was likely to be a strong or a weak assumption. To answer this let us look at the possible values for elementary events. And for that purpose I will show a different way of looking at those that I should have probably introduced a long time ago, when I first presented the 2 states, 2 signals model, defined probability, and related the probability of elementary events to compou...

I am taking the day off from Uncertainty Wednesday because today is our portfolio company summit. It is a day I look forward to every year where many of the founders and CEO of our portfolio companies come together. We have been holding this unconference style for many years. The day maximizes the room for small group conversations around topics that have been generated by the participants. The net result is a high quality and open exchange of experiences and opinions, which contributes to st...

I am taking the day off from Uncertainty Wednesday because today is our portfolio company summit. It is a day I look forward to every year where many of the founders and CEO of our portfolio companies come together. We have been holding this unconference style for many years. The day maximizes the room for small group conversations around topics that have been generated by the participants. The net result is a high quality and open exchange of experiences and opinions, which contributes to st...

Today the House may be voting on an act that would have the effect of taking away access to healthcare for many Americans. If it passes that will happen through a variety of mechanisms which make care too expensive for people to afford. For over 100 years one way that women have had access to affordable care has been through Planned Parenthood. There are many different ways in which we need to fight for a better healthcare system, one that brings down the cost of care and is accessible to all...

Today the House may be voting on an act that would have the effect of taking away access to healthcare for many Americans. If it passes that will happen through a variety of mechanisms which make care too expensive for people to afford. For over 100 years one way that women have had access to affordable care has been through Planned Parenthood. There are many different ways in which we need to fight for a better healthcare system, one that brings down the cost of care and is accessible to all...