A long time ago when I worked as a management consultant, I did a study for Lafarge which has a huge cement business. The study involved real sleuthing as we were trying to determine the operational capacity of cement plants owned by others and under construction all around Europe. At times I felt like a spy as I was hanging out counting trucks going in and out of facilities and sidling up to engineers who worked there as they were getting coffee before work. Why all the sleuthing? Well, Lafa...

A long time ago when I worked as a management consultant, I did a study for Lafarge which has a huge cement business. The study involved real sleuthing as we were trying to determine the operational capacity of cement plants owned by others and under construction all around Europe. At times I felt like a spy as I was hanging out counting trucks going in and out of facilities and sidling up to engineers who worked there as they were getting coffee before work. Why all the sleuthing? Well, Lafa...

At Union Square Ventures, network effects have been central to our investment thesis for a decade. From an investor perspective network effects are one of the few, possibly the only, source of sustainable competitive advantage in a world where almost everything else can be copied quickly. But we also early on recognized that this has the potential for setting up a deep conflict between companies that operate networks and the participants in those networks: the value to shareholders can be inc...

At Union Square Ventures, network effects have been central to our investment thesis for a decade. From an investor perspective network effects are one of the few, possibly the only, source of sustainable competitive advantage in a world where almost everything else can be copied quickly. But we also early on recognized that this has the potential for setting up a deep conflict between companies that operate networks and the participants in those networks: the value to shareholders can be inc...

Yesterday Instagram announced that it has 200 million users for stories, which exceeds Snapchat’s 160 million users from their S-1 filing. Never mind that nobody outside these companies knows what those user definitions really mean or how to compare them. This has nonetheless rekindled a debate about copying that periodically arises in the tech industry. For a previous instance, take the outrage over Rocket Internet’s copying of US businesses for Europe and also Asia. If you want to go much f...

Yesterday Instagram announced that it has 200 million users for stories, which exceeds Snapchat’s 160 million users from their S-1 filing. Never mind that nobody outside these companies knows what those user definitions really mean or how to compare them. This has nonetheless rekindled a debate about copying that periodically arises in the tech industry. For a previous instance, take the outrage over Rocket Internet’s copying of US businesses for Europe and also Asia. If you want to go much f...

There’s been a lot of handwringing recently about how we don’t really understand deep neural networks. The MIT Technology Review even published an article with the sensationalist headline “The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI.” It head the subheading “No one really knows how the most advanced algorithms do what they do. That could be a problem.” Well sure it could be a problem, but let’s get one important point out of the way: no one really knows how people do what they do, yet we have them do ...

There’s been a lot of handwringing recently about how we don’t really understand deep neural networks. The MIT Technology Review even published an article with the sensationalist headline “The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI.” It head the subheading “No one really knows how the most advanced algorithms do what they do. That could be a problem.” Well sure it could be a problem, but let’s get one important point out of the way: no one really knows how people do what they do, yet we have them do ...

Last week, I provided a recap of what we have covered so far in Uncertainty Wednesday. To go on from here we need to introduce some more concepts that are usually covered earlier but that I believe will make more sense in the framework that we have now established. The first one of these is the concept of independence. Two events are said to be independent if “the occurrence of one does not affect the probability of occurrence of the other.” Now is a good time to remember that in our simplest...

Last week, I provided a recap of what we have covered so far in Uncertainty Wednesday. To go on from here we need to introduce some more concepts that are usually covered earlier but that I believe will make more sense in the framework that we have now established. The first one of these is the concept of independence. Two events are said to be independent if “the occurrence of one does not affect the probability of occurrence of the other.” Now is a good time to remember that in our simplest...

Today in Uncertainty Wednesday I want to provide a big recap of the series which I started last August. The key takeaways so far should be that Reality itself is not directly accessible to us. All we have to go on are observations and explanations. Uncertainty exists because there are limits on observations and explanations. Limits on observations include a fundamental limit, limits on resolution, measurement error, cost, and impact on the observed reality. Explanations too have a fundamental...

Today in Uncertainty Wednesday I want to provide a big recap of the series which I started last August. The key takeaways so far should be that Reality itself is not directly accessible to us. All we have to go on are observations and explanations. Uncertainty exists because there are limits on observations and explanations. Limits on observations include a fundamental limit, limits on resolution, measurement error, cost, and impact on the observed reality. Explanations too have a fundamental...

One of the criticisms leveled against Universal Basic Income is that it is too big a change. But if anything it is not enough of a change. Why? Because it is just one part that needs to change and human societies are systems of interlocking parts. That means many other parts will need to change also. Importantly we have already changed everything about how humanity lives twice already. In the transition from the Forager Age to the Agrarian Age, humanity went from migratory to sedentary, from ...

One of the criticisms leveled against Universal Basic Income is that it is too big a change. But if anything it is not enough of a change. Why? Because it is just one part that needs to change and human societies are systems of interlocking parts. That means many other parts will need to change also. Importantly we have already changed everything about how humanity lives twice already. In the transition from the Forager Age to the Agrarian Age, humanity went from migratory to sedentary, from ...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced sensitivity and specificity as measures of how good a test is (or using the language of our framework, how strong a signal is). We derived the following formula P(B | H) = P(B)/P(H) * P(H | B) which relates P(B | H), i.e. the probability of the state of the world being B conditional on receiving signal H, to P(H | B), i.e. the probability of receiving signal H when the world is B, aka the sensitivity of the test. Let’s rewrite this slightly to get a be...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced sensitivity and specificity as measures of how good a test is (or using the language of our framework, how strong a signal is). We derived the following formula P(B | H) = P(B)/P(H) * P(H | B) which relates P(B | H), i.e. the probability of the state of the world being B conditional on receiving signal H, to P(H | B), i.e. the probability of receiving signal H when the world is B, aka the sensitivity of the test. Let’s rewrite this slightly to get a be...

In my draft book World After Capital, I have a section on Human Needs. I am currently in the middle of rewriting that section (so don’t go read it now) because it suffers in parts from a confusion between needs and solutions. What do I mean by that confusion? Our bodies need nutrition for survival. That is the need. Eating meat is, however, only one of many possible solutions for that need. Vegetarians or vegans provide nutrition to their bodies without consuming meat. And some people are att...

In my draft book World After Capital, I have a section on Human Needs. I am currently in the middle of rewriting that section (so don’t go read it now) because it suffers in parts from a confusion between needs and solutions. What do I mean by that confusion? Our bodies need nutrition for survival. That is the need. Eating meat is, however, only one of many possible solutions for that need. Vegetarians or vegans provide nutrition to their bodies without consuming meat. And some people are att...

As regular readers of Continuations know, I believe humanity urgently needs to act on climate change. In this context it is particularly appalling that the current administration wants to unwind the advances of the Clean Power Plan. The atmosphere is a crucial global commons. Everyone around the world is impacted by changes. The United States should be a forward looking leader, instead of dragging everyone back into the fossil fuel morass. So what to do about it? Well today, Susan and I are j...

As regular readers of Continuations know, I believe humanity urgently needs to act on climate change. In this context it is particularly appalling that the current administration wants to unwind the advances of the Clean Power Plan. The atmosphere is a crucial global commons. Everyone around the world is impacted by changes. The United States should be a forward looking leader, instead of dragging everyone back into the fossil fuel morass. So what to do about it? Well today, Susan and I are j...